On Thursday our class had to stop in the middle of a discussion on conscience and were left with this question- is conscience something you are born with, or does it begin to develop later in life?
I think conscience is something one is born with. However, because morals aren't learned from birth, conscience does not develop until understanding is present. Conscience begins to take a more defined shape as one matures and starts to discern right from wrong. It begins on a basic level with being taught by parents/guardians what and what not to do. (For example, the cliche "Don't take a cookie from the cookie jar without permission"). At this point, conscience is simply based on the information the child has gathered from his/her parent. As life goes on, the child becomes a teen and must begin to make his/her own decisions because they will soon move away from their moral teachers (parents) and live a more independent life. Conscience becomes stronger as the teen is forced to make his/her own choice of what morals to live by and the values become more personal. Often this choice is made based on the morals previously installed by a parent. The fact that morals vary from person to person is why one person's conscience may condone something another person's would condemn. On the other hand, widely-accepted values give consciences similarities. (For example, most people would understand murder to be against their morals)
Therefore, conscience begins at an early stage of life but develops and becomes more prominent as one ages, makes decisions, and learns from experience. It varies from person to person according to moral teaching and early background.
What do you guys think?
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11 comments:
if conscience is something you are born with, how "defined" is it at your time of birth? i realize you said that conscience develops over time, but by saying that you are born with it, i feel like you are implying that there is some level of conscience at the very beginning. can you possibly expand on that minor point for me? (or anyone rather)
In your post (Ali), you state that you think conscience is "something one is born with." However, throughout your post, it seems like you're refuting that point.' You state: "It begins on a basic level with being taught by parents/guardians what and what not to do... At this point, conscience is simply based on the information the child has gathered from his/her parent." If at this point conscience is only based on information gathered from parent(s), then how is it possible that the child had a conscience at birth? You later state: "Therefore, conscience begins at an early stage of life." Are you saying, then, that conscience is something that one is born with, or something that one acquires in childhood?
She's saying that you start out with a very very rudimentary sense of right and wrong, but you develop it as time goes on.
and in what form does this "very very rudimentary sense of right and wrong" take shape at the moment of your birth (heck, even within the first few days....)? i cant imagine how a just born child is being kept in line by a subconscious that guides the baby according to its ethical knowledge. can one really be born with that kind of knowledge?
Yes I agree with Armon. Conscience can't possibly be established at birth. Conscience itself is determined by an individual's collection of experiences. Of course it is somewhat subjective to what your parents' beliefs are, but the fact that every individual has a different set of experiences they draw from refutes the idea that there are some universal values that affect our consciouses. Let us think of our 10X summer reading. (Oy.) In The Last Kingdom, "whoring and warring" was considered a good time to be had. I would say that today, killing and mass raping is generally frowned upon. And why is that? Obviously the opinion about this has gone a full 180 degrees, so I suppose the question is...does any 'inherent' moral exist?
I agree with what Armon and Sydney about the conscience at birth thingy. A baby doesn't know things when it's first born and therefore can't possibly no what's right and wrong. As Sydney said, "conscience is determined by individual's collection of experience". Through Ali's original post and what others have said, parents seem to influence our conscience a lot. but i think its more than what parents/guardians/adults have taught us. i also think that the modern media has influenced our conscience. i mean (i assume) that most parents don't want their child drinking while they're teens but some movies and tv shows show that drinking is perfectly fine. you choose what you think is bad and good. yes you do have influences but you choose which influences to follow.
i really hoped that made sense!
You are moving in a good direction here, and it is continued in Sriya's post, but I want to ask, what difference does it make to a way of knowing whether conscience is innate or developed along the way?
None at all.
In my oppinion, concience is defintly a learned thing. When we are born, we don't know the difference between right or wrong and therefore have to be taught it by our parents or other guardian figures. To learn concience, we are all punished when we do omething wrong, and the thought of how severe the punishment was will not only deter us from doing that same action again, but will also deter us from other actions which we are warned will carry a similar punishment.
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