Talk:Conscience

message: Hi everyone, I am not experienced, so bear with me. Reading the article, most of it seems unreasonable, or hard to follow, one point (society forming instinct), I would say, comes somewhat close to what I have learned.
Bert Hellinger gained his theory by observation. The function of conscience was one of his earlier and most important findings.
Here is his try:
According to Bert Hellinger, conscience is
1. primarily a feeling which helps us to behave so as to ensure our belonging to a group that is important to us. (good conscience: I may belong, bad conscience: I might be expelled). In this reflection, morality is beside the point. Group standards are variant (family, friends, confessional groups a.s.o.) so anyone can have differing conscience(s) regarding one and the same subject.
Furthermore, many people have a bad conscience for "good" behaviour and vice versa. (For ex. if a young xenophobe man falls in love with an immigrant, and cannot come out with this in his peer group. Many people refer to a good conscience when doing other people harm.)
2. the knowledge of what I owe somebody I have received from, when I have not yet compensated, and vice versa.
3. the knowledge of what I owe a group so that that group can persist.
In Bert Hellingers view, conscience was vital for groups in prehistoric times, (which is when it probably developed), but should be overcome as just about every conflict (and war) draws enormous energy out of the good conscience of its participants. It is also the main binder in religion.
I have translated this from german. My source is Hellinger's book "Wahrheit in Bewegung." Herder, 2005, S. 44ff. 
Waiting for response... if anyone wants to include this (is this philosophical or secular?), great.
I would include it if there are no well-grounded objections, but I don't want to mess things up :).
Also, if you want to improve my english, feel free.
Thanks,
Chris  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.127.30.206 (talk) 08:05, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bert Hellingers Approach

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

message: :"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)
thread_title:  Scientism 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text:  See my talk there. Conscience pertains to the moral facility in human beings.--Docjp (talk) 22:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good, me too! --Lindosland 01:15, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Merge? Nothing to do with consciousness! 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Philosophical view of S.Soloveychik on conscience 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Pop culture 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Good conscience 

message: 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  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)
thread_title:  Direction to look for more detail outside Wikipedia 

message: 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)
thread_title: Conscience as self-eliminating

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Been marked since March. Can that huge "one authors opinion" be removed yet? It's even revealed as original research in the section title... 67.86.17.13 (talk) 06:40, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Original research

message: I always thought of a conscience as an inner voice, the fact that it can be good or bad just doesn't seem right, because just because something pops into your head doesn't have to mean its right or wrong, right? and it was your mind reacting to something you've seen, heard, or thought of and it's just giving you lists that your mind randomly makes up, and the mind just picks up ones you think are important or have a meaning to you. Cind of like subliminal messages or something like that. Thats what you happen to hear in your head and then you react i geuss. This is what i think anyway.William.stowers (talk) 02:12, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: my views on the matter

message: Inaccurate synthesis?
The article has "Conscience, then, and ideas of right and wrong, are a result of the kind of animals we are. We even see this in nonhuman animals [4][5][6]."
But the sources refer to group cooperation, not a sense of right or wrong.  Even insects have group cooperation, not just the hive-mind ones (wasps, ants, bees, termites), but they usually tend not to kill their own species when they go 'round attacking and eating everything.  Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 15:11, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inaccurate synthesis? 

message: It seems strange to jump from Aquinas to the relatively minor philosophers Butler and Soloveychik (?!). What about Rawls, MacIntyre, Peter Singer, Dworkin, Hannah Arendt, Ayer, CHOMSKY (!), Nussbaum? Probably better to organise the philosophy sections under conceptual rather than eponymous headings.121.127.222.111 (talk) 00:32, 25 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Later Philosophers 

message: The article should be maybe include a note about the debated concept of formation of consciences. Several noted educationalists have argued that the basic goal of education is the formation of consciences. This could be problematic though when taken in light of modern pluralism, i.e. people are often more likely to be influenced by socio-political ideologies and advertising than by their own consciences. ADM (talk) 18:35, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Formation of consciences

