Argument from Conscience

[TheRealJoeFish]

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.

Ok cool dude. Because, like, those beliefs are totally compatible.

[Esquilax]

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.

Ok cool dude. Because, like, those beliefs are totally compatible.

Yeah, definitely: that KJV bible, which absolutely has that "I am the Lord your God" commandment in it, can totally have god taken out of it without violating any of its teachings.

[Longhorn]

My poedar is ticklish. Where's the cookies?

[Neo-Scholastic]

It has already been said, but Esquilax hasn’t said it so he expects us to endure the unoriginality of his opinions.

Obligated by what, exactly?

Previously answered: http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012646 ; however, I will clarify below in my response to TRJF.

…if anything, their obligation is to what reason and empathy can tell us, collectively, is the best path.

This position was effectively dismissed by Premise 5.

…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… another in a long line of apologetics that get to the end and then just blurt out "it's god!" for why it "must be," divine,…

I did no such thing. I left open the possibility of other choices here in the OP: http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012572 That’s my invitation for other people to suggest alternates, since I am not committed to the argument I merely think it has some merit and deserves consideration and not casual dismissal, like you’re trying to do.

…people are not uniformly obligated to follow their consciences…

&

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.

How could anyone honestly believe that people need not do what they believe they should do? Someone’s ability to live according to what he sincerely believes indicates the kind of person he is. The following four-square lays out the options:

Feeling Obliged & Following Conscience = Virtuous
Feeling Obliged & Ignoring Conscience = Sinful (as in missing the mark)
Not Feeling Obliged & Following Conscience = Kind
Not Feeling Obliged & Ignoring Conscience = Indifferent (or a null set depending on your perspective)

I mean, that's ignoring the fact that the contents of an individuals conscience can vary wildly

Wrong. I already acknowledged this issue: http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012674.

The above four-square presents relies on both an appropriate feeling of obligation and an adequately functioning conscience. But as I observed earlier, that may not always be the case. What about failures of conscience like scrupulosity, one the one hand, and licentiousness on the other? Or a highly developed conscience twisted by a corrupt ideology? Or what if someone has minimal or stunted conscience?

These questions do not invalidate structure of the Argument from Conscience; but rather, shows that Premise 1 (Each person is obligated to follow his or her conscience) presupposes a healthy normative human being and some theory of virtue. Any theory of virtue will do regardless of whether it is secular, like Utilitarianis & Enlightened Self-Interest, or religious in nature, like Divine Command.

Thanks for refuting your own argument, and/or engaging in blatant special pleading which undercuts this specific premise.

You mistakenly suppose that if Premise 4 applies to corporeal, mortal, and finite human beings then it must also apply to something entirely different in both kind and degree, namely an incorporeal, immortal, and infinite being. But like I said in http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012762 I’m willing to settle for transcendent.

There are innate behaviors which are flexible and innate behaviors which are inflexible.

Which I mentioned in http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012646

…one can easily make an argument that conscience is an innate behavior just like say vision is.

&

…[with]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.

You are following Dennett’s line of reasoning from ‘The Intentional Stance’ in which he deconstructs intentional mental properties into smaller components of more specialized function until (he believes) any semblance to what we might call subjective experience has disappeared. I find his line of reasoning absurd. The fact that a whole can be broken down into smaller parts does not negate the possibility that the whole has dispositional properties not found in the parts. For example glass has properties, like fragility, not found in silica, soda or lead oxide.

This leads into your second objection, that being: the category of ‘innate behaviors’ is so ill-defined that no one can really say if conscience falls into it or not. One the one hand, I disagree that innate behavior lacks definition. The definition is in the name, i.e. that set of behaviors that are natural to an organism. Yours is the misguided application of nominalism to something any biologist or psychologist would recognize.

On the other hand, I admit that in my haste I have not carefully distinguished between conscience as the entity that guides moral judgment, the principles that inform the conscience, the rational capacity to form value judgments, or the instinctual emotional reactions to specific environmental stimuli.

