You could be Phineas Gage, minus the massive brain injury

**MrShrike** · 02-07-2010, 09:17 PM

I'd push no.

The reason why, is not because I enjoy being saddled with sentimental feelings, but rather because I believe that conscience and the associated emotions like empathy, sympathy, guilt and remorse are essential to successful decision making process in humans.

In modern psychology, decisions in humans are believed to be chosen from a range of possible decisions based on two factors: these are typically labelled Intution and Conscience.

Intution (which is different from what you might normally call intution AKA guessing or having a "hunch") is essentially a measure of how advantageous or disadvantageous we believe a particular action will be for the self. Conscience is similarly a measure of how advantageous we believe others feel a particular action is for themselves.

All decisions can therefore be described as lying at some point on a spectrum between between Intution and Conscience, and which particular action we take depends upon how much we weight Intuitive and Conscientiousness in each decison, or, where on the range between Intuition and Consciences we choose to make the decision.

In some decisions ( e.g. what colour underpants to wear today) we might weigh Intuition very heavily and Conscience not at all, because it doesn't matter to others, or it's none of their business. While in other decisions, we might weight the 2 factors in a more balanced way (e.g. whether or not to drink the last of the milk in the fridge).

My point is; Conscience has a purpose.

That purpose is to allow us to estimate how others might react to our actions, and whether it might therefore lead to positive or negative actions. It also protects us from actions which have long-term negative consequences, that might not be immediately apparent.

If we are lacking in Conscience and we decide that killing someone is extremely advantageous thing to do right now, then we can end up being in prison, or even being killed ourselves. So conscience is actually vital to long-term success in life. The key is finding the right balance between Conscience and Intuition, between what is good for us and what is good for others.

In conclusion, even discounting the needs of others completely in choosing whether to press the button or not; that is, abandoning Conscience already before I press it or not, my Intution alone, my sense of what is good for me, is sufficient to tell me that it is not a good idea.

**Syme** · 02-07-2010, 09:41 PM

The question then must be, is "conscience" in the sense you've described here (the faculty used to guess at how others will perceive our actions) the same thing as "conscience" in the colloquial sense. I think it's clear that it isn't. The sort of "conscience" you're talking about seems to be nothing more than the ability to think things through to their logical conclusion and accurately surmise how other people will react to your actions. A purely intellectual or calculating faculty, with no moral dimension at all. Simply weighing pro against con, or looking beyond immediate advantages to see more distant drawbacks.

A person could lack any sort of "conscience" in the colloquial sense--a sense of moral shame, a sense of right and wrong--but still be perfectly able to make use of the faculty that you're calling "conscience". For instance, unless a person is mentally defective, they could probably deduce that killing another person would have negative effects (imprisonment, etc.) that would outweigh the immediate benefits no matter how advantageous those might be. But making that determination isn't "conscience" in the normal sense of the word. A person who has "conscience" in the normal sense of the word would refrain from murder not because the cons outweigh the pros, but because they think it's morally wrong. So while the definition of "conscience" you're using here may be the proper one within the context of modern psychology, it seems to differ substantially from the normal common-usage meaning, and doesn't seem to be very relevant to the OP.

TLDR: Gwahir is asking whether you'd give up your moral inhibitions against treating others badly, not your ability to make rational cost-benefit judgment calls like "murdering this guy would get me thrown in jail so it's not worth it", or "drinking my roommates milk would cause him to become angry at me". Any non-retarded person can still make those judgment calls even if they have no moral inhibitions against murder or milk theft or whatever else.

**gwahir** · 02-07-2010, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by Syme

Right, but it's a reason not to push the button in the first place. When you are standing there debating whether to push it, you obviously can't view the decision in the way you'd view it after pushing the button.

But see, a consequentialist can view any and every situation that way. Look at the circumstances after the event and make a judgment about whether they will be better than the circs before it.

I understand that your pre-button conscience wants to prohibit you from doing something that will result in immoral and harmful actions. But consciences are only mildly prohibitive; it's more accurate to describe them as punitive. It's not hard to disobey your conscience -- it's just, let's say, unpleasant. You feel horrible doing it. But you could make yourself feel horrible for an instant in order to make you feel great for the rest of your life. Indeed, that makes a lot of sense. Therefore it actually doesn't make much sense to follow what your pre-button self's conscience tells you to do. What I'm saying is not that you should press the button. What I'm saying is that "my conscience does not want me to do it" is not a very good reason not to.

Ultimately, it should be obvious to any rational being that there are reasons other than "that we have a conscience" to be morally good. Having a conscience is not a necessary (though it is, in a sense, sufficient) reason to act morally.

**Syme** · 02-08-2010, 12:57 AM