Argument from Conscience

[Neo-Scholastic]

Some things have been around longer than we have and will continue to be long after we are gone. Based on reason applied to experience we can deduce what some of those things are.

Um. Okay. But arguments a priori aren't evidence for the existence of a deity. From an omni-everything god, I'd expect something....You know.....tangible ._.

That's fine. Do you have any logical objections to the actual argument of the OP.

[Longhorn]

Um. Okay. But arguments a priori aren't evidence for the existence of a deity. From an omni-everything god, I'd expect something....You know.....tangible ._.

That's fine. Do you have any logical objections to the actual argument of the OP.

Not beyond what has already been pointed out, hence my being slightly off topic

[Angrboda]

2) The human conscience is the product of something: either instinctual nature, the individual, society, or divine.

What reason do you have to believe that the conscience is the product of one of these things rather than an adaptation in its own right? Regardless, your list of things it is a product of leaves out this possibility. Since this is a proof by elimination (a form of reductio ad absurdum), leaving out options is fatal to the conclusion. Ergo, you can't conclude there is a god from this.

(ETA: Plus you equivocate from 'instinctual nature' in #2, to 'instinct' in #3, to just plain 'nature' in #6 [the conclusion]. That's fatal as well.)

[Esquilax]

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.

Obligated by what, exactly?

I mean, that's ignoring the fact that the contents of an individuals conscience can vary wildly, and that immoral acts are not precluded from being acceptable in that metric; sociopaths have it perfectly within their consciences to do immoral things, and yet will opt not to do so for pragmatic reasons. I'm also ignoring the evolving nature of the conscience and its contents too, since there can and have been things within the moral conscience of a given time period that were actually immoral; as an example, it was considered a moral good, at one time, for the Australian government to abduct any "sufficiently white," Aboriginal children from their parents to forcibly indoctrinate them into European culture by downright abusive means. That was easily within the bounds of the collective consciences of those people at that time, because they viewed the Aboriginal people as inferior, and that their kidnapping program was effectively giving those children a life promotion, in spite of how poorly they were treated in the process.

We now know that none of that is true, that it was reflective of the self serving prejudices of the time, despite it being in the consciences of those people. Their moral obligations were not to what they ended up doing, but to the opposite of it. So no, people are not uniformly obligated to follow their consciences; if anything, their obligation is to what reason and empathy can tell us, collectively, is the best path. Not to their moral intuition; we have too many examples in the past of that turning out exactly wrong.

Of course, the factual inaccuracy of your first premise doesn't change the fact that you haven't even explained where you think these obligations come from.

2) The human conscience is the product of something: either instinctual nature, the individual, society, or divine.

False dichotomy, but that isn't terribly surprising from an apologetic argument; setting up limited categories to knock down, while assuming those categories are the only possible ones is par for the course. It's basically a form of straw man.

3) No one is morally obligated to follow instinct since instincts easily fail upon rational consideration.

And the conscience can't?

4) No one individual’s conscience is absolute and morally binding on others.

Oh, so we have no obligations to god's commandments, cool. Thanks for refuting your own argument, and/or engaging in blatant special pleading which undercuts this specific premise.

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.

You can't be obligated to the many other people within your group who will do what's best for them, including stopping you if you attempt to do otherwise?

6) The only remaining source is something that transcends nature, the individual, and society. Such a source must be divine.

Okay, Chad: do you have any argument, at all, for why it "must be," divine, or is this just another in a long line of apologetics that get to the end and then just blurt out "it's god!" to try and get over the remaining gaps in the argument?

[Nope]

Like when you give your word to be faithful to someone and don't cheat even though you meet someone else who is your physical ideal?

That's a good example. A normal person feels guilty about breaking their word. Now one possible flaw of premise 1 is that often people feel guilty about things they shouldn't (like going through a stop light in the middle of Wyoming at 4 a.m.) while other people appear undisturbed by the most heinous deeds. If the divine is indeed the source of conscience then one could expect it to be a more reliable guide.

We are conditioned by our culture to be honest so lying causes guilt. There doesn't have to be a deity involved; in fact, I think that the lack of god explains better why our sense of right and wrong can lead us to do bad things.

[abaris]

That's fine. Do you have any logical objections to the actual argument of the OP.

Let's take point 6:

6) The only remaining source is something that transcends nature, the individual, and society. Such a source must be divine.

Why?

What's the evidence for other social animals not acting in the same way with the same freedom of choice? In fact, cognition- and behaviar-experiments on animals have shown differently. What's the argument for something divine being required to reach that kind of conclusion?

I simply don't see why individual choice should lead there.

[Neo-Scholastic]

What reason do you have to believe that the conscience is the product of one of these things rather than an adaptation in its own right?...our list of things it is a product of leaves out this possibility...Plus you equivocate from 'instinctual nature' in #2, to 'instinct' in #3, to just plain 'nature' in #6

Your point is taken. You are not the first to note a lack of definition about some terms. So if we are going to parse words, then let's start by clarifying what you mean by 'adaptation'. Adaptation could be an acquired trait gotten by acculturation and experience. Adaptation could be an inherited trait, the legacy of natural selection. Or adaptation could the built-in product of an intelligent designer. Take your pick, but I think each has been covered by: innate behavior, the individual, and god (respectively).

When you call conscience an 'adaptation in its own right', you have identified a subset within the category of innate behaviors and not something distinct from innate behaviors.

As for my using the terms 'instinct', 'instinctual nature' and 'nature' interchangeably, I think my intended meaning was sufficiently clear. Please feel free to substitute the unwieldy phrase 'innate behaviors, excluding reflexes'.

[Neo-Scholastic]

6) The only remaining source is something that transcends nature, the individual, and society. Such a source must be divine.

Why?

Okay fine. Let's avoid the term 'divine'. I'll settle for transcendent.

[Angrboda]

When you call conscience an 'adaptation in its own right', you have identified a subset within the category of innate behaviors and not something distinct from innate behaviors.

As for my using the terms 'instinct', 'instinctual nature' and 'nature' interchangeably, I think my intended meaning was sufficiently clear. Please feel free to substitute the unwieldy phrase 'innate behaviors, excluding reflexes'.

When you open it up to 'innate behaviors' then that step in your argument becomes unsound. There are innate behaviors which are flexible and innate behaviors which are inflexible. That an innate behavior can be 'overruled' is no longer an adequate test as to whether conscience is an innate behavior or not. I would say one can easily make an argument that conscience is an innate behavior just like say vision is. We don't 'see' lines or forms, these are constructed by our subconscious mind so that we experience the world as composed of lines and forms. In the same way, actions that we perceive don't come to us with right or wrong attached to them, our subconscious mind constructs the categories. Regardless, now that you've opened it up to the amorphous class of "innate behaviors" it's no longer clear that a single property unites them all such that it can be struck down by showing conscience lacks that property. Reason, emotion, cognitive bias - these are all innate behaviors. I suspect that what you want to mean by innate behavior is "exactly what I intend it to mean, nothing more, nothing less." In short, it's a rubbery term you'll stretch to make fit exactly what you want it to fit.

[Whateverist]

Still, it is nice to see the old, rational ChadW flex his grey matter.

Interesting argument but not the sort that ever tempts me I'm afraid.