Conscience: Simple, Powerful, Infallible

[joe1776]

I think conscience is a byproduct of societal evolution

That's possible, sure.

Because of this, conscience does vary a bit from culture to culture. So, it doesn't seem to be as simple as how you portray it here.

When you say it varies you are thinking, for example, of the various ways that we might insult someone which varies widely from culture to culture. But what doesn't vary from culture to culture is that it is morally wrong to intentionally harm someone. Intentional insults cause harm in all cultures.

I don't think it is bias, because that assumes that, deep down, our conscience is all the same. That I don't see as being possible.

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.

 

[leibowde84]

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.

In my opinion, this is more correctly attributed to societal evolution and the fact that travel, communication and entertainment has united different cultures tremendously. For example, if the same study was done 60 years ago, even in the United States, those moral similarities would not be nearly as prevalent. Look at segregation, racism, acceptance of the LGBT community, religious tolerance, etc.

 

[joe1776]

In my opinion, this is more correctly attributed to societal evolution and the fact that travel, communication and entertainment has united different cultures tremendously. For example, if the same study was done 60 years ago, even in the United States, those moral similarities would not be nearly as prevalent. Look at segregation, racism, acceptance of the LGBT community, religious tolerance, etc.

The social scientists who did this research were'nt interested in people's opinion on the social changes you mentioned. The questions they ask are screened, obviously. They find that age, religion, nationality, and race didn't make a difference.

You, and others in this thread, seem to think of a problem like the negative LGBT attitude as a flaw in conscience. My position is that it is conscience that, when a serious examination is made, will change that negative attitude. The marches, the articles, the publicity -- all of that makes people examine their consciences.

If you blame conscience, then you will need to strain your brain trying to come up with another cause for change. Evolution doesn't work that fast.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

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?

I take your point, it seems like a reasonable perspective

But then again.. before Christianity, Romans had that same 'natural' conscience did they not?- And as the most advanced and 'civilized' society on Earth: watching innocent people dying horribly was considered the height of civilized public entertainment, no moral outrage, & sex slaves were a status symbol. In less 'civilized' cultures, having your neighbors over for dinner meant something else entirely.

We all grew up in a world so shaped by Christian values, it's easy to take them for granted.

 

[joe1776]

I take your point, it seems like a reasonable perspective

But then again.. before Christianity, Romans had that same 'natural' conscience did they not?- And as the most advanced and 'civilized' society on Earth: watching innocent people dying horribly was considered the height of civilized public entertainment, no moral outrage, & sex slaves were a status symbol. In less 'civilized' cultures, having your neighbors over for dinner meant something else entirely.

We all grew up in a world so shaped by Christian values, it's easy to take them for granted.

When we see other humans misbehave, we should not assume that their conscience was flawed and they were led into their moral misdeeds while trying to do the right thing. Don't we know that people will ignore the protests of their consciences for a variety of reasons?

I refer to those barbaric practices you mention as traditional biases. Slavery was a traditional bias which, in my view, was abolished by examinations of conscience. The very same process is changing the world's traditional biases against women and homosexuals.

Christian values?

Slavery was a Christian value, burning heretics like me at the stake was once a Christian value, as was killing Jews and Muslims. Biases against women and homosexuals might still be called a Christian value, one which will soon will change.. Allowing husbands to beat their wives and kids with impunity was once a Christian value.

Christians have done a lot of good stuff, absolutely. Lately, far more good than bad. I see Christians making moral progress like the rest of humanity and that's good. But, overall, when Christians brag about Christian values and then cherry-pick two thousand years of evidence, I'm not seized by the urge to join the choir to sing "Gimme that old time religion !"

 

[Guy Threepwood]

When we see other humans misbehave, we should not assume that their conscience was flawed and they were led into their moral misdeeds while trying to do the right thing. Don't we know that people will ignore the protests of their consciences for a variety of reasons?

