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Why is it said about some people that they have “neither shame, no conscience”, but about others, that they “live according to conscience”?
Is conscience an innate quality or does it develop as you grow older and with the right upbringing?
Where do the feelings that make up conscience arise in the human brain?
Does conscience always play for the good or because of it a person can sacrifice everything, experiencing a constant feeling of guilt and fear of punishment?
We will try to answer these and other questions in this article.
According to Freud's theory, conscience is part of the Superego, which contains information about basic moral norms. These norms in the child from birth are laid by his parents and the immediate environment. These are exactly the values that he learns in the process of education. Growing up, he continues to absorb information from the surrounding society about what is considered to be good and bad, right and wrong, good and evil.
Conscience describes two things: what a person believes is right, and how exactly he decides why it is right. It becomes the standard necessary for assessing the ethics of his actions and the actions of others.
Conscience is sometimes called "the voice of reason in the head." Although, in the literal sense, this is far from the case. When this very voice tells a person what to do or not to do, he experiences a certain kind of emotion.
Sometimes these emotions are positive. Empathy, gratitude, justice, compassion, and pride are all examples of feelings that motivate a person to do things for others. Emotions that stop him from doing certain things include guilt, shame, embarrassment, and fear of punishment or judgment.
Conscience is the moral foundation that makes people behave in a socially acceptable and even altruistic way, being not just an “instinct” but a “moral muscle”.
Philosopher Patricia Churchland argues that "people would not have a clear moral position if they were not social beings". The presence of conscience, according to Churchland, due to the fact, as the evolution of human neurobiology formed for social life. More often than not, people judge what is right and what is wrong using feelings and judgments.
This judgment usually reflects "some standard of the group to which the individual feels attached." The idea of conscience as a neurobiological ability to internalize social norms contrasts with strictly philosophical ideas about how and why people distinguish good from bad.
There is a view in evolutionary biology, put forward by theorist Bret Weinstein, that the capacity for moral debate itself has a social function. Moreover, many of the moral rules (such as the idea that you shouldn't betray your friends or abandon your children) were clearly formed by natural selection to optimize the human ability to live in groups. Other rules (for example, regarding the rules of reciprocity) are similar: people deeply and innately feel that the service rendered should be reciprocated in the future.
Man is a biosocial being. This means that since ancient times, people have worked together to achieve the main goal - to survive. However, humans are not the only species to do this. Several species of monkeys (chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans) also live in interacting groups. The same thing happens with some birds that work together to raise chicks or gather food for their social group. But people work together in a way that no other kind works.
Churchland talks about how other primates, such as chimpanzees, behaved as if they had a conscience. These behaviors include the models analyzed by primatologist Frans de Waal: collaboration to achieve common goals, eating together, adopting orphans, and sharing grief. Patricia Churchland argues that such examples indicate the evolutionary origin of human consciousness.
The ability to communicate with relatives has been inherent in humans since ancient times. After all, it was thanks to the interaction with the rest of the tribe that humanity was able not only to survive, but also to evolve to a large extent. Today, the communication process includes a huge number of techniques, techniques and tools that make it as effective and useful as possible. By the way, in order to understand all this diversity and improve your communication skills, we suggest that you take the "Best Communication Techniques" program. We are sure that in it you will find tools for yourself that you can immediately apply in practice. But let's continue.
The famous scientist, the author of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin believed that conscience is what "makes people people", and that monkeys do not encourage cooperation to the same extent as people.
Evolutionary anthropologist Katharina Hamann and her team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have done an interesting study. In it, children as young as two to three years old and baby chimpanzees find themselves in a situation where they have to work with a partner of their own kind in order to receive a reward in the form of a treat.
For the children, the challenge was to pull the ropes at the ends of the long board. When the children began to pull on the ropes, at each end of the board were two pieces of their reward (candy balls).
