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(Date Posted:10/06/2008 04:30:27)
I have been using the term 'inner conviction' a lot lately. Thinking about what that really means, I asked 'google' and this is one came up; Conscience is an inner conviction that something is right or wrong, and in ethical debate people sometimes ask whether they should obey moral rules, or whether they should rather obey their conscience. But conscience itself is a strange phenomenon. Clearly, it is not the result of a logical argument, and in some ways it is more like an emotion. A person's conscience may be troubled even if they have tried to follow ethical guidelines, or have fulfilled the expectations of other people or society. In a religious discussion, conscience may be thought of as a "voice of God," speaking within the individual. If so, then it is a personal and internalized version of "natural law", relating moral choice to fundamental features of the world, or in religious terms as God's creation. In a secular discussion, conscience is likely to be seen as the natural sensitivity to ethical issues, perhaps even as an unconscious way in which people apply moral principles to the particular situations they face. It is also possible to argue that there is a biological basis for conscience; in other words, that we are genetically programmed by emotions that promote the survival of our tribe or species. The difficulty with both religious and secular approaches is the conscience, simply because it is experienced rather than being the result of a logic process, is not open to debate or rational challenge. It is unlikely to be argued into or out of having a conscience about something. Hence, conscience seems to have its own authority, and as such it cut across other ethical principles and arguments. (Xanda)
brolga
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Who said it could not be done? And tell me what great victories does he have to his credit which qualifies him to judge others accurately?
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