I refer to those barbaric practices you mention as traditional biases. Slavery was a traditional bias which, in my view, was abolished by examinations of conscience. The very same process is changing the world's traditional biases against women and homosexuals.

Christian values?

Slavery was a Christian value, burning heretics like me at the stake was once a Christian value, as was killing Jews and Muslims. Biases against women and homosexuals might still be called a Christian value, one which will soon will change.. Allowing husbands to beat their wives and kids with impunity was once a Christian value.

Christians have done a lot of good stuff, absolutely. Lately, far more good than bad. I see Christians making moral progress like the rest of humanity and that's good. But, overall, when Christians brag about Christian values and then cherry-pick two thousand years of evidence, I'm not seized by the urge to join the choir to sing "Gimme that old time religion !"

Luke 6:31 "Do to others as you would have them do to you"

Yes it took a while to catch on, and still hasn't in some parts, It's difficult for us to appreciate how novel this concept once was.

 

[joe1776]

Luke 6:31 "Do to others as you would have them do to you"

Yes it took a while to catch on, and still hasn't in some parts, It's difficult for us to appreciate how novel this concept once was.

Luke 6:31 "Do to others as you would have them do to you"

If the writer of that line had it carved in stone and set on a mountaintop somewhere instead of hiding it among 700,000 other words, mostly worthless, the claim of being divinely inspired would have been credible. It's a wonderful piece of advice. However, written moral advice shouldn't be necessary. As I said in opening my OP --

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.

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 -- From a Harvard study on moral sense

 

[Ponder This]

I think you need to expand more on what bias is and how it disrupts conscience.
I think that the problem is one of perception. In particular, in order for "conscience" to work as an effective guide there has to be awareness.
Conscience is not sufficient (with or without bias) to pass judgment in a court case. Facts need to be presented. Truth needs to be unearthed. Can you use your conscience to pass judgement if the facts of the case are not brought to light? No.
How can the truth be discovered? Intuition? Can you imagine a jury sits down to discuss and they start saying, "Well, I don't know what the facts of the case are, but my intuition tells me he's guilty." Nice.
What means do we have that can be used to establish the facts of the case? A trial in court is mostly just this, because conscious is useless if uninformed.

Who can know a man's heart and soul? The righteousness of man is like filthy rags compared to the righteousness of God.

 

[joe1776]

I think you need to expand more on what bias is and how it disrupts conscience..

I gave readers this in the second paragraph of my OP:

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.

Example: If Christians interpret the commandment You should not kill as a general rule, there's no conflict with conscience. But if they interpret it as You should never kill they create a bias which will throw the judgment of conscience off course in a case where the facts support a clear case of a justifiable killing in self-defense.

Conscience is not sufficient (with or without bias) to pass judgment in a court case. Facts need to be presented. Truth needs to be unearthed. Can you use your conscience to pass judgement if the facts of the case are not brought to light? No.

Criminal courts consider two kinds of questions: questions of fact and questions of conscience.

What exactly happened and who did it -- are questions of fact to be answered by the reasoning function of the brain based on evidence. Was the act immoral and what's a fair sentence in this case -- are questions of conscience, an intuitive faculty.

 

[Ponder This]

I gave readers this in the second paragraph of my OP:

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.

Example: If Christians interpret the commandment You should not kill as a general rule, there's no conflict with conscience. But if they interpret it as You should never kill they create a bias which will throw the judgment of conscience off course in a case where the facts support a clear case of a justifiable killing in self-defense.



Criminal courts consider two kinds of questions: questions of fact and questions of conscience.

What exactly happened and who did it -- are questions of fact to be answered by the reasoning function of the brain based on evidence. Was the act immoral and what's a fair sentence in this case -- are questions of conscience, an intuitive faculty.

So... the Bible is a source of bias? People are not omniscient. If someone reads the Bible, how is he to know how to interpret it? His conscious? But if his conscious was there before he read the Bible, then he wouldn't really need to read the Bible to have a conscious. So the only thing the Bible is doing is introducing a potential source of bias?