As they pulled on the rope, one ball rolled from one end to the other. It turned out that one child received three balls, and the other - only one. When both children had to work together, the children who received the "extra" balloons returned them to their partners three out of four times. But when they pulled the rope on their own (without the need for cooperation) and received three balls, they shared with another child only one time out of every four.
Baby chimpanzees also worked for the treat. But during the trials, they never actively shared the prize they received with their partners, even when they worked together to get the treat.
“From this we can conclude that even very young children recognize and reward cooperation by sharing it equally,” says Hamann. “This ability likely stems from our long-standing need to collaborate to survive”.
So when did conscience appear? Anthropologists believe it began when ancient humans had to work together to hunt big game. If they didn't work together, then they didn't get enough food. Only when they united could they hunt large animals and get enough to feed their group for several weeks. Collaboration meant survival. Those who did not help did not deserve an equal share of food. This meant that people had to keep track of who was taking part in the hunt and who was not. At the same time, they had a system of remuneration for those who participated in a common cause.
Mentally healthy people take pleasure in doing good deeds completely disinterestedly. They are able to feel compassion for others, pride in a job well done, and a sense of justice. That being said, unhelpful behavior or failure to solve a problem makes most people feel guilty, embarrassed, or even fearful about their reputation.
Such feelings develop early, even in preschool age. Research shows that even very young children can feel guilty about making a mess. They may also feel better if they help clear up the disorder.
Robert Hepach and Amrisha Vashch, scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, conducted a study that looked at changes in the pupils of children in order to understand how guilty they felt in a given situation.
A person's pupils can change size throughout the day. It depends on lighting, psychological state, mood and many other factors. One of the reasons for these changes, according to scientists, is the emerging concern about others and the desire to help them. In their study, Hepach and Vashch monitored the dilated pupils of 3-year-olds to see if they felt guilty about the accident.
The children were given the task of laying the rails so that a toy train could deliver a glass filled with water to an adult standing in the center of the room. In one half of the trials, the children independently pressed a computer button to start the train. In the other half, the button was pressed by a second adult. In each case, the train overturned, spilling water before reaching its destination.
Further, some children were allowed to take paper towels to clean up the mess, in other cases, the adult took the towels first. The pupils of the children who were able to take part in the cleaning of the water were smaller than those of the children who silently watched as the adults cleaned everything.
Moreover, pupils were enlarged in all children, regardless of whether the child was the "cause of the accident." This fact suggests that all children could feel guilty about making a mess. If the adult cleaned it up himself, the child did not have a chance to correct this mistake. This made them feel bad.
Robert Hepach explains: “We want to be the helpers. We are left disappointed if someone repairs damage that we have caused, intentionally or accidentally. " One sign of this guilt or frustration may be dilated pupils.
“From an early age, children have an elementary sense of guilt,” adds Amrisha Vaish. “They know when someone has been hurt. They also know that it is important for them to get it right again. "
Scientists note that guilt is a very important emotion. Moreover, it begins to play a role in early childhood and gets worse as the child grows up. Teens may feel guilty about not doing something they should have done, or simply thinking about doing something bad.
Sometimes the pangs of conscience become so strong that a person cannot work normally, communicate and live a full life. At such moments, it is very important to be able to analyze what is happening, reflect and tune oneself in the right way. This is exactly what our online program "Psychic Self-Regulation" is dedicated to , in which in just 6 weeks you will consider the best techniques and techniques to harmonize your condition.
“The underlying feelings of conscience help people maintain social bonds,” says Amrisha Vaish. “These emotions are critical to making our interactions with others smoother and more consistent. So even if these remorse can be unpleasant, they are necessary to stay human.
The researchers scanned a person's brain using a functional magnetic resonance therapy machine and observed changes in activity in its zones while watching various scenes. For example, some subjects were asked to make a moral choice and decide whom they can save from a trolley that has gone off the rail: five people or one.
Scientists initially expected to find a so-called "moral zone" in the brain, which is responsible for feelings of guilt and conscience. But it turned out to be not so easy. In fact, during these experiments, several areas of the brain were turned on. Working together, they probably involve remorse in a particular situation. Scholars have called these areas the "moral web."