So if you want more specificity, the argument could be revamped and I will make my suggestions in response to TRJF below.

As each person grows and improves in capacity to reason, each person learns a set of norms from those around her…value judgments are learned…in part by rote, before the person has internalized what "good" or "bad" … Experiences, be they rational, instinctual, or emotional, challenge and reinforce these notions, … until a person has a complex (but internalized) moral framework…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 … that being good is good.

I do not disagree that something like your theory of moral development or one similar to those proposed by Jean Piaget or Kohlberg is most likely in play. The argument does not address the means by which the conscience comes into existence, merely that it does.

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...
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…

You have done a fair job of repackaging the argument as I presented it. However, further up I promised to respond to your version and that may bring more clarity. (BTW I am not committed to the Argument from Conscience. I’m just throwing it out there as a way to test it and find out what I think myself about it.)


Given 1: Each person is obliged by their conscience to behave morally.

Question: What is the source of the conscience’s moral authority?

Comment on Given 1 – The argument presupposes that people have, as part of their being, something that serves as an internal guide to what is just, ethical, and praiseworthy. This something is commonly called conscience. The question is not what conscience is; but rather, why it is authoritative, in other words to whom are we obliged.

Jörmungandr disputes the premise from the perspective an eliminative materialist wherein mental properties are illusory. For those of us who do not believe they are zombies, Given 1 is not problematic. Esquilax, Redbeard and others, have repeated my earlier stated concern about the variable nature of conscience between individuals and the lack of development in others. Neither TRJF (apparently) or I see this as a flaw in the argument itself. Anyone can see that people vary with respect to many other traits like physical stature, dexterity, and intelligence. There is no reason to suppose otherwise for conscience.

Premise 2: The obligation to obey the conscience must come from either Nature, the Individual, the Collective (family, tribe, or state), or something external to the first three.

Comment on Premise 2 – Here I part company with TRJF who defines conscience as a force. This was not the original intent of the Argument from Conscience. When TRJF makes this change it veers away from the question that the argument addresses, i.e. not seeking the cause of conscience; but rather, the reason why it is morally authoritative.

Premise 3: Nature does not oblige anyone to follow their conscience, since the conscience often prompts us to overcome the non-reflexive innate behaviors provided by Nature.

Comment on Premise 3 – This one could be a problem for me but not because of the objections already offered by the argument’s skeptics. One could object on the basis of natural law, however since appealing to natural law is not acceptable to skeptics, I will not pursue that route here.

Premise 4: The individual does not have to authority to oblige themselves to follow their conscience since the individual could then back out of that obligation by his own authority. As such, self-obligation is meaningless.

Premise 5: No collective of individuals has the authority to oblige someone to follow a collective conscience unless given that authority by individuals, who have no authority to give as per Premise 4.

Comment on Premise 5 - The collective (family, tribe, state, etc.) may have the power to impose duties on individuals, but that is not the same as having the authority to do so.

Conclusion 6a: The moral authority of conscience comes from a source that transcends Nature, the individual, or the collective.

OR

Conclusion 6b: The conscience has no moral authority.

I say that if the conscience has no moral authority that presents a serious problem for anyone trying to defend their right to make any kind of moral judgement.

[RobbyPants]

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.

#5 is the obvious weak point:

There are logical, secular reasons for people to work in a group. On top of that, we may even have "instinctual" reasons to work as a group, as well. Collective "morality" may very well be nothing but similar opinions expressed in aggregate, and you have done nothing to prove that this isn't the case. Further, this notion is supported by times that society changes its opinion on moral issues (see: slavery, the civil rights movement, and gay marriage, to name a few).

[Esquilax]

It has already been said, but Esquilax hasn’t said it so he expects us to endure the unoriginality of his opinions.

