Conscience = Survival Instincts

[Augustus]

The results of these question show that permissible was the greatest response with a variation to both extremes and religion did not seem to have a significant influence. But the answers to these questions are about whether it is better to save the majority of the people at the sacrifice of an individual in varying degrees of difficulty. Allowing a dying man to drown to save all is probably easier to answer than smothering a baby but without doing that all die. And the effect of a person doing the action directly or not and all situation there was only one action that could or could not be done. In short as evolutionary derived social creatures we respond to save the most people. Socially were are taught to try and save others. So the answers to these questions are predictable from an evolutionary and cultural standpoint especially when were are not actually doing the actions. It is different to say it is ok to take a sword and chop of a head and another to do it. It is ok to say permissible to smothering a baby if the alternative is all will die.

Also that such a test, arguably changes the moral decision from an instinctive into a 'rational' exercise.

Once you remove any cost from the decision, you are really asking people what they think they would do, and we like to think of ourselves as more heroic, benevolent, etc than we may actually be.

So we work out the 'correct' option that shows us in the best light to ourselves.

12. Kill a baby to save everyone.

For example, asking people what they would do is completely meaningless.

Unless we actually have to kill a baby, how do we know what out moral intuition would do in the circumstances?

It's like asking if we'd jump into the freezing river waters to save a drowning child, I'd like to think I would, but in reality there is a good chance that I would just stand there gawping and justifying to myself that he's 'dead already'.

 

[Bear Wild]

Also that such a test, arguably changes the moral decision from an instinctive into a 'rational' exercise.

Once you remove any cost from the decision, you are really asking people what they think they would do, and we like to think of ourselves as more heroic, benevolent, etc than we may actually be.

So we work out the 'correct' option that shows us in the best light to ourselves.



For example, asking people what they would do is completely meaningless.

Unless we actually have to kill a baby, how do we know what out moral intuition would do in the circumstances?

It's like asking if we'd jump into the freezing river waters to save a drowning child, I'd like to think I would, but in reality there is a good chance that I would just stand there gawping and justifying to myself that he's 'dead already'.

That is the very problem. It is a completely different thing to answer killing a baby to save everyone or killing one of your own children to save the rest of the family acceptable given no other option but when we have to actually carry out the act without the certainty given in the made up examples our actions would be less certain than this study suggests. Being in the real situation with the fear and uncertainty of reality the choices are not so clear. You are answering these questions as an outsider with no actual risk or interaction. After taking the test myself I would be surprised if they got a different response than they did. Real choices in intense situations are emotionally driven as to what a persons actual behavior would be.

 

[Bear Wild]

Conscience is a moral GUIDE. We have free will, so we can follow the guidance of conscience or not. So, you are mistaken in describing morals as "typically culturally described behaviors." Moral intuition guides behavior. They themselves are not behavior.

Furthermore, the authors of the MST are testing for, and finding evidence that, our moral intuitions (conscience) are universal -- the same in every culture. (I quoted one of its authors on this point) They are not culturally independent as you claim when you write:

.
Your post discusses moral dilemmas at length but the methodology of the test is not relevant to the key issue on which we disagree.

The bottom line, as I see it, is that you can't claim that an 18-year study which Harvard researchers think is proving that human moral intuitions are universal is proving the opposite -- that moral intuition is not universal but "determined by the individual influenced by the social group."

One problem in these discussions is how each views the words. It is very hard to truly define morality or conscience so this is how I see them

Morality is the set of shared attitudes and practices that regulate individual behavior to facilitate cohesion and well-being among individuals in the group.

Conscience is an individual’s judgment about what is morally right or wrong, typically, but not always, reflecting some standard of a group to which the individual feels attached.

You may see them defined differently which can cause difficulties in discussions. I have tried many times to use plato.stanford.edu for definitions but have always felt more confused by the end of the discussion than when I started from indicating the difficulty defining these words.

Never the less I do agree there are commonly shared behavior patterns among humans derived from evolution. These shared behaviors are common throughout the human species but with variation. The fact that there is variation is one problem with any universal moral or conscience pattern. In additions our brains are designed to learn patterns of behavior after birth which are influenced by our social surrounding.

There are no universal conscience behavior and no absolute morals.

This test is moral testing has two major problems to draw sufficient conclusions. One there is a pre-selective pattern of those who join the test on line. Second the questions do not create the actual experience where one would have to make the decisions and therefor a more detached answer can be given. I am not actually going to kill someone so I can answer what I cognitively think should happen especially when the outcomes are absolute and known.

I am not saying the study does not give us information, it does but with significantly limitations. It shows that most humans see the needs of the group to be greater than the needs of a single individual in general in extreme situations of life and death and that on average things are more permissible than they are obligated or forbidden. Thus most humans believe than these decisions can be left up to the individual.

