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 fulfil 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, congrence, 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.