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Does this mean they know right from wrong? The article isn't very clear on what conscious awareness means.
by cdooh 13y ago
Does this mean they know right from wrong? The article isn't very clear on what conscious awareness means.
- cpa 13y agoHow does consciousness imply morality?
- codezero 13y agoNot that correlation implies causation, but as of yet, consciousness is only considered in creatures which also recognize morality.
- mseebach 13y agoThat is of course a big philosophical question. But in lieu of diving into that, because Wikipedia says so: Conscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgment may derive from values or norms (principles and rules). In psychological terms conscience is often described as leading to feelings of remorse when a human commits actions that go against his/her moral values and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when actions conform to such norms.[1] The extent to which conscience informs moral judgment before an action and whether such moral judgments are or should be based in reason has occasioned debate through much of the history of Western philosophy.[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscience
- gregsq 13y agoWrong word. Consciousness, not conscience.
- mseebach 13y agoD'oh. Of course.
- gregsq 13y agoYeah. Simple single sentence from me which doesn't do your comment justice. The connection between consciousness as an idea expressed by this declaration, and general extant environment is an interesting philosophical pursuit. I didn't think conscience so much, as an anterior attribute. But apologies if I appeared curt. I need practice.
- mseebach 13y agoNo offence taken. Sometimes someone (me) is just wrong, and it shouldn't be unacceptable to point that out in so many words. Conscience and consciousness, despite the common root, just doesn't mean the same thing.
- gwgarry 13y agoMost humans don't know the answer to this question all of the time.
- uh_oh 13y agoA computer can easily know right from wrong to the degree most humans are capable of (and too often they aren't very sophisticated at that) even today. But it's safe to assume that that ARM processor has no conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is simply the feeling of observing things, a feeling we assume the machines we've built do not have, for example.
- cristianpascu 13y agoOnly if you program into the computer what is wrong and what is right.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoIs it programmed into us? If not how do we feel it? If it is programmed in, can it be re-written?
- verroq 13y agoHumans adapt to the moral system of their society. There is no set of "universal morals" that all humans have. But do realise this, since I'm not a moral relativity apologist. I'm going to say that moral systems are not equal and some backward societies need to get their systems fixed.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoHave you read the god delusion by Dawkins? There he takes on just that myth - there has been a very good body of research in presenting people with the same set of moral conundrums - every race and culture, even "primitive" have indistinguishable moral responses. (Obviously individual variance was high) Worth a read.
- tbrownaw 13y agoThere is no set of "universal morals" that all humans have. What about « If "everybody" (who I identify with to at least such-and-such a degree) did X, would it harm me or my family/descendants? »?
- stephengillie 13y agoRight and wrong are subjective to humans.
- aet 13y agoThat being said, some people argue that there exist "objective moral values"
- oftenwrong 13y agoI think that argument depends on a certain definition of "objective". A professor of mine argued that there are objective moral values because that there are certain actions that basically all people consider wrong. For example, killing an innocent person for fun. Under his definition, that would be an objectively immoral action.
- aet 13y agoThe notion of objective moral values is that the "right" moral values exist independent of humans and the human mind. (I think.) It is usually a position held by religious types like William Lane Craig. See debate on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqaHXKLRKzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqaHXKLRKzg
- scotty79 13y agoThey stem from evolution of social animals. Monkeys know right from wrong. They know when they've been taken advantage of.