Human VAlues

1
Human VAlues

• Humanities 02
• Chapter 4

2
The Role Of Conscience

• What is a conscience? Conscience is a special
  sense, a moral sense that is innate in human
  beings.
• Conscience cannot be defined in terms of what it
  is. It can only be defined in terms of what it
  does or how it occurs.
• Conscience may be defined as the faculty by which
  we determine that we are guilty of a moral
  offense.

3
Conscience and Shame

• We know our conscience has judged us harshly when
  we feel a sense of shame.
• What is Shame? The painful emotion arising from
  the consciousness of something dishonoring,
  ridiculous, or indecorous (vulgar, tasteless,
  indecent, and in bad taste), in ones own conduct
  or circumstances.

4
Shame

• Popular psychologist regard it as a sign of
  emotional instability. Probably Rogers because
  he would say that shame is never appropriate
  instead, the proper, healthy emotion is always
  self-acceptance.
• Rogers relativity theory spread to millions of
  people.
• The time for celebration is not when people lose
  their sense of shame, but after having lost it,
  manage again to regain it.

5
The Shapers of Conscience

• Two forces that are essentially outside our
  control are
• Natural endowment
• Social conditioning
• Along with moral choice, shape conscience

6
Natural Endowment

• A persons temperament and intelligence play a
  considerable role in shaping the total
  personality.
• The person with a practical intelligence
  (inclined to action as opposed to speculation).

7
Social Conditioning

• Conditioning is the most neglected and most
  important shaper of the conscience.
• DefinitionConditioning is the myriad (enormously
  large numbers) effects of our environment the
  people, places, institutions, ideas, and values
  we are exposed to as we grow and develop.
• We are conditioned first by our early social and
  religious training from parents.

8
Moral Choice

• Childrens choices are not fully conscious acts
  but mere assertions of will that express their
  inherited traits or imitation of others behavior.
• Only in later childhood do we develop the ability
  to weigh alternatives and make reasoned moral
  choices.

9
A Balanced View of Conscience

• It is not an infallible moral guide.
• Conscience is the most important single guide to
  right and wrong an individual can have.
• When circumstances demand an immediate moral
  choice, we should follow our conscience.
• When you have the time to reflect on the choice
  we should analyze the issue critically and
  consider that a different choice might be better.

10
Some Definitions

• Ethnocentric environment is one in which the
  group (race, gender, color, culture, special
  value system, etc.) believes it is superior to
  others. Results less tolerant of others.
• Ethnocentric people as children show an inability
  to deal with complex situations.
• Culpability moral responsibility or blame