I've already read ahead and seen the bits you've deleted from my post. If what I'm saying is unoriginal, then that's due to a combination of your own regurgitated talking points, and the dishonest censorship of my response you've done before you deigned to answer it.

Previously answered: http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012646 ; however, I will clarify below in my response to TRJF.

I read your answer. I just don't think it actually answers the question, nor demonstrates what you're saying. I know completely baseless fiat assertions are your bread and butter, but at least try to demonstrate the mechanism behind your rambling once in a while. Don't just point back at another set of fiat assertions and act like that provides any meaningful response.

This position was effectively dismissed by Premise 5.

Again, you resort to referring to another fiat assertion to cover for the first one. Not convinced.

I did no such thing. I left open the possibility of other choices here in the OP: http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012572 That’s my invitation for other people to suggest alternates, since I am not committed to the argument I merely think it has some merit and deserves consideration and not casual dismissal, like you’re trying to do.

No, I get it, you're looking for responses to an argument without the argument necessarily being your own. What I'm saying is that one of the problems with the argument- because I'm pointing out the issues I have with it and not casually dismissing it, as you baselessly accuse- is that it does what a lot of apologetic arguments do, which is setting a list of criteria without demonstrating that they're the only available ones, and then knocking those down. My point is that if there are additional criteria, which there are (some combination of them being the most obvious one), then the argument cannot be said to be comprehensive, and is thus invalid, and also that a negative argument, that only reduces possibilities from a prepared list, cannot add up to positive proof of a position.

You ask for responses to the damn argument and then ignore them all to say I'm just dismissing it when I give them.

How could anyone honestly believe that people need not do what they believe they should do? Someone’s ability to live according to what he sincerely believes indicates the kind of person he is.

Do I seriously need to point out to you that people can be mistaken in what they believe they should do, and that those mistakes can often be very costly to other people? I mean, I pointed out that very thing, with examples, in the portion of my post that you simply deleted because you, evidently, had no answer for it, but hey. This was all in service of demonstrating that, morally speaking, one is not "obligated" to follow their consciences and in some cases the exact opposite is true. Like, let's take your four options below:

The following four-square lays out the options:

Feeling Obliged & Following Conscience = Virtuous
Feeling Obliged & Ignoring Conscience = Sinful (as in missing the mark)
Not Feeling Obliged & Following Conscience = Kind
Not Feeling Obliged & Ignoring Conscience = Indifferent (or a null set depending on your perspective)

The first two are not uniformly correct, meaning that there are additional options not present. As I said before, there were people in the past who felt obligated to follow their consciences by "uplifting" Aboriginal children of sufficiently white racial makeup by kidnapping them and abusing them until they acted like little English children. They genuinely thought that this was morally best, but in that case the end result was someone following their conscience with a directly immoral result. By corollary, this means that we also have examples wherein one could feel obligated to their conscience, not follow it, and indeed actively fight against it, and achieve a virtuous result.

The conscience is not some monolithic bloc thing that we all have, it is a variable informed by external stimuli; the contents of it will not be the same for everyone. The assertion that one is obligated to follow their conscience, given this, is untrue; dotted throughout human history are myriad examples of people achieving moral good by ignoring the intuitions of their conscience and following the evidence instead. If it is an obligation, by some strange definitional game that you might want to play instead of conceding a point, then it isn't one you necessarily should follow; your conscience should constantly be checked and re-verified by available evidence, and an obligation that is subordinate and conditional like that can hardly be said to be an obligation at all.

Wrong. I already acknowledged this issue: http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012674.

The above four-square presents relies on both an appropriate feeling of obligation and an adequately functioning conscience.

Which makes the conscience itself completely irrelevant, since the argument is predicated on it working in a certain way, toward a certain pre-existing definition of good. So what you're really saying is that people are obligated to do good; you can cut the conscience right out of the equation if you'll only accept consciences that obligate toward good outcomes as legitimate ones. You're essentially saying "you are obligated to follow the dictates of your conscience, except in those cases in which you aren't because those dictates do not match the criteria for dictates one should be obligated to," which is the same as saying nothing at all, and draping a framework over it. It's circular.