 

[rational experiences]

One problem in these discussions is how each views the words. It is very hard to truly define morality or conscience so this is how I see them

Morality is the set of shared attitudes and practices that regulate individual behavior to facilitate cohesion and well-being among individuals in the group.

Conscience is an individual’s judgment about what is morally right or wrong, typically, but not always, reflecting some standard of a group to which the individual feels attached.

You may see them defined differently which can cause difficulties in discussions. I have tried many times to use plato.stanford.edu for definitions but have always felt more confused by the end of the discussion than when I started from indicating the difficulty defining these words.

Never the less I do agree there are commonly shared behavior patterns among humans derived from evolution. These shared behaviors are common throughout the human species but with variation. The fact that there is variation is one problem with any universal moral or conscience pattern. In additions our brains are designed to learn patterns of behavior after birth which are influenced by our social surrounding.

There are no universal conscience behavior and no absolute morals.

This test is moral testing has two major problems to draw sufficient conclusions. One there is a pre-selective pattern of those who join the test on line. Second the questions do not create the actual experience where one would have to make the decisions and therefor a more detached answer can be given. I am not actually going to kill someone so I can answer what I cognitively think should happen especially when the outcomes are absolute and known.

I am not saying the study does not give us information, it does but with significantly limitations. It shows that most humans see the needs of the group to be greater than the needs of a single individual in general in extreme situations of life and death and that on average things are more permissible than they are obligated or forbidden. Thus most humans believe than these decisions can be left up to the individual.

A human is a study of their own human self in a group.

If you live as one self only the self.....the being, we all are, no study would exist. No need for it.

Science introduced self study as self the human was included in the thesis as it's thinker. About the presence self in the universe.

Claiming by state gases in space that they were greater than the universe.

Mass the answer to human self destructive science choice.

Science thought group functions within mass. Displacement of natural human reality what we inherited via science.

Hence we know science is wrong as their chosen answer even before you begin to question.

Reason natural always took care and supported itself.

Therefore healing not evolution gave us the answer to the human ancient science choice.

Science did not invent creation and nor did it invent presence. Yet thinking infers it knows it all when it never did.

 

[joe1776]

One problem in these discussions is how each views the words. It is very hard to truly define morality or conscience so this is how I see them

I agree that we define the key words differently. Perhaps our discussion should have started there.

Morality is the set of shared attitudes and practices that regulate individual behavior to facilitate cohesion and well-being among individuals in the group. Conscience is an individual’s judgment about what is morally right or wrong, typically, but not always, reflecting some standard of a group to which the individual feels attached.

To me, the judgments of conscience are moral intuition, emerging immediately from the unconscious despite the fact that the situations they judge are as unique as snowflakes.

You may see them defined differently which can cause difficulties in discussions. I have tried many times to use plato.stanford.edu for definitions but have always felt more confused by the end of the discussion than when I started from indicating the difficulty defining these words.

All but a few moral philosophers begin their arguments based on the premise that the judgments of conscience are the product of reason. This basic premise is false. David Hume was an exception. He thought they were FELT (as intuition). He was right.

Never the less I do agree there are commonly shared behavior patterns among humans derived from evolution. These shared behaviors are common throughout the human species but with variation. The fact that there is variation is one problem with any universal moral or conscience pattern. In additions our brains are designed to learn patterns of behavior after birth which are influenced by our social surrounding.

What you think of as VARIATIONS among the cultures, I see as CULTURAL BIASES. For example, If we lived in the year 1850, when half the nations of the world had abolished legal slavery and the other half had not, it would seem to us that the consciences of the world's cultures were different. But the fact is that the conscience-motivated abolition of slavery was only halfway done removing the cultural bias of slavery from the world. The task wouldn't be completed until the year 2000.

There are no universal conscience behavior and no absolute morals

.If by absolute morals you mean that no act is always wrong or always right, I agree. But the judgments of conscience are not subjective, like opinions on art, music and literature. A group of people, unbiased on the relevant case, is the objective standard for morality and fairness recognized in courtrooms all over the world.

This test is moral testing has two major problems to draw sufficient conclusions. One there is a pre-selective pattern of those who join the test on line. Second the questions do not create the actual experience where one would have to make the decisions and therefor a more detached answer can be given. I am not actually going to kill someone so I can answer what I cognitively think should happen especially when the outcomes are absolute and known.

I am not saying the study does not give us information, it does but with significantly limitations. It shows that most humans see the needs of the group to be greater than the needs of a single individual in general in extreme situations of life and death and that on average things are more permissible than they are obligated or forbidden. Thus most humans believe than these decisions can be left up to the individual.

I see the MST as flawed but for different reasons. To me, it's remarkable that a test of moral intuition, designed on the premise that a universal intuitive conscience exists still seems to come up positive even though the questions combined both intuition and hit-or-miss reason.

My guess is that the instinct to select the option in a moral dilemma that causes the least harm is also universal and the weighing of the consequences of each option wasn't so difficult that it threw judgment off course.