message: This article has much improved since I saw it last. I learnt a lot and parts of it are very inspiring58.163.6.199 (talk) 05:38, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quality of article

message: Please note that in calculating "readable prose" size in this article, there are 54 images and 250 references (excluded). Article also is a summary and "high importance" starting point for 4 major Projects. It has been written with careful attention to readability.150.203.87.185 (talk) 23:38, 15 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I calculated the prose size to be 75 kB, but that aside, I agree with your points. I'd personally trim some specific sections, but as this isn't really my field, so I'm not going to modify the prose or force anyone else to do it. The size is acceptable at the moment, but still nearing the rational (and technical) limits, in my opinion. —Quibik (talk) 14:58, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

text: Thanks. I agree it shouldn't get any larger. Perhaps it's time to submit for good article status. The sections do complement each other nicely and its unique in encyclopedia articles on conscience in covering so much ground-religious background, ancient and modern philosophic theories, relevance to law and human rights, contemporary examples and literary focus. There's been a synergy with these throughout the history of conscience-philosophy has led people to take stands on conscience for example. That makes the article a great package and a good entry point for so many major areas in wikipedia.NimbusWeb (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size of Article- Images, Refs and Readable Prose 

message: A reflist tag was added on 23 November but no longer appears to be operating150.203.87.47 (talk) 23:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reflist 

message: Congratulations to all those who made positive contributions to Conscience achieving official Good Article status on wikipedia. I've been told that as of this date it is one of only four philosophy articles on wikipedia with Good Article status. Thanks again to all of you. Perhaps in time we'll push on to Featured ARticle status. The world certainly needs to know more about conscience and how to activate it.NimbusWeb (talk) 23:29, 9 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Good article Status 

message: Another editor apparently reverted my recent posting of links to New York Times news articles about Harvard researcher Marc Hauser, who has had to withdraw one published paper and to modify other papers, and who is still under investigation for his research practices. I mentioned those news articles, with links, on this talk page solely to alert other editors to the need to check for  reliable sources for this article. If an article is withdrawn from a published journal, it is no longer a reliable source. I visited talk pages of articles that cite Hauser after doing a Google search restricted to Wikipedia. You can find news articles about the current investigation of Hauser by doing a Google news search. That's all. I make no conclusions about Hauser, but thought that editors who work on articles who cite his writings might want to be aware of this.  Reliable sources are always important on Wikipedia. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:26, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revert of posting here. 

message: These refs appear to be identical except for the paragraph numbers. Can someone assist in abbreviating?NimbusWeb (talk) 10:34, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.NimbusWeb (talk) 12:14, 18 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refs 33-36 

message: Excellent choice of image for the top of the article. — goethean ॐ 01:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image 

message: weird, nobody cited 'Marx' in this article: guess something is missing --Oriettaxx (talk) 23:53, 20 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  other 

message: There are different conscienses. One of them is your own conscience, not the one that it should be but the one that it is. Try to live in agreement with your conscience, in other words act only according to what your conscience suggests. Do this for a few months. Amaszing, you will notice, after some time, that you like yourself. What is more, people are 'nice' and they are friendly towards you. You are becoming lucky. You are happy with your life. Problems with living exist but you eassily solve them. You do not believe this - try it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.182.63.4 (talk) 08:56, 10 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Your conscience. 

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thread_title: File:Burma 3 150.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: Excellent article, comprehensive, and well researched.
Found the size a bit daunting - which could be problematic if anyone expands any of the sections.
Maybe "Religious, secular and philosophical views about conscience" could be split off into separate articles with a summary in the main article.DavidWongShee (talk) 12:48, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Size 