"This network is actually made up of three smaller networks," says psychologist Firey Kushman of Harvard University. “One brain network helps us understand other people. The other allows us to take care of them. The latter helps us make decisions based on our understanding and concern”.
The first of these three networks is made up of a group of brain regions that are collectively referred to as the default mode network. It helps a person to "get into the heads" of other people in order to better understand who they are and what motivates them. This network includes parts of the brain that become active during daydreaming and visualization. According to Kushman, although “we can only see a person's actions, we can imagine what he is thinking or why he did what he did”.
The second network is a group of brain regions, often referred to as the pain matrix. For most people, some part of this network is turned on when someone is experiencing pain on an emotional or physical level.
“Empathy is the ability to share other people's feelings. The more empathetic a person is, the more the first two brain networks overlap. In very empathetic people, they can almost completely coincide. This shows that the pain matrix is important for empathy, ”says Firey Kushman. “It allows us to care for other people by linking what they feel with what we ourselves are experiencing”.
According to the psychologist, understanding and caring are important. But having a conscience means that people should act in accordance with their ideas about it. This is where the third network comes in - the decision-making network. This is where people weigh the costs and benefits of taking action.
When a person finds himself in a situation of moral choice, all three networks begin to work. “We shouldn't be looking for the moral part of the brain,” says Kushman. “Rather, we have a network of areas that originally developed to serve other purposes. During the evolutionary period, they began to work together to create a sense of conscience”.
Just as there is no single moral think tank, there is no single type of moral developed person. “There are different paths to morality,” says Kushman. “For example, some people are very empathetic. This encourages them to collaborate with others. Some people act on their own conscience instead, because it seems the most logical to them. Still others are simply in the right place at the right time to make a difference”.
For a long time, Western countries, relying on the Catholic intellectual tradition, believed in the "primacy of conscience" - the idea that a person should not be forced to do what, in his opinion, is contrary to his most deeply rooted values and principles.
Recently, especially in medicine, this has caused controversy and many questions. Julian Savulescu, an Australian bioethics expert, believes that physicians in the public sector should be prohibited from opposing medical procedures, as this jeopardizes patient care.
In the course of this debate, two worldviews clash. According to the first, the main responsibility of people lies in their personal beliefs about what is good and what is right, according to the second, this responsibility is balanced by the needs of the common good.
Philosopher Michael Walzer believes that there are situations when a person is obliged to "get their hands dirty", even if they have to pay for it with their own sense of conscience. In response, Aristotle could say: "No man wants to own the world if he first has to become someone else." That is, according to the philosopher, people cannot change who they are or what they believe, at any price.
Moral subjectivism asserts that people determine for themselves what is good or bad, right or wrong. A person can never be wrong from a moral point of view. Since it is the source of morality, then subjectivism does not offer a way out far beyond the bounds of moral error and reinforces the precariousness of conscience. Moreover, if “always let your conscience be your guide,” it means “be true to yourself,” carry your own good.
An alternative could be the development of conscience according to some external moral authority, such as religion, which is indeed an indispensable aid in its formation.
The formation of conscience does not at all mean blind submission to the moral teachings of any religious community. First, conscience does not create the very concepts of "right" and "wrong", but testifies to an objective moral law to which a person obeys. Secondly, conscience is an intimate and inviolable part of the person, which no one has the right to influence, except for the person himself.
Thus, on the one hand, conscience refers to an external moral law that people must obey, and, on the other hand, it is formed from the personal beliefs, values and experiences of the person himself.
This leads to some tension, since the former assumes that the work of conscience is obedient obedience to moral laws that are objective and therefore universal to fulfill, while the latter assumes that conscience is an intimate moment for each individual person.
