Talk:Conscience

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[edit] Catholic Church

I added a brief note on the internal forum,

and its pastoral use in the Roman Catholic Church. --Aloysius Patacsil 22:46, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)

I removed the bit in the introduction about Catholicism. It was out of place.--71.68.118.41 04:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, the above statement was mine, wasn't signed in--Elizabeth of North Carolina 04:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

This part is simply too short and rather facile. For example, that a conscience should be followed even if it disagrees with official Catholic teaching was established at least as far back as Thomas Aquinas, two centuries before Luther. The article implies that this was established after Luther. Jhobson1 23:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scientism

"Modern day scientists in the fields of Ethology, Neuroscience and Evolutionary psychology seek to explain it as a function of the human brain that evolved to facilitate reciprocal altruism within societies. As such it could be instinctive (genetically determined) or learnt."
"Conscience can prompt different people in quite different directions, depending on their beliefs, suggesting that while the capacity for conscience is probably genetically determined, its subject matter is probably learnt, or imprinted, like language, as part of a culture. One person can feel a moral duty to go to war, another can feel a moral duty to avoid war under any circumstances."

This is a perfect example of scientism. Conscience can be instinctively (genetically determined) or learnt? That's interesting... Lapaz 04:37, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I stand by the above as a scientific statement and object to it being taken out. Are you suggesting that concience does not prompt people in different directions? What are you objecting to. If you don't think this is the scientific explanation, then what would you say is - or do you not think it has one? I'm reverting pending justification. --Lindosland 14:26, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge? Nothing to do with consciousness!

Do you mean merge the whole article? It is not about consciousness surely, and deserves to stand alone. --Lindosland 14:30, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Isn't it? can you please explain in exactly which extent consciousness differs from conscience - in the talk page of consciousness? Lapaz 17:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
See my talk there. Conscience pertains to the moral facility in human beings. Consciousness has to do with the awareness that "I exist." cogito ergo sum has nothing to do with remorse but it proves consciousness. Perhaps you are thinking of conscientiousness??? I boldly removed flag because... I am very confident about this. MPS 04:42, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
Good, me too! --Lindosland 01:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Surely con means 'with' and thus the etymology is con scientia 'with knowledge' and not 'self knowledge'. There is a book by Potts from 1983(?) which explains theories of conscience according to the scholastics and others which discusses the etymology, which is worked on by Sandywell in logological investigations (1996a) to explain that conscience was once a social knowledge that everyone shared but that the scholastics interiorised it. As I recall Abelard et al have this notion of the scintilla which is the spark of conscience which we all share- thus drawing a parallel between the cognitive notion of conscience and the religious one. If we lose the scintilla we are not sane. Also the etymology of consciousness and conscientiousness are clearly the the same. If we have consciousness of something- to take the phenomenological view of conscious- we are with knowledge of it; if we are conscientious we have knowledge of the accepted mores and act in accordance with those mores. 86.133.33.53Robat, Cambridge

The etymology of the words is indeed the same, but one's conscience is a subset of one's consciousness. The two terms are not interchangeable. One's conscience is a part of one's overall consciousness, the part that deals with moral values (that are either innate or learned, philosophers, of course, can't agree which). But I think that conscience is such a big and important part of consciousness that it deserves its own page. For example, cities are part of countries but have their own Wikipedia pages, and Plato's cave analogy is part of his philosophising, which is part of his life, yet his philosophy and his analogy have their own pages. It makes life simpler. Fledgeaaron (talk) 11:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sinister

Re-"The angel often stands on the right, the good side, and the devil on the left, the bad side (left measured as bad luck in ..."

Minor edit. I replaced "bad side" with "sinister side", with the appropriate link, and replaced the commas after "right" and " left" with semicolons.

cckeiser 00:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Another minor edit. Corrected punctuation to: The angel often stands on the right, the good side; and the devil on the left, the sinister side (left measured as bad luck in superstition).
Unless I thoroughly misunderstand the sentence, the good side stands in apposition to the right; the sinister side to the left. In written English, Appositions are set off with commas, not semicolons. Semicolons arre used to punctuate tightly conjoined sentences, and also to separaate logically distinct groups of words themselves containing commas. The sentence in question consists of two sentences, the second beginning with and the devil. In the second sentence the verbal phrase often stands is left understood. This is sometimes called gapping. O'RyanW (☺ ₪) 19:06, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Philosophical view of S.Soloveychik on conscience

Hello, I added sourced note from Soloveychik's book. I was not able though to make the source as a footnote. I hope the way it is will be accepted. Abuhar 04:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)consciens is llike rock and rol yo man whats up

[edit] Pop culture

I'd like to move the pop culture area to its own section and see if I can find out how other cultures illustrate conscience . Anyone agree/disagree? -Ravedave 07:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, if you leave a summary of the subject here and provide a link to the new page...Fledgeaaron (talk) 11:58, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Good conscience

Just revised the introductory definition to reflect the fact that conscience is not necessarily consciousness of doing bad, nor uniformly considered irrational.--Paularblaster 22:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Direction to look for more detail outside Wikipedia

I removed the section under Roman Catholic Conscience which told readers to "please refer immediately to the Catechism of the Catholic Church Part Three, Article VI [1] wherein Moral conscience is being discussed in precise and divine way of discourses about conscience." Since this does not seem to be encyclopedic. MaxoremNihil (talk) 14:31, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conscience as self-eliminating

I don't see anything on the views of e.g. Richard Lynn or Garrett Hardin - that conscience can be self-eliminating. E.g. those who forfeit their place in the lifeboat are replaced by those who won't, and those who reproduce responsibly are replaced by those who, culturally and or genetically, are not inclined to do so.

To clarify the point these authors are making let me who from Hardin's "The Tragedy of the Commons":

People vary. Confronted with appeals to limit breeding, some people will undoubtedly respond to the plea more than others. Those who have more children will produce a larger fraction of the next generation than those with more susceptible consciences. The difference will be accentuated, generation by generation.

Richard001 (talk) 07:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

IP address 69.125.162.141 vandalized this page. He kept putting in references to someone and saying they had no conscience. Perhaps we should lock this page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.188.127.101 (talk) 21:39, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The actions of one probably male vandal are not really enough to warrant protection. We just revert them and forget about it. Richard001 (talk) 06:37, 13 March 2008 (UTC)