Wilson wrote:The dictionary definition of conscience is: "an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior." Are you saying that you don't have that inner feeling or voice? Well, I sure do, and I think almost everybody does.
Unfortunately that definition is not sufficient in practice because an 'inner feeling' (actually all of them are 'inner') is not
necessarily conscience. And, in fact, normally they are not since 'inner feeling' can really be reduced to just 'feeling'. Not all feelings are conscience. Anger, jealously, envy, hatred are 'inner feelings' but they are not conscience. So one can easily deceive oneself concerning 'conscience' and that is exactly what we do, since all of us like to think of ourselves as having it.
Wilson wrote: If you yourself don't have that inner voice that instinctively tells you whether something is right or wrong, you may be a sociopath - in other words, someone without empathy for others.
It's not instinctive and you yourself have suggested that by saying it's
learned. Instincts don't have be learned, they come ready-made at birth. Conscience is an emotional function, not an instinctive one. And not an
ordinary emotional function, like happiness, melancholy, sadness, or fear.
Wilson wrote: That inner sense of right and wrong - the conscience - isn't purely a product of empathy, sympathy, community responsibility, and so on. It's also shaped by what one's society says are the proper moral principles. So a Muslim believes that it is a sin to deny the Prophet, and that becomes part of his conscience. A Christian may be told that abortion is always wrong, and that becomes part of his conscience. So what we think of as "moral principles" may be embedded in one's conscience.
What
society says are the proper moral principles are morality, not conscience. As I said before, you're mixing the two, which makes two words unnecessary. But we have two words because they refer to different things. If conscience is really just morality then we don't need to discuss it as something separate. We can just talk about morality and moral codes.
Wilson wrote: Are you saying, Atreyu, that you don't have an inner voice that tells you what's right or wrong? Don't you sometimes feel that you are having inner discussions with yourself? I think that most of us do. It's like one part of our brain is having a conversation with another part. When I try to figure things out - not just moral issues - it's almost like I'm talking with myself. I feel that the ability to do that - to have silent inner conversations - is what allows us to do science and philosophy and understand complex issues. So when you see the cartoon with a devil on one shoulder and an angel on another, it's representing conflicting inner voices.
I'm not making any claims about my self, just about mankind in general. Inner discussions with oneself is
thinking, not conscience. This is an intellectual function, not an emotional one. Thinking is not conscience. Conscience is a
feeling, an emotional 'voice' not an actual worded voice in your head. That's reason, thinking, and that is how morality is created. Those 'inner discussions' with oneself and others is precisely how morality, not conscience, is created. Morality is based on
thinking about what is right and wrong, not
feeling it.
Wilson wrote: Part of our conflict may be in the definitions, as with so many differences of opinion on all sorts of subjects. For me, conscience is simply that inner voice that tells me, when I observe a situation, that it is either morally right or morally wrong. I don't have to bring out my Kant, or Nietzsche, or Hume to craft an opinion. If I see someone beating a starving child, I instinctively know that it's wrong, and to be honest I don't care what the great philosophers would say about it. If I'm a Muslim and see someone burning a Quran, I would instinctively know that that was wrong - because that teaching has become part of my inner moral code. So it seems to me that you are defining "conscience" in a non-standard way.
Quite right. Indeed I am defining it in a 'non-standard' way because 'standard' definitions are quite false which is why this post has come up in a philosophy board in the first place. Yes, conscience is an 'inner voice' (feeling with information in it) that tells you what is right and wrong, period. Not 'morally right or wrong', that's morality. Just right or wrong
period. And it's not an instinctive function. 'Right' and 'wrong' for instinct is merely what has survival value. Instinct says 'right' is what keeps you alive and healthy, and what is 'wrong' is what will kill you or make you ill. That's not conscience. What the great philosophers would say about it would be morality, not conscience, because they're
thinking about what moral code is proper, rather than just knowing what it is by
feeling it with their consciences. The best moral code, which is what ethicists discuss, would indeed be that which always corresponds with conscience. But conscience
itself is not a moral code nor any other product of our intellects.
Again, if conscience was really as prevalent as you suggest the life of man would be quite different. Take a look at what's going on in the world, in Israel and Gaza, in the Ukraine, everywhere, and tell me just how common and prevalent and ordinary conscience really is. Most everyone, everywhere, including in the midst of wars and mindless slaughters, have a morality and a moral code. Obviously this is not sufficient and if conscience were the same thing we'd see a quite different reality on the ground.