But as I observed earlier, that may not always be the case. What about failures of conscience like scrupulosity, one the one hand, and licentiousness on the other? Or a highly developed conscience twisted by a corrupt ideology? Or what if someone has minimal or stunted conscience?

These questions do not invalidate structure of the Argument from Conscience; but rather, shows that Premise 1 (Each person is obligated to follow his or her conscience) presupposes a healthy normative human being and some theory of virtue. Any theory of virtue will do regardless of whether it is secular, like Utilitarianis & Enlightened Self-Interest, or religious in nature, like Divine Command.

So then you agree with me that not all people are obligated to follow their conscience. Since you have some idea of what it is, within the conscience, that is conducive toward a conscience worth following, wouldn't it be more accurate to say that people are obligated to follow those qualities, rather than the conscience that may or may not have them?

You mistakenly suppose that if Premise 4 applies to corporeal, mortal, and finite human beings then it must also apply to something entirely different in both kind and degree, namely an incorporeal, immortal, and infinite being. But like I said in http://atheistforums.org/thread-35215-po...pid1012762 I’m willing to settle for transcendent.

So it's special pleading, then?

[robvalue]

[Angrboda]

…one can easily make an argument that conscience is an innate behavior just like say vision is.

&

…[with]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.

You are following Dennett’s line of reasoning from ‘The Intentional Stance’ in which he deconstructs intentional mental properties into smaller components of more specialized function until (he believes) any semblance to what we might call subjective experience has disappeared.

No, I'm pointing out that there may be innate behaviors which have the same dispositional properties as conscience which we do not assign to the category of transcendant, depending on what you include in innate behaviors.

This leads into your second objection, that being: the category of ‘innate behaviors’ is so ill-defined that no one can really say if conscience falls into it or not. One the one hand, I disagree that innate behavior lacks definition. The definition is in the name, i.e. that set of behaviors that are natural to an organism. Yours is the misguided application of nominalism to something any biologist or psychologist would recognize.

Not in the least.  My point was that the grab bag of innate behaviors is so varied that they cannot all be excluded under a clause that unites them by a single property.

The main problem with your argument is assuming that conscience, if it belongs to the class of natural behaviors will share at least one property with these other natural behaviors beyond them simply being natural behaviors.  ("3) No one is morally obligated to follow instinct since instincts easily fail upon rational consideration.")  This assumes that all innate behaviors share that trait.  But what if conscience is the one innate behavior that doesn't share that property?  You've provided no means for ruling out that possibility.  As I asked originally, what if conscience is an adaptation in its own right, unique among our range of innate behaviors?  If so, then #3 becomes a non sequitur.  All you've said is that conscience is not like these other innate behaviors.  Well, so what?

I also am unclear on what you mean by "fail upon rational consideration" with respect to innate behavior.  The Trolley problem could be considered an example where conscience fails under rational consideration, depending on your meaning.

---

A couple other formulations of the argument, FWIW:

http://www.strangenotions.com/god-exists/#15

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?t...conscience
("Psychological explanations ... Alternatively, conscience arises from the sub-conscious and we confabulate a moral justification. That accounts for the negative feelings for ignoring the conscience. To account for conscience by claiming "God did it" because there is "no other explanation" but without considering the subconscious is an argument from ignorance.")

[robvalue]

Exactly. This all amounts to, "I'm not satisfied with scientific explanations, so I'll announce it was done my magic."

That is always premature, never helpful and a total abandonment of rationality.

[Pizza]

Some theists will deny it, but they can't stop thinking of "god" as literally "very much like a human. (weaselly words)"    
I know I'm but philosophical arguments for a personal first cause are without merit. Some ideas ought to be laughed out of court.