  First, according to Butler conscience has a unique authority among the principles belonging to human nature. As evidenced in the civil constitution analogy, we recognize that it should direct other principles and not vice-versa and that the authority is proper to conscience and no other principle. Further we recognize that any ordinary reasonable person has a conscience and ought to obey it. The term “conscience” was commonly employed in both theological and philosophical contexts (Shaftesbury identified it with reflective reason) but was also a legal term of art among the equity lawyers to whom Butler preached his sermons. In the legal context it had the sense of acting minimally as an ordinary reasonable person would and maximally as a fully informed, ideal reasoner would (see Garrett 2012).