Conscience Quotes

“Certainty is the enemy of knowledge.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“In general, those who advertise themselves as having superior moral judgment or unique access to moral truth need to be looked at askance. Not infrequently there is great advantage—in money, sex, power, and self-esteem—in setting oneself up as a moral authority. The rest of us can easily be exploited when we acquiesce in these authoritative claims. Scam artists aplenty proclaim themselves as moral gurus, willing to tell the rest of us how our conscience should behave. They can seem authoritative because they are especially charismatic or especially spiritual or especially firm in their convictions.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“It is tempting to believe that our conscience can be tapped to deliver universal moral truths, and that as long as we heed our conscience, our choice will indeed be the morally right choice. The uncomfortable fact that has to be reckoned with, however, is this: conscientious people frequently differ on what their conscience bids them do, and hence differ in their choices.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“I may long for certainty, but I have to live with doing the best I can.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“Were I a solitary creature like a salamander, none of this would trouble me. I would have no moral conflicts, no social conscience. I would feed and mate and lay my eggs. I would not fret about other salamanders, not even those hatching from my very own eggs. I would see to my own needs, and care not a whit for others. But I am a mammal, and like other mammals, I have a social brain. I am wired to care, especially about those I am attached to.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“Certainty about one’s moral stance might be soothing, but it tends to blinker us to damage we are about to cause.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“Heartfelt conviction is not, alas, a guarantee of moral decency.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“Science itself does not adjudicate on moral values. When all available facts are in, we may still face the questions “What should we do?”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“Living in a community normally boosts one’s chances of surviving and thriving. We can share food and huddle against the cold; we can organize to attack prey or to defend each other against invaders.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“If our sociality motivates caring for others, it is also true that we are given to hate. We humans regularly derive pleasure from hating those we consider outsiders. We tend to find hating energizing.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“The first and most basic evolutionary point is that the primary targets and beneficiaries of sociality are the offspring. Why? Because mammalian babies are immature at birth and will certainly die without care. Baby turtles, after hatching from their eggs, immediately dig their way up out of the sand, scuttle down to the water, and begin to look for food. No parents are anywhere close by, nor are any needed.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“All animals must have the basic circuitry for self-care, or they will fail to survive long enough to reproduce. In the evolution of the mammalian brain, the range of myself was extended to include my babies.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“Woolly as it is, the best advice is perhaps to allow yourself broad life experience and exposure to the human condition in all its beauty and horror. Do your best, but even then you will make mistakes.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition

“Martin Luther confidently claimed that the Holy Spirit writes the moral truths on our conscience. Free of all misgivings, Luther claimed that the assertions of the Holy Spirit “are more sure and certain than life itself and all experience.” 9 Realism intervenes: different devout hearts often deliver opposite moral assertions.”
― Patricia S. Churchland, Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition