Conscience: Simple, Powerful, Infallible

[joe1776]

It doesn't always work that way. Sunstone makes a good point such as in the case of morality and conscience involving honor killings.

Let me guess. You blame a faulty conscience for honor killings. Am I right?

 

[sayak83]

If a Loving Creator exists, and if it wanted us to have freewill along with moral guidance, we would have a simple-to-use, cross-cultural, internal moral guidance system. It's very likely that conscience is exactly that.

A bias is any preexisting belief capable of sending a judgment off its correct course. Even when we want to do the right thing morally our judgment can be thrown off course by a bias. Because of biases, the simple and powerful nature of conscience isn't obvious.

When we read the facts in a case of cold-blooded murder, we immediately feel moral outrage. That's a signal from our conscience that the act is wrong. We have to regard that judgment as infallible because conscience is the only moral authority we have.

When we write criminal laws to prohibit murder, they are unnecessary at best and biases at their worst because human acts happen in an almost infinite variety, moral situations are not an exception. Conscience is equipped to deal with those variations, the reasoning function of our brains cannot. It's not possible to write the perfect law on murder or any other kind of act.

The very same killing might be justifiable in several states in the USA but not in others. And, we're talking about laws that have a history of a thousand years, going back to English common law. The collective conscience of unbiased juries, after hearing all the facts, and unhindered by laws, would offer the best judgments on such cases.

The reasoning function of our brains is the wrong tool for dealing with moral judgments. In addition to criminal laws, interpretation of religious texts and self-made moral rules, also products of reasoning, often create biases.

The laws in the USA have been heavily influenced by interpretations of scripture from the Christian Bible. Many of those laws were and still are immoral. As we examine our conscience, issue by issue, we are getting rid of the immoral laws such as those that allowed slavery and those that deprived women, minorities and homosexuals of their equal rights.

Criminal laws could be replaced by a simple mission statement to establish the state's obligation to protect innocent citizens from serious harm. Conscience has taught us that it is wrong to intentionally harm or endanger an innocent person. That's enough to guide unbiased juries.

Conscience alone isn't compelling evidence that a Loving Creator exists, but once we understand its simple and powerful nature, it should create the suspicion.

Comments or questions?

What is conscience. I understand empathy, but I do not understand conscience other than "that which feels right to me", which is frankly the worst thing to rely upon to deliver judgements without careful public reasoning and justification. What you get is lynch mobs, kangaroo courts and anarchic systems that do not and has never worked.

Frankly I will give you a challenge. Arrange a professional or semi professional game league for any game without rules of fair play etc.with only conscience and see how it works out.

 

[joe1776]

What is conscience. I understand empathy, but I do not understand conscience other than "that which feels right to me", which is frankly the worst thing to rely upon to deliver judgements without careful public reasoning and justification. What you get is lynch mobs, kangaroo courts and anarchic systems that do not and has never worked.

There's science supporting the fact that those Immediate feelings you speak of are the way we all make moral judgments. The explanations we give later are after-the-fact attempts to justify our judgment.

You read about a brutal murder and you immediately feel moral outrage. That feeling is an intuitive sense derived from your subconscious. It's a judgment of conscience. Actions that are wrong, feel wrong. Actions that are unfair, feel unfair.

Frankly I will give you a challenge. Arrange a professional or semi professional game league for any game without rules of fair play etc.with only conscience and see how it works out.

Those players already own a conscience just like yours. They can follow it or not.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Let me guess. You blame a faulty conscience for honor killings. Am I right?

No. Just that your present perspective of what conscience and morality happens to be, would be vastly different had you been raised in a culture that is not your own at present, each with its own unique standards and values.

 

[YmirGF]

There's science supporting the fact that those Immediate feelings you speak of are the way we all make moral judgments. The explanations we give later are after-the-fact attempts to justify our judgment.

You read about a brutal murder and you immediately feel moral outrage. That feeling is an intuitive sense derived from your subconscious. It's a judgment of conscience. Actions that are wrong, feel wrong. Actions that are unfair, feel unfair.
Those players already own a conscience just like yours. They can follow it or not.

The problem with your thinking is that conscience is a variable that operates under different assumption with each individual. It is the inherent sense of what is right and wrong that dictates how and when conscience will come into play. Everyone has different life experiences that produce differing points of view and therefore different forms of conscience.

