What proof is there of the conscience?

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How do you explain the Milgram experiments?

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It's bullshit really.

Not really. They have reproduced multiple times.

 

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It's possible you might "shock" someone else not knowing exactly the consequences

The people giving the shocks could hear the other people scream.

 

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I don't believe the milgram experiments were anything but a staged study in order to perform psyops on the public.

Any evidence for that?

 

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But yes, without proper knowledge most people will just become lemmings and do what others are doing, or will do what they are told to.

It takes proper knowledge to know that you shouldn't hurt other people?
 

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That doesn't mean they'd murder anyone.

How do you know? Most soldiers who killed somebody in a war go back to normal life and never kill anybody again.

 

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I did say it was bullshit didn't I?

I was asking for evidence not your personal opinion. It's very convenient to label studies that go against your personal pet theory as psy ops.

 

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Good people can't willingly commit intentional harmful acts against innocent people.

A circle is round.

 

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I've already explain why the study is bullshit, because having knowledge of good or bad makes you automatically good.

99,34% of smokers know that smoking may cause lung cancer. That knowledge doesn't translate into immediate action. How come? Shouldn't the knowledge about that allow them to stop instantly?

 

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If evil was a choice, then for what reason would you choose it?

Really evil people can rationalize what they do, by claiming it's for the greater good.

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Then stop arguing in circles.

Still waiting for evidence.

 

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You left out heaps of my explanation of why my stance is NOT circular. You simply left it out and did not attempt to rebut it.

Yes, because it is dumb.

 

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If they had actual knowledge that it causes cancer, they wouldn't do it.

How is actual knowledge different from knowledge and when did you learn to read minds?

 

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However, smoking ORGANIC tobacco in moderation will not give you cancer unless maybe you're already that unhealthy.

Just a plant, man.

 

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But it's not for greater good, so whatever they say isn't rationalization.

They CLAIM it's for the greater good, that doesn't mean that it is really for the greater good.

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Then stop arguing in circles.

Still waiting for evidence.

 

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You left out heaps of my explanation of why my stance is NOT circular. You simply left it out and did not attempt to rebut it.

Yes, because it is dumb.

 

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If they had actual knowledge that it causes cancer, they wouldn't do it.

How is actual knowledge different from knowledge and when did you learn to read minds?

 

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However, smoking ORGANIC tobacco in moderation will not give you cancer unless maybe you're already that unhealthy.

Just a plant, man.

 

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But it's not for greater good, so whatever they say isn't rationalization.

They CLAIM it's for the greater good, that doesn't mean that it is really for the greater good.

 

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Not an argument. And it certainly isn't a rebuttal of anything I've said.

You are right, it's an observation.

Interesting how you went from
 

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Evil people do not understand the concept of good OR evil.

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Perhaps because people can be told something, doesn't mean they fully understand the consequences.

in a few threads.

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But I do occasionally smoke organic tobacco. But that's not considered a "smoker". It's something I rarely do. You have drunks, potheads and smokers

When are you a smoker?

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Yeah, i said that already. It's called lying, not rationalization. Two different things.

Indeed they are. But unless there is evidence for either or we have a mind reading machine, we cannot the difference. We don't know if Stalin killed millions of people because he bad intent or because he thought for himself it was for a better cause. In the end it doesn't really matter, the consequences are the same.

[S1988]

On 10/1/2017 at 3:36 AM, Philociraptor said:

Evil people do not understand the concept of good OR evil.

What about those who threaten their victims to not tell anyone what they done to them or else? They have what I call a public personality and a private personality. To the public, they appear as a saint, but they only show their true colors in private, to the ones closest to them. If they weren't aware of their evil, why would they go through such great lengths to hide it? Because they know what they do is wrong, and they don't want to be exposed. I should know because I grew up with someone like this. Even now, acquaintances think she's a great person, but I know that's far from the truth. Thank goodness that I no longer have to keep secrets for phonies.

[neeeel]

On 01/10/2017 at 7:18 AM, Philociraptor said:

It is not necessarily up to us to do this. Mother nature takes care of the problem. Remember that everyone dies eventually.

So, by your reasoning

 

everyone dies

death is the reward for evil

conclusion : - everyone is evil.

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There's good karma and bad karma. The idea is that if good things are done, then the do-gooder will be rewarded with good things. If they do evil, they are punished.

Unless you are going to argue that death is also a reward for doing good things?

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Logic is fundamental to the human psyche, but of course, we're talking about humans. When we see illogicality being arbitrated by evil people, well, they're just not human.

What are they then if they aren't human?

[Mole]

I have had some time to think and in this post I will attempt to provide a concrete, simple, and intuitive argument for the conscience. I think I my original premise that the conscience is breached from the arbitrary (non-universal) nature of immoral preferences is sound but insufficient for a full argument for the existence of the conscience. I had provided some statements that in my mind I thought were possibilities to complete the argument.

