Argument from Conscience

[robvalue]

Slippery use of the word "moral". If an outside agency is just handing out instructions about what is and isn't moral, then the distinction is arbitrary from our point of view unless we have some way to evaluate the items on the lists. It may as well be "apple" actions and "banana" actions. The agent could reverse the lists, or mix them up, and they would still be "moral" and "immoral", because it says so. If we have no way to measure "morality" ourselves, then we can't possibly know what these lists mean and are just mindlessly taking orders.

Of course, the implication is that these lists also just happen to coincide with what are helpful and harmful actions from our point of view; in other words, the morality of consequences. That's the slippery part. There is no way to deduce such a correlation without analysing the lists ourselves and confirming the actions are actually in the right list. To just announce the lists must be right because the outside agent is always right because it says it's always right is circular reasoning. I don't give a fuck if outside agent X tells me that biting everyone I see in the street is "moral". Unless I can have it explained to me why I should do this, I'm not going to do it, because I know it is harmful.

"God" morality has it all backwards. It's simply observing the common ground we tend to find in our own morality, declaring this to be amazing and labelling it magic. It's not amazing at all, or even surprising, if you study evolution. It's no use announcing that there "must be a correct moral standard", because that doesn't mean there actually is one; and even if there was, it becomes "apples" and "oranges" again if we can't assess it ourselves. That's if we had had any way to find out what it is, which we don't. We have millions of people all with their own interpretation of "objective religious morality" and no way to show who is "right" without looking at the consequences of actions. Assessing consequences is going to vary from person to person. That is the reality, whether people accept it or not. Morality is not a simple matter of good and evil actions as religion would like to have us believe. We live forever in the grey area.

[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.

[TheRealJoeFish]

So, using these definitions, we get:
1) Each person has some sense of whether a certain course of action is morally correct or not, and each person feels compelled, whether morally or otherwise, to not act in a way that they believe is moral. (Barring actual psychopaths and such, I think this is true.)
2) A person's sense of right and wrong is the product of something. (Seems reasonable; I don't think anyone's proposed "the human conscience as the first cause" ;-))

Let's look at 3, 4 and 5 together:

3) No one is morally obligated to follow instincts, because instincts fail upon rational consideration.
4) No individual's conscience is absolute and morally binding on others.
5) Individual consciences cannot be added unless each person relies on their own conscience to feel morally obliged to the group. (I think this means A's conscience cannot "oblige" B unless B'a conscience already says "it is immoral for me to not follow A's conscience.) This it is functionally equivalent to individual consience as a source. (I admit, I do not know what this means, because I don't understand what "it" refers to.)

Here's the framework I propose:

As each person grows and improves in capacity to reason, each person learns a set of norms from those around her. A subset of these are labelled by those around her with an attached value judgment of "good" or "bad". These value judgments are learned at least in part by rote, before the person has internalized what "good" or "bad" means. (What I mean by this is, if you ask a child at various stages of development why stealing's wrong, you'll get answers of: 1) goo goo gah gah, 2) because if I steal I get spanked, 3) because mommy says it's wrong, 4) because it's not mine, 5) because it's someone else's, 6) because it's against the law, 7) because if I steal from someone, their life is worse, 8) it's *not* wrong if it's life-saving medicine.) Experiences, be they rational, instinctual, or emotional, challenge and reinforce these notions, adding nuance and force until a person has a complex (but internalized) moral framework. This is not a list of whether any given action is right or wrong, but a detailed process for *determining* by analogy, consequence, empathy, and all sorts of other emotional and rational tools what is right or wrong. Those who profess an exterior source of absolute morality take that source and its dicta into account as one of these factors; those who do not believe in such a source manage all right without.

And this is where the "obligation" comes in. When one "feels morally obligated" to follow one's conscience, this is simply a relabeling of the process that has already occurred, one level removed: not only does the conscience decide that Action A = Good, it decides (based on all the usual factors) that being good is good.

Other forms of obligation are similar processes with different emphases. Legal obligation is a process in which a person reasons that Action A will lead to negative consequences for me, which will be administered by others (all informed, of course, by an additional perception that following the law = good). Personal obligation is similar, but the negative consequences are administered by the self (I am obligated not to put this task off, because I will feel unpleasant if I have to hurry an rush at the deadline) or nature (I am obligated to myself not to eat 10 cheeseburgers, because I "owe it to myself" not to become obese or clog my intestines). Relational obligation is the trickiest, but is essentially "if I perform action A, person B will be sad." This can be explained emotionally, empathetically, or even on the level of mirror neurons and hormones (if I cause person B to frown/break their leg, my brain will also recall what it is like to frown/experience pain).

