Argument from Conscience

[TheRealJoeFish]

I recently learned of an interesting apologetic argument. I think it has some merit, but I have never seen it presented on AF before:

1) Each person is obligated to follow his or her moral conscience.
2) The human conscience is the product of something: either instinctual nature, the individual, society, or divine.
3) No one is morally obligated to follow instinct since instincts easily fail upon rational consideration.
4) No one individual’s conscience is absolute and morally binding on others.
5) Individual consciences cannot be added together unless each person relies on their own conscience to feel morally obliged to the group. Thus it is functionally equivalent to individual conscience as a source.
6) The only remaining source is something that transcends nature, the individual, and society. Such a source must be divine.

I've read all of the dialogue in this thread since my first post. I think I have a handle on what's going on, but first I'll discuss the definitions on which my analysis relies:

Conscience: The force that tells us whether a certain act is in accordance with some set of morals, whether or not it is rationally clear that it is so. This definition relies on my definition of "morals".

Morals: the subset of perceived external norms or directives that include a value judgment of "good" or "bad." Thus, for most people, whether to kill a person is a decision that depends on that person's morals (in shorthand, a moral decision). To step on a caterpillar is a moral decision for some and not for others. And whether to wear clothes matching your gender identity is an example of a decision that is usually *not* a moral decision; although a person's decision to wear slacks instead of a skirt is based on internalized rules/norms, I think it's fair to say that most people don't wear "matching" clothes because they think it's "good" to do so or "bad" to not do so.

Obligation - this is by far the toughest. I'm going with: a perception that it would be EITHER bad OR otherwise violative of non-moral norms to not follow a certain course of action. This fairly expansive definition excludes purely rational/instinctual decisions (we don't feel obligated to not stick our head in the oven), but includes things like a sense of right and wrong (maybe we call this moral obligation), a sense of duty to social norms (legal obligation), other individuals (relational obligation) and one's self (personal obligation).

Holy crap part 1 was long. Ima go take a shower, then ima put those definitions to use.

NOTE: Amended definition of Conscience at 00:09 EDT.