conscience

[rewiiired]

I disagree. It wouldn't be the cricket crushing himself, because we are NOT our conscience, we have a conscience. An important distinction.

Conscience is not a choice, it is a reflex. And the reflex is not always right or healthy. You can choose to go with an action you've consciously determined is just, but your conscience will never let you live down because it `goes against the moral code' you were ingrained with.

We have the ability to go against our conscience, whether you choose to call that conscience the voice of once little green guy or a feild full of crickets. But we were not born with this sense, this feeling, of right and wrong -- it was conditioned into us.

When you go against your conscience you get this overwhelming sense of guilt, do you notice? Even if you've analyzed the situation consciously, drawn from it your own conclusions, and do what you've judged to be right, you still have that damned cricket (or, if you prefer, `those damned crickets') nagging in the back of your head. It's the moral code ingrained into you that may not inhibit your actions all the time, but beats the hell out of you when you step outside the lines of that code.

 

[TiberCross]

it is your id. your born with it and it helps you with decisions. it is instinct. and of course it is subject to change due to life experiences and perception.

 

[poisoned candy]

Our minds have internalized ethical codes (ideas of what is right and wrong), which originated from society, religion, our parents, and so forth.

Conscience is the internal voice that judges our actions (or intentions, or thoughts) according to the criteria of the ethical codes which we have internalized. When we perceive our behavior is being other than that which is the perceived "right" behavior, our conscience acts to impose guilt, shame, and regret.

As such, conscience is a powerful mechanism for control over individual behavior. Imagine if you could internalize in others a certain code of what is good or bad - you then gain the power to control the actions of a potentially vast population. I beleive religion (particularly Christianity) and large societies exist precisely because of this form of control.

Yet, many people view themselves as not living up to their ideas of right and wrong, and live in a state of perpetual guilt. What, then, was the cause of the deviance in the first place? The only explanation I can conceive of, is that much of our biological constitution works against the ethical codes we have internalized from others. Thus, when there is biological urge to do something which is in opposition to our internalized beleifs and values, internal conflict results.

Also, we may be carrying around different ideas of what is right and wrong, which we have internalized from different sources. Society, religion, parents, friends, etc may all be issuing different evaluative criteria of what is good. Thus, if we behave according to one set of ethics yet judge ourselves according to another, guilt and self-doubt results.

I see only two possible solutions to lifting the burden of consciencess from our souls:
(1) Accepting one specific code of ethics from a source, and living to the letter according to that code, rejecting all other codes of behavior as being inferior.

(2) Rejecting all external ideas of right and wrong as inherently subjective, thus freeing ourselves from our conscience. Complete acceptance that whatever one has done has been no more or less right than what anyone else would do in that situation.

 

[Raas]

According to Descartes, and simply put, it comes from every experience you have in your life and consists of an " internal forum" of people that have influenced you,( people you admire, people who you love) who make up a sort of internal jury to judge your actions from with in.

This could be one of the most genius and insightful comments i have ever read. Too caned out my brains to be sure at this point.

 

[_high_life_]

conscience is our fucking curse,it is the knowledge of good and evil,it is what we base our free will upon it is our ignorant sin.

 

[flashco]

conscience is one of our species's survival tool and has helped human beings develop society and be able to coexist productively.