How did we get a conscience? Where did the so-called Law of Human Nature come from?

Question

Asimov says he does not need God to do good because (i) he has a conscience and (ii) he fears civil punishment. Conscience: the Law of Human Nature; the Rule of Decent Behavior; Moral Law; the Rule of Right and Wrong. Where did we get that?

Nice, Capernaum. :o) I wondered if someone would quote C.S. Lewis. As I pondered this question myself, I found purpose in God's instruction to Adam and Eve in the garden that they might eat of any tree but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, knowing full well they would disobey. And because of their disobedience, not because of the fruit of the tree per se, they discovered that knowledge, thus they began to understand the concept of "Right" and "Wrong", reaped the consequences of their actions for "doing wrong", and were imbued with a "conscience" - and from that point on, God began to slowly unfold his ultimate plan. Didn't he just? :o)

Answer 1

"The Law of Human Nature, or of Right and Wrong, must be something above and beyond the actual facts of human behaviour. In this case, besides the actual facts, you have something else---a real law which we did not invent and which we know we ought to obey." - C.S. Lewis

Answer 2

Conscience and other aspects of the human psyche are based on logic. Logic dictates that the only productive violence is that of self defense since it supports self preservation. Likewise natural selection, the logical pattern of self preservation, validates what we would call "good behavior" as beneficial to our well being in that it does not inspire a recoil from others.

Answer 3

evolution my dear, evolution. all the traits, attributes, emotions, and other distinguishing characteristics displayed by humans, were passed on genetically one after another from our ancestors in the deep past all the way to the current model human beings now living together. first with family, then extended family, then close kin, then villages, then chiefdoms, then cities, then states, then countries. certain behaviors that did not enhance one's chances of passing on one's genes, like say, lying, cheating, stealing, murder, etc., were, over millions of years, rooted out and stopped (there are and have always been, exceptions to this of course). eventually, laws were enacted to codify this "pact" between groups to insure fairness and the CONSCIENCE developed as a mechanism of personal culpability; you KNOW your doing something wrong, and you either heed this self-warning, or you don't. you see, the process of evolution does not simply apply to biology, it applies to EVERYTHING...

Answer 4

No conscience, no procreation. Simple as that.


Intelligent species need to "know" that it is wrong to kill for no reason, i.e. a conscience that we've evolved into being kind, doing nice things, etc....

It makes our society work better and helps us procreate.

Answer 5

human nature for the survival of a species and your own genes, when you are nice to people are you being that way because you think God wants you to or because they'll be nice back, might help you in the future, potential mates

Answer 6

some people could argue that our "experience of right and incorrect" is God pulling at your heart, or soul telling us to no longer do something or making us experience undesirable for something that we already did. What i know is that Yahweh, or God in a historic experience replaced into initially certainly one of the historical Babylonian gods who asked the Jewish people to persist with him and no different, and in replace he might safeguard them.

Answer 7

Where did we get our will to survive? Or how about our desire to procreate? Did they all come from the same place?

Answer 8

We got it from God.

Answer 9

god is our conscience...