"Perhaps it's that irrationality that creates psychological distress in the form of cognitive dissonance. This argument sounds very abstract but perhaps it doesn't need to be known consciously to create that psychological distress. The unconscious mind processes things vastly faster than the conscious mind, so I assume that this is where the conscience would exist."

also,

"More questions could be raised, such as why does the conscience raise so much guilt compared to non-moral mechanisms? One answer might be that moral judgements are existential in nature. For example, believing in country borders has little to do with your wellbeing. But if you are a murderer, the kind of distress you would feel would be epistemologically equivalent to as if you were being murdered yourself because the unconscious mind wouldn't be able to objectively distinguish you from the other person and so would have to sort of assume you are the other person. "

In retrospect, I think these explanations are unnecessary, to say the least. I am not sure whether @Philociraptor agreed with my original premise that the conscience is breached from the arbitrary nature of immoral preferences, but I do now think that Philociraptor's premise that "conscience is just the ability to determine right from wrong" is sound given that one can act against their conscience. So, inevitably I combine these two premises and say that the ability to determine right from wrong will be breached when preferences are arbitrary in nature. My fulll argument for the conscience goes as follows:

Knowledge is derived from reality. We are born as blank slates. Only existence can be known because only existence exists.

Reality is consistent. Should be easy enough to understand.

Therefore, knowledge is universal. If the earth is round for me, it is also round for you.

Preferences are knowledge claims. To have a preference for theft is to claim that 'I ought to steal'.

Therefore, preferences must be universal in order to be valid knowledge. If I ought to steal, then it must be as much true for you as it is true for me. A contradiction arises because if I prefer to steal, you must necessarily prefer that I don't steal which means that the preference is not universal and not valid knowledge. We can see that a preference for theft is irrational, but how does this affect the conscience?

Consciousness requires knowledge. I cannot be conscious of anything if I have no knowledge of anything.

Therefore, arbitrary preferences negate consciousness. If a person acts upon irrational beliefs, their knowledge about reality becomes distorted. They become moral subjectivists. And inevitably they must lose their consciousness relative to the degree that they have less understanding of reality. Consciousness cannot exist without the conscience, without that ability to evaluate what is rational and irrational. Some people will not have a conscience, but those who wish to survive and value themselves will have one. I am not sure whether Philociraptor was thinking in the same terms, but it is somewhat true what Philociraptor said:

"As hard as it may seem to accept, they [evil people] are not at all like us. They just aren't actually humans. More like zombies... some kind of parasite or some kind of biological robot. Something like that."

The argument for the conscience may be used to reason such a circumstance:

Let's say my friend has an annoying habit of overspeaking. If I permit it, I am suggesting that his habit is of value to the conversation when I believe that it is not. This not universally preferable because my permittance neccesitates that I hold a preference against his habit while he holds a preference for it. This contradiction must mean the preference does not reflect reality and so is not within my rational self-interest. So, even if it creates some discomfort, if I wish to be rational and subsist and have enough self-esteem, I must be honest and let him know that I find his habit annoying. In short-hand, people will not lie often because lying is simply wrong. It is intuitive.

Truly, the decision here is whether to be rational or irrational. In fact, I would say all decisions are like this. I would say that preferences and behaviour among universally preferable alternatives such as which piece of art someone prefers and chooses is determined by subjective taste, which in turn is determined by subjective biology and subjective experience, I.e., universally preferable behaviour is conditioned or instinctual. This is not to say, however, that those subjective experiences had not included moral content. For example, one can have a taste for objectively ugly art and that taste could be determined by the immoral choices the person had made in the past, and those choices are not deterministic, however, the taste itself is still determined. Moral choices may never have had much of a factor. Perhaps the person was born with disposition towards that art for some reason. Either possibility does not invalidate the claim that preferences and behaviour among universally preferable alternatives are determined. Of course, then there must be some mechanism for such conditioning to be processed. Thankfully, unconscious drives fits right into the hypothesis. There is little doubt that these do exist.

It is unconscious drives that in fact create the dillema of choosing between universal preferable behaviour (morality) and universally proscribed behaviour (immorality) in the first place. There must be something that entices a person to act irrationaly. If a person has a choice to either be rational and subsist, or be irrational and perish, it may seem obvious that the person would want to be rational if there are no other consequences. But this is not what happens. People do bad things all the time. People conform. People lie. People murder. This behaviour can be explained by unconscious drives. One can be rational, but the consequence is that they will feel discomfort for it because their unconscious drives are affecting their emotion. Preferences and behaviour among universally proscribed alternatives are determined when one is irrational. A murderer must have been predisposed towards it, via conditioning or instinct. That predisposition was determined. It does not mean he does not have a choice. He has a choice whether to murder, but he cannot choose whether those predispositions exist; whether he has an urge to murder. The real choice here is between being rational or irrational. The content of those alternatives are determined. In other words, preferences and behaviour among universally proscribed alternatives iwhen one is irrational are conditioned or instinctual.

So, preferences and behaviour among universally preferable alternatives is determined when one is rational. Preferences and behaviour among universally proscribed behaviour is determined when one is irrational. We may call the sum predispositions or unconscious drives of these preferences and behaviours the true self and false self, respectively. The conscience resides here. However, preferences and behaviour between universallly preferable and universally proscribed alternatives are not determined. This is the only area wherein free will and consciousness exist. One is either rational and acts as what ever was already determined by the true self or irrational and acts as what ever was already determined by the false self. Philosophy can only go so far and the mechanisms of these unconscious drives is the job of psychology.