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thread_title: File:Persian Zakaria Razi.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: I have taken out Jim Garrison and two crackpot JFK assassination "witnesses" (who in fact lack credibility): Judyth Baker and Dan Marvin.  Both under "Notable examples of modern acts based on conscience."
Wikipedia should not be a place where hoaxes are treated as true, nor where a highly controversial District Attorney who most scholars believe badly abused his power are lauded.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmcadams1 (talk • contribs) 19:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a contentious deletion. You obviously think they are 'crackpot' but apart from that being contentious the issue is whether they feel themselves and are perceived by others as acting on conscience for the sake of a greater good. We will need to have a debate about this before this deletion can be accepted.NimbusWeb (talk) 07:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two Removals 

message: The sentence below was added under the heading 'neuroscience and artificial intelligence.' It sets out what appears to be primarily a philosophical position. The reference is not to a book by a main stream publisher. It sets out philosophical positions rather than neuroscience research. Griffith though he has studied biology is not a professor of biology at a university. It would be best to have a discussion about the inclusion of this.
"Biologist Jeremy Griffith has defined conscience as the voice of our species' instinctive moral sense that was acquired before the psychologically troubled state of the human condition emerged. Ref: Griffith J. 2011. Conscience. In The Book of Real Answers to Everything! (see http://www.worldtransformation.com/conscience/ ). ."NimbusWeb (talk) 11:05, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: A couple of peripheral points (I'm ignorant about the topic itself): criticizing the publisher and stating that a particular biologist is not a professor of biology seem to be a couple of denying the antecedent fallacies. I agree that the heading 'neuroscience and artificial intelligence' isn't a good choice for this material. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:59, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

text: Thanks for setting out your concerns with my edit. I maintain that Griffith's definition is a worthwhile contribution, as it adds an element from the the viewpoint of contemporary biology that otherwise doesn't appear in the page. His work is sourced and he has received acknowledgement from the scientific community (for example from Harry Prosen, Charles Birch, and John Edward Morton). The placement of the sentence is not the best, I accept, but there are limited options within 'Secular Views' and didn't feel that one edit was enough to generate a new heading. Perhaps a heading 'Biological explanations of the origins of conscience'? Ethologists, primatologists and anthropologists researching the origins of moral instincts etc could then have a place on the page?? Any other suggestions for where else to better place it?  John184 (talk) 01:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

text: I agree that the quote belongs in the category of imaginative populist journalism, not science, but we cannot base wikipedia material purely on any editor's opinion of the relative worth of the products of other minds (no matter how knowledgeable that wikipedia editor might be), the material has to stand on its own merits. Consequently, for a topic like this one that really does belong on this page, we need to find better sources. Unfortunately, various pages that we might want to link to show some of the Randy in Boise effect, so ideally, if we all had boundless energy, we'd clean those up as well. It's a slow process! Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

text: If Griffith remains characterized as "controversial", that needs a citation. It would be wrong to call him a biologist if he is a philosopher without being also a biologist. It is a vacuous quote. The preceding material is also weak, quoting opinions, not science. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:30, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jeremy Griffith 

message: A recent addition touts artificial photosynthesis as a way to achieve the sustainocene. That is a very odd juxtaposition, replacing the ecology that we depend on, rather than respecting it. How this relates to Conscience seems to warrant serious discussion, if anyone can provide suitable citations. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sustainocene and artificial photosynthesis?? 

message: A user posted this entry: "Daoism does not contain the concept of conscience, and authors have posited that this may have an influence on today's Chinese culture.ref: Frederick W. Mote. Intellectual Foundations of China Knopf. New York, 1971."
Yet, it seems far from unequivocal that Taoism does not "contain" the concept of conscience. The reference has no page number. Would be interesting to see what others think."Being compassionate one could afford to be courageous" (Tao Te Ching LXVII).NimbusWeb (talk) 08:57, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taoism and Conscience 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: To abet my potential understanding, I attempted to break apart a sentence now in the lead. 
The extent to which conscience:
* informs moral judgment before an action 
* [and] occasioned debate through much of modern history between
** theories of modern 
** in juxtaposition to the theories of romanticism 
*** and other reactionary movements
**** after the end of the Middle Ages.
Eek. It didn't improve with air added. This is the kind of sentence that persists only because any sensible person skims over the top picking out a few keywords, before moving along briskly. Nobody ever really reads such a sentence deep down. — MaxEnt 01:55, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Parse tree trigger warning 

message: Define 184.53.32.219 (talk) 00:47, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sense vrs since