About Conscience

GIVEN 1: Each person is obliged by their conscience to behave morally.

Comment on Given 1 – The argument presupposes that people have, as part of their being, something that serves as an internal guide to what is just, ethical, and praiseworthy. This something is commonly called conscience. The question is not what conscience is; but rather, why it is authoritative, in other words to whom are we obliged.

QUESTION: What is the source of the conscience’s moral authority?

Neither the variable nature of conscience between individuals nor the lack of development in others would be a flaw in the argument itself. Anyone can see that people vary with respect to many other traits like physical stature, dexterity, and intelligence. There is no reason to suppose otherwise for conscience.

PREMISE 2: The obligation to obey the conscience must come from either Nature, the Individual, the Collective (family, tribe, or state), or something external to the first three.

PREMISE 3: Nature does not oblige anyone to follow their conscience, since the conscience often prompts us to overcome the non-reflexive innate behaviors it provides.

PREMISE 4: The individual does not have to authority to oblige themselves to follow their conscience since the individual could then back out of that obligation by his own authority. As such, self-obligation is meaningless.

PREMISE 5: No collective of individuals has the authority to oblige someone to follow a collective conscience unless the individual consents to that authority, who have no authority to give as per Premise 4.

Comment on Premise 5 - The collective (family, tribe, state, etc.) may have the power to impose duties on individuals, but that is not the same as having the authority to do so.

One of two possible conclusions may be drawn from the above...

CONCLUSION 6a: The moral authority of conscience comes from a source that transcends Nature, the individual, or the collective.

- or -

CONCLUSION 6b: The conscience has no moral authority.

  

Starting with some innate kernel of conscience, like empathy, people build their conscience with reason applied to experience. Their reasoning may be flawed and their experiences desensitizing. The fact is that each person must decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong. For this reason, I call the following of conscience uniformly virtuous, not because the end results are good; but rather, because when people following their conscience they cultivate the virtues that make people better exemplars of what it means to be human, e.g. more courageous, more rational, greater temperance, just, etc. I say that it is your conscience tells you that it is right and proper to do so, because that is what a healthy and fully functioning conscience does. It tells you what you should do even with respect to itself.

Against Abortion

Let’s start with the central premise: every woman (and man) should be the ultimate authority over the integrity and treatment of their own body. 

Now What?

Is a fetus part of a woman's body or is it a distinct organism? I think it is hard to argue that fetuses serve any necessary biological function of a woman, similar to the way spleens or lungs do. As such, fetuses are not in fact parts of pregnant women's bodies. Therefore the argument that a right abortion is grounded in the woman's ownership of her body is a complete non sequitor.

One could then argue that since fetuses are physically dependent upon their mothers that gives mothers certain rights over her children that includes killing them. But dependency alone is not a sufficient condition for granting life and death authority over another human being. Infants and toddlers are also physically dependent on adult care. Some qualification is necessary to distinguish between pre- and post-birth physical dependency. 

Could viability serve as such a qualifier? That too is problematic. Healthy fetuses naturally develop into infants in the same way that infants naturally develop into mature adults provided the necessary and sufficient conditions are present to meet their needs. It seems strange to say that a human being isn't viable simply because it will wither and die for lack of basic necessities. What makes it right to fatally withhold the basic life necessities of a very young human being but not right to do the same to an infant or an adult?

Maybe one could say that parents have the right to make health care decisions for their children? In the case of abortion, that would include actively ending the life of one's very young child. But does anyone truly believe that parents have such all-encompassing authority? On what basis do we justify limiting that authority later after baby has simply changed its physical location from inside the womb to out in the world?

Making a utilitarian argument with suffering as the sole criteria is problematic. If you apply that reasoning to cases other than abortion the flaw becomes immediately apparent. If suffering is the only criteria then it would be morally permissible for one person to benefit from causing the quick and painless death of another, regardless of age or circumstances. Secondly you have applied a double standard. For the fetus, you define suffering only in terms of physical pain and not loss of potential goods. But for the mother, you define suffering in terms of lost opportunities and/or incurring future obligations.