conscientiousness

conscientious +‎ -ness

conscientiousness (uncountable)

1. The state or characteristic of being conscientious.
   • 1723, Bernard Mandeville, An Essay on Charity and Charity Schools:

     It is a terrible thing a Man should be put to Death for a Crime he is not Guilty of; yet so oddly Circumstances may meet in the infinite variety of Accidents, that it is possible it should come to pass, all the Wisdom that Judges, and Conscientiousness that Juries may be possess'd of, notwithstanding.

   • 1848, Harriet Matineau, Household Education:

     We come now to the greatest and noblest of the Moral Powers of Man; to that power which makes him quite a different order of being from any other that we know of, and which is the glory and crown of his existence:—his Conscientiousness.

   • 1965, The Rice University Studies, page 81:

     It seems evident that those who have expressed the view that the following of personal inclination is sometimes morally better than conscientiousness are confusing this issue with another to which we must next give attention.