For example, if I hit a small child or a puppy, I would feel bad and my conscience would come to the fore and implore me to change my behavior. However, a psychopath does not operate under the same conditions. They simply wouldn't feel bad about it and Mr. Conscience would be on vacation in the Keys. They would see nothing wrong with their actions. Ditto control freaks. Ditto bullies.

 

[YmirGF]

No. Just that your present perspective of what conscience and morality happens to be, would be vastly different had you been raised in a culture that is not your own at present, each with its own unique standards and values.

It goes further than that. For example, he says that with a brutal murder that people feel outrage. I don't, but I know some folks do. I'm a bit too cynical to feel much about such things and simply don't care all that much. For me, it's unfortunate but not unexpected human behavior, so there is nothing to be outraged over.

 

[joe1776]

No. Just that your present perspective of what conscience and morality happens to be, would be vastly different had you been raised in a culture that is not your own at present, each with its own unique standards and values.

You are not understanding my argument. Conscience doesn't have a cultural perspective. You are referring to cultural biases that do have changing perspectives. So,I was right. You're blaming conscience unfairly.

But others are having the same problem. It's my fault. I'm going to have to find a better way of explaining this.

 

[shunyadragon]

It's not egocentric, uniform, anecdotal or robotic... It's a simple system, based on Nature's binary code: pain and pleasure. If it wasn't logically sound, posters would be making counter-arguments. The only thing I've encountered is a couple of feeble attempts that were easily shot down.

. . . bold, which is uniform and robotic, and not based on the actual evidence of the diversity of human conscience.

 

[joe1776]

You are not understanding my argument. Conscience doesn't have a cultural perspective. You are referring to cultural biases that do have a perspective. So,I was right. You're blaming conscience unfairly.

I'm going to have to find a better way of explaining this.

. . . bold, which is uniform and robotic, and not based on the actual evidence of the diversity of human conscience.

Nonsense. I have actual scientific evidence to support my claim. Your claim of "actual evidence" is bogus.

 

[shunyadragon]

Nonsense. I have actual scientific evidence to support my claim. Your claim of "actual evidence" is bogus.

Present your objective verifiable evidence, Still waiting . . .

 

[joe1776]

Present your objective verifiable evidence, Still waiting . . .

Harvard has, for years, been conducting a moral sense test. Here's an excerpt from their findings.

"As in every modernly held view, there are significant historical antecedents. The origins of our own perspective date back at least 300 years to the philosopher David Hume and more recently, to the political philosopher John Rawls. But unlike these prescient thinkers, we can now validate the intuitions with significant scientific evidence. Over the past twenty years, there has been growing evidence for a universally shared moral faculty based on findings in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, economics, linguistics, and neurobiology. This evidence has created a powerful movement directed at the core aspects of human nature. It is a movement that has the power to reshape our lives by uncovering the deep structure of our moral intuitions and showing how they can either support or conflict with our conscious, often legally supported decisions.

Here's a link to a New York Times article on Paul Bloom's research.The Moral Life of Babies

If you are sincerely interested, you can search moral, morality or moral sense along with one of these names: Roy Baumeister, Paul Bloom, Josh Greene, John Haidt, Marc hauser, Josh Knobe

 

[shunyadragon]

Harvard has, for years, been conducting a moral sense test. Here's an excerpt from their findings.

"As in every modernly held view, there are significant historical antecedents. The origins of our own perspective date back at least 300 years to the philosopher David Hume and more recently, to the political philosopher John Rawls. But unlike these prescient thinkers, we can now validate the intuitions with significant scientific evidence. Over the past twenty years, there has been growing evidence for a universally shared moral faculty based on findings in evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, anthropology, economics, linguistics, and neurobiology. This evidence has created a powerful movement directed at the core aspects of human nature. It is a movement that has the power to reshape our lives by uncovering the deep structure of our moral intuitions and showing how they can either support or conflict with our conscious, often legally supported decisions.

Here's a link to a New York Times article on Paul Bloom's research.The Moral Life of Babies

If you are sincerely interested, you can search moral, morality or moral sense along with one of these names: Roy Baumeister, Paul Bloom, Josh Greene, John Haidt, Marc hauser, Josh Knobe

A universally held moral faculty does not remotely support your assertions concerning conscience, because world wide cultures and individuals most definitely teach and believe in a diversity of attributes of moral conscience. You are indeed the conclusions too far.