I believe, actually, that this framework I propose here attacks the third of the 6 points in the original argument, but not for the reason I proposed earlier.

I await reasoned criticisms/responses/kudos+reps

[Pyrrho]

...
5) Individual consciences cannot be added unless each person relies on their own conscience to feel morally obliged to the group. (I think this means A's conscience cannot "oblige" B unless B'a conscience already says "it is immoral for me to not follow A's conscience.) This it is functionally equivalent to individual consience as a source. (I admit, I do not know what this means, because I don't understand what "it" refers to.)
...

Your sentence can be reworded without "it."  Consider:

Me not following A's conscience is immoral.

I believe you may agree that that is equivalent to your sentence: "it is immoral for me to not follow A's conscience."

The word "it" in your sentence serves a grammatical function, rather than referring to something not otherwise mentioned in the sentence.  "It" refers to the state of affairs mentioned later in the sentence.



Overall, I rather like your post.

[TheRealJoeFish]

Your sentence can be reworded without "it."  Consider:

Not following A's conscience is immoral.

I believe you may agree that that is equivalent to your sentence: "it is immoral for me to not follow A's conscience."

The word "it" in your sentence serves a grammatical function, rather than referring to something not otherwise mentioned in the sentence.  "It" refers to the state of affairs mentioned later in the sentence.



Overall, I rather like your post.

Ah, thank you.  I meant the second it (the one I've bolded/underlined here):

...
5) Individual consciences cannot be added unless each person relies on their own conscience to feel morally obliged to the group. (I think this means A's conscience cannot "oblige" B unless B'a conscience already says "it is immoral for me to not follow A's conscience.) Thus it is functionally equivalent to individual consience as a source. (I admit, I do not know what this means, because I don't understand what "it" refers to.)
...

What I mean to say is, I don't understand the second sentence in the OP paragraph 5.  Though what you're saying is important; I certainly haven't helped things when I complain about use of pronouns clouding meaning and then use that same pronoun in a grammatical, rather than substantive, way in my analysis of the preceding sentence.

[Pyrrho]

Okay, in that case, ChadWooters can write his own reply, but I believe he simply means that trying to add up all of the individual consciences and saying that the totality of that is the source of morality is functionally equivalent with just saying that individual conscience is the source of morality.  After all, the "source" of the totality of everyone's consciences is every individual conscience, and so anything that depends on the totality, depends ultimately on there being the individuals that make up the totality.  Not, of course, that they are all necessary, but that it is necessary for there to be individuals in order for there to be a totality of individuals.

[Pyrrho]

Neither of those results proves that there is an obligation to follow one's conscience.

Do you acknowledge moral obligations of any kind and if so why?

Probably not in the sense that you want there to be moral obligations.

My guess is that our disagreement on morality is a matter of what morality is, not so much whether there is morality or not.  But, and this is the important bit for the present purposes, this means I probably do not believe in what you are calling "morality."  In other words, we likely agree that murder is wrong, but we likely do not agree on what that means.  (In practice, the theoretical difference in meaning is likely not terribly important, as we both are likely inclined to not commit murder, regardless of the theoretical underpinnings.)

TRJF is giving something that is at least an approximation of what I think on this topic, so I will not bother with explaining further at this time.  If you want a long explanation of what I think about what morality is, you can read David Hume's Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, as I believe he is essentially correct in what he states there.  For something in between in length, you can read some of my posts on this subject from another thread (the first one by itself might be adequate):

#17

#35

#45

#49

#52

#83

[Redbeard The Pink]

There's a bit of a problem with your premise.

Humans are not obligated to follow their moral voice. I dare say that every human violates his or her own moral code at least occasionally, and even ones who don't certainly could. The conscience is a source of suggestion, not an absolute imperative, and the strength/nature of the conscience will vary from person to person.

Some people feel promiscuous sex, for instance, is immoral, whereas others feel sex is always morally acceptable as long as it's consensual and safe. If their conscience were coming from the same source with the same moral rules, why would their morals be so different?

[downbeatplumb]

Social animals have rules of conduct to facilitate living in groups. This is an evolved trait that can be overridden by higher (animals with bigger brains) life.
End of thread.

[naturelvr]

Whatever you believe or don't the one thing that I think is the teachings of the bible,KJV preferably are life living in a rightful way if you want to take GOD out of it. As are the beliefs of the Native American Indian combined.