joe1776
Well-Known Member
Agreed. We have to have all the relevant facts straight just as we do in judging situations that don't involve moral questions.OK. I think I understand that explanation. I don't disagree with you. But I would add that our reasoning also determines whether our feelings of wrong or feelings of unfairness has any validity to them as we might be feeling something based off lack of understanding of a situation.
My best guess is that conscience is evolved intuition aligned with the survival of our species. It is unlike philosophy, a product of slow, deliberate, conscious reasoning. The judgments of conscience seem to emerge intuitively and immediately from the unconscious. When you consider that the unique situations it must judge are almost infinite in variety, conscience is a remarkable function from a mysterious source of wisdom.I would be interested in how you would track the development of the nagging conscience that eventually caused the abolition of slavery. How do you think that specific nagging conscience developed? If it is through the spreading of ideas, then that would fall under philosophy, which is one of the points I made, because it has to develop and spread as a result of many people observing the world and having thoughts and discussions about what they have observed or experienced.