There is nothing in this research of a simplistic binary pain/pleasure basis for conscience, nor that it is bestowed in rigid uniformity as you describe by a loving Creator to all humans. These are all theistic and philosophical assumptions on your part. The cultural diversity of conscience is well documented.

 

[joe1776]

A universally held moral faculty does not remotely support your assertions concerning conscience, because world wide cultures and individuals most definitely teach and believe in a diversity of attributes of moral conscience. You are indeed the conclusions too far.

There is nothing in this research of a simplistic binary pain/pleasure basis for conscience, nor that it is bestowed universally and uniformly as you describe by a loving Creator to all humans. These are all theistic and philosophical assumptions on your part.

You don't understand the argument in the OP; you don't understand that what I presented was a universally held moral facility; and you didn't understand that I was not offering this as compelling evidence for a Creator even though I specifically said it wasn't.

Other than that I think we're on the same page.

 

[shunyadragon]

You don't understand the argument in the OP; you don't understand that what I presented was a universally held moral facility; and you didn't understand that I was not offering this as compelling evidence for a Creator even though I specifically said it wasn't.

Other than that I think we're on the same page.

The problem comes on a few up front points you use to describe conscience (1) Your title of the thread:
Conscience: Simple, Powerful, Infallible. This is highly questionable if you are not arguing for God the universal infallible source for the basis of a uniform conscience.

I believe God is the universal consciousness and 'Source' of Creation, but this is not supported by scientific research.

(2) Your reference the conscience consisting of binary pain pleasure is simplistic does not work nor is it supported by scientific research. There are many aspects of conscience that are cultural attributes, and not uniform to all cultures,

 

[joe1776]

The problem comes on a few up front points you use to describe conscience (1) Your title of the thread:
Conscience: Simple, Powerful, Infallible. This is highly questionable if you are not arguing for God the universal infallible source for the basis of a uniform conscience.

As I describe conscience, it ought to be considered infallible even if it the product of evolution because it's the only moral authority that exists.

I believe God is the universal consciousness and 'Source' of Creation, but this is not supported by scientific research.

My theory isn't dependent on a Creator. I simply make the point that if such a Creator exists, and if it wanted us to have freewill along with moral guidance conscience is exactly the kind of tool we'd be given -- as opposed to guidance from the sacred texts of religion.

(2) Your reference the conscience consisting of binary pain pleasure is simplistic does not work nor is it supported by scientific research. There are many aspects of conscience that are cultural attributes, and not uniform to all cultures,

Your computer software is built on codes of zeros and ones. Do you consider that simplistic? Conscience replies to moral question: Is this specific action right or wrong? Right = zero and Wrong = One.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

... conscience... infallible tool for moral guidance...

Infallible? In the roll of the die that casts any given human's individual traits, the results run the gamut. You have highly intelligent, down to mentally-challenged. You have high metabolism to low. You have keen sight to zero sight. You have highly empathetic to sociopathic. My point being how can you call something "infallible" that can be sort of "graded" on a sloping scale from person to person? I am sure (in fact, in life it appears to be readily apparent) that people's ability to empathize, or people's "strength of conscience", also runs the gamut of low ability to high ability... just as all the other traits do that lend toward "being human."

 

[joe1776]

Infallible? In the roll of the die that casts any given human's individual traits, the results run the gamut. You have highly intelligent, down to mentally-challenged. You have high metabolism to low. You have keen sight to zero sight. You have highly empathetic to sociopathic. My point being how can you call something "infallible" that can be sort of "graded" on a sloping scale from person to person? I am sure (in fact, in life it appears to be readily apparent) that people's ability to empathize, or people's "strength of conscience", also runs the gamut of low ability to high ability... just as all the other traits do that lend toward "being human."

Your assumption is that conscience can be graded on a sloping scale. My assumption is that conscience always gives the right answer to minds that are unbiased on the specific moral case at hand.

A jury of unbiased people have to make a moral decision. Is this killing justifiable self-defense or not? Some of the jurors have weak consciences, some strong. But the strength of their consciences is not a factor in this case. It only affects their own moral choices. Will they follow the guidance of their conscience or not?

 

[shunyadragon]

As I describe conscience, it ought to be considered infallible even if it the product of evolution because it's the only moral authority that exists.