What do you mean by "preexisting belief"? Do you mean that bias preexists conscious? Where do these biases come from? Or is "bias" just a convenient out against arguments that challenge your notion of conscious? I just don't understand the role bias has in the model you are proposing because it seems that you are suggesting that conscious is "a simple-to-use, cross-cultural, internal moral guidance system" except, of course, when it's not (your thread title suggests that conscious is "infallible" and then bias comes along and messes the whole thing up)

 

[joe1776]

So the only thing the Bible is doing is introducing a potential source of bias?

Right. The Bible was written by well-meaning men who were citizens of morally immature cultures. The Old Testament gives worse moral advice than the New Testament (NT) because the NT authors lived in societies that had made moral progress by then.

What do you mean by "preexisting belief"?

The bias preexists the judgment. For example, the belief that "killing is always wrong" preexists the judgment in a clear case of self-defense and so becomes a bias..

 

[Ponder This]

Right. The Bible was written by well-meaning men who were citizens of morally immature cultures. The Old Testament gives worse moral advice than the New Testament (NT) because the NT authors lived in societies that had made moral progress by then.
The bias preexists the judgment. For example, the belief that "killing is always wrong" preexists the judgment in a clear case of self-defense and so becomes a bias..

I guess that rules out simple and infallible then.
Maybe "bias" doesn't rule out the existence of a Creator, but it suggests we should be skeptical.

I still think that you need to address the issue of the uninformed mind.
You've described biases as beliefs, but an uninformed mind doesn't necessarily have any beliefs. It just doesn't know any better.
So even in the absence of preexisting beliefs, it just doesn't seem that conscience is enough.

You've said that reason cannot create perfect laws, but you also say that, in a criminal court, questions of fact must be answered by the reasoning mind. I think that alone indicates that conscience isn't enough even in the absence of bias. So instead of the reasoning mind being the "wrong tool" for passing moral judgements, it turns out that the reasoning mind is actually essential to the passing of moral judgements.

For example, what is a "clear case of self-defense". To answer that question, we require information. The conscience as you've described it isn't enough.

 

[joe1776]

I guess that rules out simple and infallible then.

No, simple to use not simple to understand. And, infallible means it doesn't make mistakes if used correctly.

Maybe "bias" doesn't rule out the existence of a Creator, but it suggests we should be skeptical.

Why? If the Creator gives us moral guidance along with freewill. Doesn't that suggest that life is a learning process? Learning to free the mind of bias is part of that.

So even in the absence of preexisting beliefs, it just doesn't seem that conscience is enough.

You need all the facts of a specific moral case, including the intent of the person doing the act. Gathering the facts involves the reasoning function of the brain. Conscience doesn't do that for us.

So instead of the reasoning mind being the "wrong tool" for passing moral judgements, it turns out that the reasoning mind is actually essential to the passing of moral judgements.

The reasoning function of our brain gathers the true facts. It doesn't make the final judgment. The judgment of conscience is immediate, intuitive and it can't be logically explained. It isn't like the conclusion to a logical argument.

 

[Ponder This]

simple to use not simple to understand. And, infallible means it doesn't make mistakes if used correctly.

Your description of bias seems like it disrupts the flawless functioning of the conscience.

Doesn't that suggest that life is a learning process? Learning to free the mind of bias is part of that.

Taking a lifetime to free oneself of bias does not seem simple whether it's a matter of "understanding" or applying".

The reasoning function of our brain gathers the true facts. It doesn't make the final judgment. The judgment of conscience is immediate, intuitive and it can't be logically explained. It isn't like the conclusion to a logical argument.

If the conscience exists in the way you describe, then that seems fine once the condition of being properly informed has been satisfied.
Although, I think if you ask someone with full information about their judgement, I think they would point certain facts from which they derived their judgement and that it would only be in cases of incomplete information that someone would point to their intuition as the reason for the judgement.

