Śyāmasundara: He says that acting in accordance with a conscience is the right type of activity.
Prabhupāda: The conscience, the so-called conscience is created. You go on killing, your conscience will be killing conscience, "It is all right." The thief becomes accustomed to steal, the conscience will say, "Yes, I must steal. It is my right." So you can create your conscience in that way. By association, by misguiding, they also create their conscience. Just like the Christian religion says, "Thou shalt not kill," but they are killing, creating a conscience, "Yes, killing is all right." In the religion it is forbidden, "Thou shalt not kill," but they are creating another conscience, "It is right." The conscience is created by association. By good association, conscience is the good conscience and by bad association, a bad conscience is created. So there is no such standard as conscience. Conscience means discriminating power.
Śyāmasundara: He says that there is an absolute conscience, which means pure rationality. Whatever is purely rational is conscience.
Prabhupāda: Pure rationality is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. That is purest. Unless one comes to that standard, the so-called conscience, so-called philosophy is of no value.
Śyāmasundara: He says that punishment for crime is justified because it vindicates justice and restores rights.
Prabhupāda: Yes, therefore when one is killing an animal, he should be prepared for being killed. That will be justice. That is Manu's... Manu-saṁhitā says that when a man, murderer is hanged, that is complete justice, complete justice. That is to save him, because without being hanged in this life, he if he escapes justice, then he will have to suffer next life very severely. So to save him from so many troubles in the next life, if he is killed, I mean to say, hanged, in this life, then he is saved. Therefore the king who is hanging him is doing him justice. Life for life. If this is the justice, then why one should not be prepared of being killed because he is killing an animal? That is justice. That is Vedic philosophy. In Vedic philosophy, when an animal is killed, it is said that "You are animal, you are being sacrificed before goddess Kālī, so you get next chance to become a human being." That means he is given a lift from the evolutionary process to come to the human being because he is giving his life innocent, and one man wants to kill him, he will be killed. So because you are being killed before the deity, you get next chance human being and you have got the right to kill him. This is kālī-da, mantra. So any sane man will understand that "I am going to be killed by him so why shall I take the risk."
Śyāmasundara: I observe in nature that everything is killing something else for eating so it seems only rational that I should be able to eat animals.
Prabhupāda: Well, that also accepted in the Vedic philosophy, jīvo jīvasya jīvanam. One life is, one living being is food for another living being. But that does not mean that you shall kill your son and eat, and it will be supported by the society. That is discrimination, that is conscience. You can say that "I must eat some, another living entity. That is by nature's law. So I produce my children and I kill them and I eat them so that the population problem will be solved." You can say that. Will you be accepted? So therefore there must be discrimination. That you have to eat another living being, that is nature's law, but if you eat fruit, you don't kill the tree. You take the fruit. If you eat vegetables, you take, still it is growing, and that is a factually not killing. But if you eat animals, you are killing. Actually he is being dead. So things should be done intelligently so that... The word is to make the best use of a bad bargain. So our philosophy is that although you can take that, although it is not killing, it is taking fruits, flowers and vegetables, it is taking from him, it is not killing, and we are offering to Kṛṣṇa and so if there is any responsibility, it is Kṛṣṇa's responsibility. We take the prasāda. Therefore we have no such responsibility and that is stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, bhuñjate te tv agham pāpā ye pacanty ātma-kāraṇāt (BG 3.13). Anyone who is cooking for himself, he is taking all responsibility for sinful activity even if he is a vegetarian, it doesn't matter. Yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ santo mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ. But if he takes the remnants of yajña—we are offering Kṛṣṇa daily—this is performing yajña. So we are taking the remnants of yajña. This is our philosophy. We are not taking directly. If I take directly, either a vegetarian or non-vegetarian, then I become responsible. Sinful. This is our philosophy. The law is there, but we have to tackle things very intelligently.