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What is Conscience?
- Thread starter allfoak
- Start date
allfoak
Alchemist
I'm not sure I understand what this means.
Do you mean to say that conscience is determined by culture?
Orbit
I'm a planet
It depends on the values you have been taught from childhood, so yes culture has a lot to do with it. Of course, few things are completely determined by anything; your own appraisal of those values comes into play also.
socharlie
Active Member
it is US ...
allfoak
Alchemist
What is used as criteria to determine the efficacy of one's values?
allfoak
Alchemist
Can you be more explicit?
Orbit
I'm a planet
Are values meant to be "effective"? That seems a bit strange.
Buddha Dharma
Dharma Practitioner
The skeptic in me wants to say conditioned cultural ethics compass. The Mahayana Buddhist in me wants to say it is Buddha-nature somehow emergent in a being.
allfoak
Alchemist
What if that which I value only leads to sorrow?
joe1776
Well-Known Member
Conscience is a collection of moral instincts you are born with.
When you read of a case involving a cold-blooded murder and feel moral outrage followed by a desire to see the murder punished, that's your conscience in operation.
When you read of a killing in self-defense, you won't feel moral outrage or the desire to punish the killer. From that you conclude: "not wrong"
When you intentionally harm someone, and later feel guilt, that's your conscience that will nag whenever you remember your misbehavior to help you learn how to treat people.
When you are especially kind to someone, you will feel good about it. That's your conscience using the pleasure center of your brain to reward you for being good.
From the New York Times: "According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger."
When you read of a case involving a cold-blooded murder and feel moral outrage followed by a desire to see the murder punished, that's your conscience in operation.
When you read of a killing in self-defense, you won't feel moral outrage or the desire to punish the killer. From that you conclude: "not wrong"
When you intentionally harm someone, and later feel guilt, that's your conscience that will nag whenever you remember your misbehavior to help you learn how to treat people.
When you are especially kind to someone, you will feel good about it. That's your conscience using the pleasure center of your brain to reward you for being good.
From the New York Times: "According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger."
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allfoak
Alchemist
How is it that we can be born with something non-physical?
joe1776
Well-Known Member
The reasoning function of your brain produced the non-physical thought that became your post.
Moral instincts come immediately from the unconscious part our brains when we encounter moral situations. Exactly how that happens, I don't know, but we don't have to think about it..
Frater Sisyphus
Contradiction, irrationality and disorder
Conscience in my understanding, would be the moral borders created early on that have a strong force deeper in your subconscious. While I'm not interested in the debate on "does morality exist?", I think that conscience (as opposed to regular morality), is more specifically to do with conditioning. Well, that's the moral side of conscience.
The other side being more connected to survival intellect, aka observant/discerning of situations both on the micro and macro levels. Knowing that something may be dangerous and making more wiser decisions based on your foreknowledge about things.
It could be about where to put your keys (so you won't forget where you put them), who to marry, what food to throw away, advising a friend etc
So to sum up, in my understanding it is the crossroad between morality and forethought
The other side being more connected to survival intellect, aka observant/discerning of situations both on the micro and macro levels. Knowing that something may be dangerous and making more wiser decisions based on your foreknowledge about things.
It could be about where to put your keys (so you won't forget where you put them), who to marry, what food to throw away, advising a friend etc
So to sum up, in my understanding it is the crossroad between morality and forethought
allfoak
Alchemist
If I understand myself correctly, my first response to any situation is an emotional response, then a moral response.
The emotional response is determined by who I am relative to the circumstance.
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joe1776
Well-Known Member
Can you give me a specific situation as an example?
I have to log out for the evening, but I'll check on you tomorrow AM
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One's conscience is inherent in man, unless damaged, it can serve as a moral guide for us. Don't steal, don't murder, etc. So, the conscience is an inward realization or having a sense of what is right or what is wrong.
A moral safety device, so to speak, so as Not to inflict pain or inflict bad actions on others.
So, our conscience makes judgement calls. A trained conscience acts on rules governing the mind by study and experiences in life. So, we should strive to keep an honest conscience, and Not abuse our conscience so that it allows us to do wrong. A hardened conscience can become so calloused like unfeeling flesh branded by a hot branding iron.
socharlie
Active Member
our consciousness is live entity, our physical body is a device that out consciousness uses to express itself in terms of learning good and evil. love hate, empathy.
I find how that happens (moral situations) is because we are born with a conscience.
That unless it is damaged can act as a moral guide for us.
Because of in-born conscience, and a trained conscience, is why even peoples everywhere have laws such as do Not murder, steal, etc. - Romans 2:14-15. However, we can choose to either listen or violate one's conscience.