No, in reality any consideration of infallibility would be a theistic/philosophical assumption. Evolution would not remotely consider human conscience infallible.

My theory isn't dependent on a Creator. I simply make the point that if such a Creator exists, and if it wanted us to have freewill along with moral guidance conscience is exactly the kind of tool we'd be given -- as opposed to guidance from the sacred texts of religion.

Your argument is intimately interwoven with a theistic belief.

Your computer software is built on codes of zeros and ones. Do you consider that simplistic?

Yes, when compared to the human brain, very simplistic. The neurological net work of the brain cannot remotely described in terms of how are present computers are designed.

Conscience replies to moral question: Is this specific action right or wrong? Right = zero and Wrong = One.

No, too simplistic, and not remotely descriptive of the reality human conscience in the diversity of cultures and human experience.

 

[sayak83]

There's science supporting the fact that those Immediate feelings you speak of are the way we all make moral judgments. The explanations we give later are after-the-fact attempts to justify our judgment.

You read about a brutal murder and you immediately feel moral outrage. That feeling is an intuitive sense derived from your subconscious. It's a judgment of conscience. Actions that are wrong, feel wrong. Actions that are unfair, feel unfair.
Those players already own a conscience just like yours. They can follow it or not.

Oh we feel something. But whether what we feel is right or wrong is debatable. I am sure Islamic terrorists do what they do out of their sense of moral outrage towards us as they see it.
Our emotional I instincts are primitive and utterly incapable of dealing with anything over an informal family or in-group. That is also something that studies show. Stanford prison experiment comes to mind. So no, conscience is simply an emotional instinct that hones in on what we think is already true about right or wrong. And what people think is true about right or wrong changes drastically from person to person and across history.

 

[Robert Landbeck]

If a Loving Creator exists, and if it wanted us to have freewill along with moral guidance, we would have a simple-to-use, cross-cultural, internal moral guidance system. It's very likely that conscience is exactly that.

A bias is any preexisting belief capable of sending a judgment off its correct course. Even when we want to do the right thing morally our judgment can be thrown off course by a bias. Because of biases, the simple and powerful nature of conscience isn't obvious.

When we read the facts in a case of cold-blooded murder, we immediately feel moral outrage. That's a signal from our conscience that the act is wrong. We have to regard that judgment as infallible because conscience is the only moral authority we have.

When we write criminal laws to prohibit murder, they are unnecessary at best and biases at their worst because human acts happen in an almost infinite variety, moral situations are not an exception. Conscience is equipped to deal with those variations, the reasoning function of our brains cannot. It's not possible to write the perfect law on murder or any other kind of act.

The very same killing might be justifiable in several states in the USA but not in others. And, we're talking about laws that have a history of a thousand years, going back to English common law. The collective conscience of unbiased juries, after hearing all the facts, and unhindered by laws, would offer the best judgments on such cases.

The reasoning function of our brains is the wrong tool for dealing with moral judgments. In addition to criminal laws, interpretation of religious texts and self-made moral rules, also products of reasoning, often create biases.

The laws in the USA have been heavily influenced by interpretations of scripture from the Christian Bible. Many of those laws were and still are immoral. As we examine our conscience, issue by issue, we are getting rid of the immoral laws such as those that allowed slavery and those that deprived women, minorities and homosexuals of their equal rights.

Criminal laws could be replaced by a simple mission statement to establish the state's obligation to protect innocent citizens from serious harm. Conscience has taught us that it is wrong to intentionally harm or endanger an innocent person. That's enough to guide unbiased juries.

Conscience alone isn't compelling evidence that a Loving Creator exists, but once we understand its simple and powerful nature, it should create the suspicion.

Comments or questions?

"we would have a simple-to-use, cross-cultural, internal moral guidance system. It's very likely that conscience is exactly that."

I have to agree completely. Yet there must be something missing necessarily to make conscience more, informed, potent and with more integrity than it is. That would require a 'moral anchor' to be infused into the soul itself, to provide a new foundation for moral thought and action. And I think that anchor may have been discovered! I've taken the following quote from a review of a new interpretation of the moral teachings of Christ, called The Final Freedoms.

" 'raising' up within a man a newly Enlightened heart and Holy spirit, realigning his moral compass by correcting human nature with a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries. Thus freed from the corruptions of concupiscence that natural law is heir to, man is created in the image and likeness of His Creator." More at The Final Freedoms