[Neurons] 2024 Neurons #22 IS CONSCIENCE AN EMOTION?

Mon May 20 09:56:27 EDT 2024

From: L. Michael Hall

2024 Neurons #22

May 20, 2024

Emotional Intelligence Series #21

IS CONSCIENCE AN EMOTION?

A question arrived via email asking, "Is conscience an emotion?"  After the
author noted that I had not mentioned conscience in any of the articles on
emotions, he then asked, "If it is not an emotion, then what is it?  How do
you view conscience in Neuro-Semantics?"  Reading that and not having an
immediate answer on the tip-of-my-tongue, I thought, "That's a great
question!  I don't know the answer, but I'll see if I can find it."  So,
here goes.

Sometimes going back to the etymology of a word or to the dictionary really
helps to understand an experience or a state, but not so with conscience.

"Conscience: the awareness of a moral or ethical aspect of one's conduct
together with an urge to prefer right over wrong, source of moral judgment,
conformity to the sense of right conduct, from Latin, conscire, to be
conscious of, con plus scire to know."

All we can pick up here is that conscience involves a knowing and a feeling,
knowing right from wrong, good from bad, and feeling 'morally right' or
ashamed and/or guilty.  It shows up in the world in terms of conduct and
conformity with whatever is considered right conduct.  This is where the
understanding you gain from a dictionary, or even from the word's origin, is
so vague as to be pretty much worthless.  We still can't answer the
question, "Is conscience an emotion?"  Nor could we answer, "Is conscience a
thought?"  "Is conscious a behavior?"  It involves all three as factors, yet
it is more than, and different from, these factors.  So what is it?  And how
does it work?

Whatever "the conscience" is, we know it is not a 'thing,' it is a process.
And what does it process? It processes our understanding about right and
wrong, good and bad up against our actions.  As we mentally grasp what is
good or right in a given context which involves how we treat ourselves or
how we treat someone else-our 'knowing' (scire) about or with (con)
ourselves results in us knowing/ sensing that we are doing right or wrong.
Wow!  That's a mouthful.  Let's pull it apart:

           As we mentally grasp what is good or right in a given context-
our mental mapping about something being good for us, good for someone else.
Hence, recognizing what is important or valuable, and conversely, what would
not be valuable.  It would be a dis-value.

           Which involves how we treat ourselves or how we treat someone
else- the values we are processing the relational values.  They concern how
we treat a person or mistreat a person.

           Our 'knowing' (scire) about or with (con) ourselves results in
us knowing/ sensing that we are doing right or wrong - an inward 'knowing'
or 'judging' of ourselves, hence our self-reflexive awareness.  Have we done
right or not?  If so, we feel upright.  If not so, we feel guilty.

What do we learn from this?  Conscience is about values.  When you have deem
something as important, then you value it.  Therefore your value-hiearchy is
a set of criteria that defines-for you- your self-obligations or your moral
obligations.   That criteria defines what you "must" do to have a sense of
being "right" with yourself morally and/or ethically.  If you value respect
and respecting people, then when you violate that, your conscience registers
that you have violated your own values.  You feel bad.  You may feel ashamed
or guilty.  Conscience is not the emotion-it is your self-reflective
awareness about how you are living.  Are you living, or not living, your
values?

This now enables us to understand the difference between an infantile
conscience, a juvenile conscience, and adult conscience.  Conscience depends
on your understandings of right and wrong, good and bad.  Now because
infants and children think only about themselves, their conscience is
extremely selfish and doesn't serve them very well socially.  A childish
conscience is also almost entirely fear-based and punishment-based.
Conscience here is always warning, "Don't do that!"  "Stop doing that!"
"Don't you dare think about..." "You will suffer if you do X."  Sadly, many
adults still operate with a childish conscience.

By way of contrast, an adult conscience is love-based and goal-based.  Adult
conscience does very little warning, and mostly awakening to possibilities.
"You could make a difference here!"  "Think about giving of yourself there!"
Here also we have "musts," but they are a different kind of musts.  These
are the musts of being- "A musician must make music; a poet must write; what
a person can be, he must be." (Maslow).

What is conscience?  It begins with your intentionality selecting your
values, what you deem as important, and your hierarchy of values.  Then your
intention-drive values serve as your direction in life and your futurity
-how you live into your future.  Together these make up your highest
meanings-what is meaningful semantically in your life, your ideas, your
moral values.  They comprise your moral obligations.  Now when you fail
them, when you fall short of them, you are essentially "selling yourself
short" of your potentials.  Now you feel genuine guilt.  When you fulfill
them and live them, you experience a powerful sense of inner integrity and
the richness of the meaningfulness of life.  And with that you feel
integrity, congruence, and one-of-a-whole.

A healthy conscience both warns and inspires.  It keeps you away from
whatever is self-destructive and it engenders hope for being and living your
best self.  In living a self-actualizing life, conscience moves you to
actualize more and more of your potentials.

Tune into the Neuro-Semantic Channel for the Evening Presentations at NSTT:

Mohamed Tarek has set up the following link for the Neuro-Semantic Youtube
channel: 

https://youtube.com/@NeuroSemantics

You can subscribe to the channel now so that you can see the presentations
when we stream them live.  YouTube will notify them about the live stream if
they are subscribed.  There is no cost for this.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

Executive Director, ISNS

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

meta at acsol.net

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