Thus, the formation of conscience is an all-encompassing process that involves the mind, feelings, emotions, experience, intuition and imagination of a person. At the same time, one should not dismiss the importance of critical thinking, since it is precisely this that allows one to adequately assess and analyze all sources that can influence the formation of a person's conscience, preventing them from distorting his moral perception. It includes the search for truth.
Conscience is essential to the human ability to tolerate and benefit from attachments. According to Patricia Churchland, "attachment breeds concern, and concern breeds conscience." Consequently, the ability to formulate moral norms and act in accordance with them arises from the need to develop practical solutions to social problems].
Conscience is often reinforced by social incentives, such as approving good deeds or condemning lies. Thus, conscience, in Churchland's understanding, presupposes the "assimilation of social standards."
Conscience is complex, and moral rules (such as against killing) are not in themselves what neuroscience encodes. Patricia Churchland explores related topics, including lack of conscience, as in antisocial personality disorder, or an excess of it, as in people who follow the moral constraints of religion with excessive scrupulousness.
For most people, Churchland argues, "loving one's family members is a colossal neurobiological and psychological fact that ideology simply cannot refuse." She believes that “utilitarianism is inconsistent with the way the human brain functions, given that we have evolved to care more about the people we know than those we don’t know”.
This view of conscience is important because it demonstrates that it is not innate. Only by constantly working on understanding what surrounds us, a person strengthens his "moral muscles", which means that he becomes better.
Is conscience an innate quality or does it develop as you grow older and with the right upbringing?
Where do the feelings that make up conscience arise in the human brain?
Does conscience always play for the good or because of it a person can sacrifice everything, experiencing a constant feeling of guilt and fear of punishment?
We will try to answer these and other questions in this article.
What is conscience?
Conscience is a part of a person's personality that helps him make a moral choice between good and evil, right and wrong, good and bad. It is this quality that prevents him from acting in accordance with basic motives and desires that are contrary to generally accepted moral standards. This is what makes a person feel guilty when he did something bad or, conversely, did not do what he should have.According to Freud's theory, conscience is part of the Superego, which contains information about basic moral norms. These norms in the child from birth are laid by his parents and the immediate environment. These are exactly the values that he learns in the process of education. Growing up, he continues to absorb information from the surrounding society about what is considered to be good and bad, right and wrong, good and evil.
Conscience describes two things: what a person believes is right, and how exactly he decides why it is right. It becomes the standard necessary for assessing the ethics of his actions and the actions of others.
Conscience is sometimes called "the voice of reason in the head." Although, in the literal sense, this is far from the case. When this very voice tells a person what to do or not to do, he experiences a certain kind of emotion.
Sometimes these emotions are positive. Empathy, gratitude, justice, compassion, and pride are all examples of feelings that motivate a person to do things for others. Emotions that stop him from doing certain things include guilt, shame, embarrassment, and fear of punishment or judgment.
Conscience is the moral foundation that makes people behave in a socially acceptable and even altruistic way, being not just an “instinct” but a “moral muscle”.
Where does conscience come from?
The question of how conscience is formed worried the minds of many ancient thinkers. For example, the medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas believed that conscience arose from synderesis - "a spark of conscience." He literally meant the ability of the human mind to understand the world from a moral point of view. And the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle in his writings described fronesis - "prudence" or "the kindness of practical reason." In his opinion, the ability to clearly assess the situation is necessary for a person to understand how to act virtuously in the circumstances.Philosopher Patricia Churchland argues that "people would not have a clear moral position if they were not social beings". The presence of conscience, according to Churchland, due to the fact, as the evolution of human neurobiology formed for social life. More often than not, people judge what is right and what is wrong using feelings and judgments.
This judgment usually reflects "some standard of the group to which the individual feels attached." The idea of conscience as a neurobiological ability to internalize social norms contrasts with strictly philosophical ideas about how and why people distinguish good from bad.
