To what extent is conscience fixed?
Phrases such as "Follow your conscience" and "Do what your conscience tells you" suggest that one's conscience is a fixed sort of thing, an unchanging absolute. Indeed, it often sounds like one's conscience is innate, something we're born with. And something quite separate from us, a sort of 'inner voice' (the voice of God?). Chomsky may have proven that there are innate structures of language in the human brain, but to date, no one has proven there are, in the human brain, innate moral principles.
The dictionary definition of conscience is that, it is a moral sense of right and wrong, especially as felt by a person and affecting behaviour an inner feeling as to the goodness or otherwise of one's behaviour . The idea of conscience given to us by God is a belief, which is adhered too by many and has helped develop ideas on the formation and fixation of conscience. Christians believe that conscience is rooted in the biblical notion of the heart. However the obligation to follow conscience is based on the idea that we have properly formed our conscience, this is the belief that convictions of conscience are shaped, and moral obligations are learned within the community that influences us.
Phrases such as "Follow your conscience" and "Do what your conscience tells you" suggest that one's conscience is a fixed sort of thing, an unchanging absolute. Indeed, it often sounds like one's conscience is innate, something we're born with. And something quite separate from us, a sort of 'inner voice' (the voice of God?). Chomsky may have proven that there are innate structures of language in the human brain, but to date, no one has proven there are, in the human brain, innate moral principles.
The dictionary definition of conscience is that, it is a moral sense of right and wrong, especially as felt by a person and affecting behaviour an inner feeling as to the goodness or otherwise of one's behaviour . The idea of conscience given to us by God is a belief, which is adhered too by many and has helped develop ideas on the formation and fixation of conscience. Christians believe that conscience is rooted in the biblical notion of the heart. However the obligation to follow conscience is based on the idea that we have properly formed our conscience, this is the belief that convictions of conscience are shaped, and moral obligations are learned within the community that influences us.