Conscience

[Charlemagne_II]

we can see that monkeys demonstrate altruism and a concern for fairness.

Have “we” noticed that they experience guilt or a sense of remorse? Do they lie awake nights planning good deeds or plotting evil?

Wouldn’t that be an essential sign of conscience and morality?

I’m not sure that what you call altruism and a concern for fairness qualify as morality and conscience, or more likely, instinct planted in them by the natural law which conduces to their survival.

That same natural law is in us, only we hold ourselves accountable for obeying or disobeying it. I see no scientific basis at all for a comparable sense of sin and the need to be redeemed in animals.

 

[ready]

So what do you make of that tiny little voice at the back of our heads telling us right from wrong? For those biologists out there, if conscience came purely about through evolutionary transition, why is it that we can disobey our conscience so freely? If it were a survival mechanism, then shouldn’t we listen to it every time? I ask this in the nicest way possible, and am geniunely interested to know!

No kidding!