There is a view in evolutionary biology, put forward by theorist Bret Weinstein, that the capacity for moral debate itself has a social function. Moreover, many of the moral rules (such as the idea that you shouldn't betray your friends or abandon your children) were clearly formed by natural selection to optimize the human ability to live in groups. Other rules (for example, regarding the rules of reciprocity) are similar: people deeply and innately feel that the service rendered should be reciprocated in the future.
Man is a biosocial being. This means that since ancient times, people have worked together to achieve the main goal - to survive. However, humans are not the only species to do this. Several species of monkeys (chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans) also live in interacting groups. The same thing happens with some birds that work together to raise chicks or gather food for their social group. But people work together in a way that no other kind works.
Churchland talks about how other primates, such as chimpanzees, behaved as if they had a conscience. These behaviors include the models analyzed by primatologist Frans de Waal: collaboration to achieve common goals, eating together, adopting orphans, and sharing grief. Patricia Churchland argues that such examples indicate the evolutionary origin of human consciousness.
The ability to communicate with relatives has been inherent in humans since ancient times. After all, it was thanks to the interaction with the rest of the tribe that humanity was able not only to survive, but also to evolve to a large extent. Today, the communication process includes a huge number of techniques, techniques and tools that make it as effective and useful as possible. By the way, in order to understand all this diversity and improve your communication skills, we suggest that you take the "Best Communication Techniques" program. We are sure that in it you will find tools for yourself that you can immediately apply in practice. But let's continue.
The famous scientist, the author of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin believed that conscience is what "makes people people", and that monkeys do not encourage cooperation to the same extent as people.
Evolutionary anthropologist Katharina Hamann and her team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have done an interesting study. In it, children as young as two to three years old and baby chimpanzees find themselves in a situation where they have to work with a partner of their own kind in order to receive a reward in the form of a treat.
For the children, the challenge was to pull the ropes at the ends of the long board. When the children began to pull on the ropes, at each end of the board were two pieces of their reward (candy balls).
As they pulled on the rope, one ball rolled from one end to the other. It turned out that one child received three balls, and the other - only one. When both children had to work together, the children who received the "extra" balloons returned them to their partners three out of four times. But when they pulled the rope on their own (without the need for cooperation) and received three balls, they shared with another child only one time out of every four.
Baby chimpanzees also worked for the treat. But during the trials, they never actively shared the prize they received with their partners, even when they worked together to get the treat.
“From this we can conclude that even very young children recognize and reward cooperation by sharing it equally,” says Hamann. “This ability likely stems from our long-standing need to collaborate to survive”.
So when did conscience appear? Anthropologists believe it began when ancient humans had to work together to hunt big game. If they didn't work together, then they didn't get enough food. Only when they united could they hunt large animals and get enough to feed their group for several weeks. Collaboration meant survival. Those who did not help did not deserve an equal share of food. This meant that people had to keep track of who was taking part in the hunt and who was not. At the same time, they had a system of remuneration for those who participated in a common cause.
Mentally healthy people take pleasure in doing good deeds completely disinterestedly. They are able to feel compassion for others, pride in a job well done, and a sense of justice. That being said, unhelpful behavior or failure to solve a problem makes most people feel guilty, embarrassed, or even fearful about their reputation.
Such feelings develop early, even in preschool age. Research shows that even very young children can feel guilty about making a mess. They may also feel better if they help clear up the disorder.
Robert Hepach and Amrisha Vashch, scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, conducted a study that looked at changes in the pupils of children in order to understand how guilty they felt in a given situation.
A person's pupils can change size throughout the day. It depends on lighting, psychological state, mood and many other factors. One of the reasons for these changes, according to scientists, is the emerging concern about others and the desire to help them. In their study, Hepach and Vashch monitored the dilated pupils of 3-year-olds to see if they felt guilty about the accident.
The children were given the task of laying the rails so that a toy train could deliver a glass filled with water to an adult standing in the center of the room. In one half of the trials, the children independently pressed a computer button to start the train. In the other half, the button was pressed by a second adult. In each case, the train overturned, spilling water before reaching its destination.