 

[joe1776]

Your description of bias seems like it disrupts the flawless functioning of the conscience.

The tool is flawless, not the user.

Taking a lifetime to free oneself of bias does not seem simple whether it's a matter of "understanding" or applying".

The tool is simple, not the skill to master it.

If the conscience exists in the way you describe, then that seems fine once the condition of being properly informed has been satisfied. Although, I think if you ask someone with full information about their judgement, I think they would point certain facts from which they derived their judgement and that it would only be in cases of incomplete information that someone would point to their intuition as the reason for the judgement.

If they did that, they'd be wrong. We have no valid way of judging a moral case other than the immediate, intuitive judgment of conscience. Jon Haidt, a psychologist who researched this very point concluded that attempts to explain these judgments were after-the-fact and often made no sense. That doesn't mean they were wrong. It means that credible explanations were not possible.

 

[Ponder This]

If they did that, they'd be wrong. We have no valid way of judging a moral case other than the immediate, intuitive judgment of conscience. Jon Haidt, a psychologist who researched this very point concluded that attempts to explain these judgments were after-the-fact and often made no sense. That doesn't mean they were wrong. It means that credible explanations were not possible.

How did Jon Haidt insure that the judgments were based upon complete information?

 

[joe1776]

How did Jon Haidt insure that the judgments were based upon complete information?

He and his staff made up the scenarios.

 

[Ponder This]

He and his staff made up the scenarios.

Interesting, so we will assume they accounted for all information in their "scenarios"?
How did they insure no bias?

You see, the way I see it:
If

1. Complete information.
2. No Bias​

Then

3. We can apply your model of the simple, infallible conscience​

So if an experiment was conducted by Jon Haidt, as you say, and the result was that people didn't give credible explanations, then I would think it indicates a failure at one of these points.
So if there was complete information and no bias, then I would say Jon Haidt's experiment is evidence that your model of a simple, infallible conscience is faulty.

 

[joe1776]

How did they insure no bias?

They wrote scenarios to exclude bias.

So if there was complete information and no bias, then I would say Jon Haidt's experiment is evidence that your model of a simple, infallible conscience is faulty.

You think that because you think that an intuitive judgment of conscience ought to work the same as a judgment reached by logical reasoning which can easily be explained. Why do you think that?

Try this: Harry and Sally are matched up in a spelling bee. Their teacher gives Harry much harder words to spell. Is this fair or unfair to Harry?

You knew the answer immediately. Now, explain it.

 

[columbus]

Try this: Harry and Sally are matched up in a spelling bee. Their teacher gives Harry much harder words to spell. Is this fair or unfair to Harry?

You knew the answer immediately. Now, explain it.

No, I didn't know the answer immediately. I had two gut reactions, intuitive responses, conscience if you will. One was that's not right, but the stronger one was "need more information".
Things are rarely as simple as our gut reactions. Maybe:
A) The teacher is reading from a randomized list, not picking the words. Sorry Harry, sometimes that's how the cookie crumbles. Life isn't fair.
B) The teacher has a background that gives a different opinion about what words are easy and harder. A background in biology makes Latin roots familiar. Grandchildren of Polish immigrants probably see the Germanic and East European languages as easy. A child of the Deep South might find negotiating the vagaries of romance languages, like French and Spanish, as obvious.
C) The teacher knows the spellers well. He sees Sally as bright and hardworking, but quiet and shy. She never gets any recognition because she doesn't really stand out in any one thing. Harry is a cocky little basketball jock. He is a good speller, but things always seem to break his way. If the winner of this spelling bee wins the regional bee, they go on to the State Championship, complete with a stay in a big city hotel. That would be the highlight of Sally's young life. If it conflicted with the basketball team's schedule, Harry wouldn't even want to go. Teacher starts steering the match in Sally's direction, without breaking any rules.

Now, suppose that C) is the most accurate. Might Harry's very competitive father have a different intuitive response than Sally's guidance counselor?
You know the answer. Now, why?
Tom