The Argument From Conscience

daviddale3 · Kitten Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: georgia

It is remarkable that no one, even the most consistent subjectivist, believes that it is ever good for anyone to deliberately and knowingly disobey his or her own conscience? Even if different people's consciences tell them to do or avoid totally different things, there remains one moral absolute for everyone; never disobey your own conscience.

Now where did conscience get such an absolute authority--an authority admitted even by the most subjectivist and relativist? There are only four possibilities.

1) From something less than me (nature)
2) From me (the individual)
3) From others equal to me (society)
4) From something above me (God)

Let's now consider each of these possibilities in order.

1) How can I be absolutely obligated by something less than me--for example, by animal instinct or practical need for material survival?
2) How can I obligate myself absolutely? Am I absolute? Do I have the right to demand absolute obedience from anyone, even myself? And if I and the one who locked myself in this prison of obligation, I can also let myself out, thus destroying the absoluteness of the obligation which was admitted as the first premise.
3) How can society obligate me? What right do my equals have to impose their values on me? Does quantity make quality? Do a million human beings make a relative into an absolute? Is society God?
4) The only source of absolute moral obligation left is something superior to me. This binds my will, morally, with rightful demands for complete obedience.

Thus God, or something like God, is the only adequate source for the absolute moral obligation we all feel to obey our conscience.

In drawing this connection between morality and religion, I do not to create any confusion or misunderstanding. I have not said that people can never discover human moral goods unless they acknowledge that God exists. Obviously they can and have. Believers and non believers can know that knowledge and friendship, for example, are things that we really ought to strive for, and that cruelty and deceit are objectively wrong. My question has been: which account of the way things really are best makes sense of the moral rules wee all acknowledge--that of the believer or that of the non-believer?

If we are the products of a good and loving Creator, this explains why we have a nature that discovers a value that is really there. But how can atheists explain this? For if atheists are right, then no objective moral values can exist. Dostroyevsky said, "If God does not exist, everything is permissible." Atheists may know that some things are not permissible, but they do not know why.

Consider the following analogy. Many scientists examine secondary causes all their lives without acknowledging the First Cause, God. But, those secondary causes could not be without the First Cause, even though they can be known without knowing the First Cause. The same is true of objective moral goods. Thus the moral argument and the various metaphysical arguments share a certain similarity is structure.

There are four possible relations between religion and morality, God and goodness.

1)Religion and morality may be thought to be independent. But, an amoral God, indifferent to morality, would not be a wholly good God, for one of the primary meanings of "good" involves the "moral"--just, loving, wise, righteous, holy, kind. And such a morality, not having any connection with God, the absolute Being, would not have absolute reality behind it.
2) A thing is only good because God commands it and evil because he forbids it. This is the Divine Command Theory. If that is all, however, then we have a serious problem: God and his morality are arbitrary and is based on mere power. If God were to command us to kill innocent people, it would become good, since good in this theory means "whatever God commands." This theory reduces morality to power. Socrates refuted this theory pretty conclusively in Plato's Euthyphro, "Is a thing pious because the god's will it, or do the god's will it because it is pious?" He refuted the first alternative, and thought he was left with the second as the only alternative.
3) But the idea that God commands a thing because it is good is also unacceptable, because it makes God conform to a law higher than himself, a law that overarches God and humanity alike. The God of the Bible is no more separated from moral goodness by being under it that he is by being over it. He no more obeys a higher law that binds him, then he creates the law as an artifact that could change and could well be different, like a planet.
4) The only rationally acceptable answer to the question of the relation between God and morality is the biblical one; morality is based of God's eternal nature. That is why morality is essentially unchangeable. "I am the Lord your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy" Our obligation to be just, kind, honest, loving, and righteous goes all the way up to ultimate reality, to the eternal nature of God, to what God is. That is why morality has absolute and unchangeable binding force on our conscience.

The only other possible sources of moral obligation are:

1) My ideas, purposes, aspirations, and desires, something created by my mind or will, like the rules of baseball. This utterly fails to account for why it is alway wrong to disobey or change the rules.
2) My moral will itself. If I impose morality upon myself, how can the one bound and the one who binds be the same? If a locksmith locks himself in a room, he is not really locked in, because he can also unlock himself.
3) Another person may be thought to be the one who imposes morality on me--my parents, for example. But this fails to account for its binding character. If your father demands you to kill your mother, your moral obligation is to disobey him. No person can have absolute authority over another.
4) "Society" is a popular answer to the question of the origin of morality "this or that specific person" is a very unpopular answer. Yet the two are the same. "Society" only means more individuals. What right do they have to legislate morality to me? Quantity cannot yield quality; adding numbers cannot change the rules of a relative game to the rightful absolute demands of conscience.
5) The universe, evolution, natural selection and survival all fare even worse as explanations for morality. You cannot get more out of less. The principle of causality is violated here. How could the primordial slime pools gurgle up the Gettysburgh Address.

So thus, the only thing that can be an adequate source and ground for the absolute moral obligation we all feel to obey our conscience is something that is beyond ourselves, beyond nature, and beyond society. That leaves only one thing. God.

FFT · Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 8:44 am Post subject:

atoz · Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 10:44 am Post subject:

atoz · Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2007 10:56 am Post subject:

daviddale3 · Kitten Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: georgia

daviddale3 · Kitten Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: georgia

FFT · Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2007 2:08 am Post subject:

daviddale3 · Kitten Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: georgia

FFT,

Let me rephrase it this way.

The bats in which you are using to show your point are just doing what comes natural to them. They do such with out any thought process whatsoever. This is not conscience. In fact most of the study that I have done on the subject seems to indicate that a true definition of conscience has been somewhat slippery to obtain. One thing is for sure though. it is not just instinct.

Example:

I see a homeless person on the street with a sign asking for money to purchase a meal. Do I give them money? If my conscience were just animal instict, I would give it to them without thought.

Let's say I have never seen this person before. I begin to give the idea some thought. I begin to rationalize the question in my head and begin to come to a decision. I decide to help the person out, give them some money and be on my way. I have just used my conscience to come to a rational decision. The bat in no way does this. Also I have not gone against my conscience. Yet, as I go on my way, I notice that this person has taken the money which I just gave them for food and is now purchasing an illegal drug. I get mad and go home. The very next day, I see the same person with the exact same sign in hand asking for money for food. Do I give them the money or not? Based upon my previous experience with this individual, I begin to rationalize the situation again, yet this time I refuse to give them the money. Yet I have not gone against my conscience. In your example of the bat, I would have given them the money no matter what the situation was.

Animal instinct is not the same as conscience. Conscience is that inner voice, if you will. Reminds me of the old cartoons when the little angel and devil appear on the shoulders of an individual. The bat does not posses this.

FFT · Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:05 pm Post subject:

atoz · Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 6:05 pm Post subject:

daviddale3 · Kitten Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: georgia

FFT

FFT · Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 7:05 pm Post subject:

daviddale3 · Kitten Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: georgia

FFT;

daviddale3 · Kitten Joined: 02 Aug 2006 Posts: 146 Location: georgia

FFT;

Craig2uguys · Hamster Joined: 30 Nov 2007 Posts: 87