Further, some children were allowed to take paper towels to clean up the mess, in other cases, the adult took the towels first. The pupils of the children who were able to take part in the cleaning of the water were smaller than those of the children who silently watched as the adults cleaned everything.
Moreover, pupils were enlarged in all children, regardless of whether the child was the "cause of the accident." This fact suggests that all children could feel guilty about making a mess. If the adult cleaned it up himself, the child did not have a chance to correct this mistake. This made them feel bad.
Robert Hepach explains: “We want to be the helpers. We are left disappointed if someone repairs damage that we have caused, intentionally or accidentally. " One sign of this guilt or frustration may be dilated pupils.
“From an early age, children have an elementary sense of guilt,” adds Amrisha Vaish. “They know when someone has been hurt. They also know that it is important for them to get it right again. "
Scientists note that guilt is a very important emotion. Moreover, it begins to play a role in early childhood and gets worse as the child grows up. Teens may feel guilty about not doing something they should have done, or simply thinking about doing something bad.
Sometimes the pangs of conscience become so strong that a person cannot work normally, communicate and live a full life. At such moments, it is very important to be able to analyze what is happening, reflect and tune oneself in the right way. This is exactly what our online program "Psychic Self-Regulation" is dedicated to , in which in just 6 weeks you will consider the best techniques and techniques to harmonize your condition.
“The underlying feelings of conscience help people maintain social bonds,” says Amrisha Vaish. “These emotions are critical to making our interactions with others smoother and more consistent. So even if these remorse can be unpleasant, they are necessary to stay human.
The neurobiology of conscience
What happens inside a person when he experiences remorse, and what does its appearance depend on? Scientists have done dozens of studies to understand this. They focused on looking for areas of the brain associated with "moral thinking."The researchers scanned a person's brain using a functional magnetic resonance therapy machine and observed changes in activity in its zones while watching various scenes. For example, some subjects were asked to make a moral choice and decide whom they can save from a trolley that has gone off the rail: five people or one.
Scientists initially expected to find a so-called "moral zone" in the brain, which is responsible for feelings of guilt and conscience. But it turned out to be not so easy. In fact, during these experiments, several areas of the brain were turned on. Working together, they probably involve remorse in a particular situation. Scholars have called these areas the "moral web."
"This network is actually made up of three smaller networks," says psychologist Firey Kushman of Harvard University. “One brain network helps us understand other people. The other allows us to take care of them. The latter helps us make decisions based on our understanding and concern”.
The first of these three networks is made up of a group of brain regions that are collectively referred to as the default mode network. It helps a person to "get into the heads" of other people in order to better understand who they are and what motivates them. This network includes parts of the brain that become active during daydreaming and visualization. According to Kushman, although “we can only see a person's actions, we can imagine what he is thinking or why he did what he did”.
The second network is a group of brain regions, often referred to as the pain matrix. For most people, some part of this network is turned on when someone is experiencing pain on an emotional or physical level.
“Empathy is the ability to share other people's feelings. The more empathetic a person is, the more the first two brain networks overlap. In very empathetic people, they can almost completely coincide. This shows that the pain matrix is important for empathy, ”says Firey Kushman. “It allows us to care for other people by linking what they feel with what we ourselves are experiencing”.
According to the psychologist, understanding and caring are important. But having a conscience means that people should act in accordance with their ideas about it. This is where the third network comes in - the decision-making network. This is where people weigh the costs and benefits of taking action.
When a person finds himself in a situation of moral choice, all three networks begin to work. “We shouldn't be looking for the moral part of the brain,” says Kushman. “Rather, we have a network of areas that originally developed to serve other purposes. During the evolutionary period, they began to work together to create a sense of conscience”.
Just as there is no single moral think tank, there is no single type of moral developed person. “There are different paths to morality,” says Kushman. “For example, some people are very empathetic. This encourages them to collaborate with others. Some people act on their own conscience instead, because it seems the most logical to them. Still others are simply in the right place at the right time to make a difference”.
Conscience - good or bad?
How does conscience affect a person's life? In politics, much of the controversy surrounding this sentiment concerns the right to conscientious objection to military service. Should pro-abortion doctors be required to have abortions or refer patients to doctors who will? Should priests remove the confessional seal and report sex offenders confessing to them? Can pacifists be exempted from conscription because of their rejection of war?.For a long time, Western countries, relying on the Catholic intellectual tradition, believed in the "primacy of conscience" - the idea that a person should not be forced to do what, in his opinion, is contrary to his most deeply rooted values and principles.
Recently, especially in medicine, this has caused controversy and many questions. Julian Savulescu, an Australian bioethics expert, believes that physicians in the public sector should be prohibited from opposing medical procedures, as this jeopardizes patient care.
In the course of this debate, two worldviews clash. According to the first, the main responsibility of people lies in their personal beliefs about what is good and what is right, according to the second, this responsibility is balanced by the needs of the common good.
Philosopher Michael Walzer believes that there are situations when a person is obliged to "get their hands dirty", even if they have to pay for it with their own sense of conscience. In response, Aristotle could say: "No man wants to own the world if he first has to become someone else." That is, according to the philosopher, people cannot change who they are or what they believe, at any price.
Moral subjectivism asserts that people determine for themselves what is good or bad, right or wrong. A person can never be wrong from a moral point of view. Since it is the source of morality, then subjectivism does not offer a way out far beyond the bounds of moral error and reinforces the precariousness of conscience. Moreover, if “always let your conscience be your guide,” it means “be true to yourself,” carry your own good.
An alternative could be the development of conscience according to some external moral authority, such as religion, which is indeed an indispensable aid in its formation.
The formation of conscience does not at all mean blind submission to the moral teachings of any religious community. First, conscience does not create the very concepts of "right" and "wrong", but testifies to an objective moral law to which a person obeys. Secondly, conscience is an intimate and inviolable part of the person, which no one has the right to influence, except for the person himself.
Thus, on the one hand, conscience refers to an external moral law that people must obey, and, on the other hand, it is formed from the personal beliefs, values and experiences of the person himself.
This leads to some tension, since the former assumes that the work of conscience is obedient obedience to moral laws that are objective and therefore universal to fulfill, while the latter assumes that conscience is an intimate moment for each individual person.
Thus, the formation of conscience is an all-encompassing process that involves the mind, feelings, emotions, experience, intuition and imagination of a person. At the same time, one should not dismiss the importance of critical thinking, since it is precisely this that allows one to adequately assess and analyze all sources that can influence the formation of a person's conscience, preventing them from distorting his moral perception. It includes the search for truth.
Conscience is essential to the human ability to tolerate and benefit from attachments. According to Patricia Churchland, "attachment breeds concern, and concern breeds conscience." Consequently, the ability to formulate moral norms and act in accordance with them arises from the need to develop practical solutions to social problems].
Conscience is often reinforced by social incentives, such as approving good deeds or condemning lies. Thus, conscience, in Churchland's understanding, presupposes the "assimilation of social standards."
Conscience is complex, and moral rules (such as against killing) are not in themselves what neuroscience encodes. Patricia Churchland explores related topics, including lack of conscience, as in antisocial personality disorder, or an excess of it, as in people who follow the moral constraints of religion with excessive scrupulousness.
For most people, Churchland argues, "loving one's family members is a colossal neurobiological and psychological fact that ideology simply cannot refuse." She believes that “utilitarianism is inconsistent with the way the human brain functions, given that we have evolved to care more about the people we know than those we don’t know”.
Conclusion
A conscience that is both well-formed (social environment, education and experience) and well-informed (aware of facts, evidence, etc.) allows people to know themselves and the world around them and act accordingly.This view of conscience is important because it demonstrates that it is not innate. Only by constantly working on understanding what surrounds us, a person strengthens his "moral muscles", which means that he becomes better.
