Conscience - Self-Control
I just read 'The Sociopath Next Door' by Martha Stout. It is a very good book, it is mainly about the lack of a conscience as a core problem, when people suffer from the ruthless behavior of sociopaths.
But I do not really agree with the last chapter, where Stout connects the concept of a conscience too much to religion. She talks about conscience as an emotion, and somehow seems to assume, that everybody knows it well enough to make any further look at it obsolete.
I think that conscience needs to be seen in the wider context of self-control. Self-control can be considered as a strength of constraint, that is stronger than any urge, wish, instinct, temptation to do something, that is evaluated as not desirable. Self-control can be extrinsically motivated by the consequences, or intrinsically by the effect upon self-respect and self-esteem.
The behavior under constraint can be either something only being detrimental for the individual himself, or it can be derived from the individual's values guiding his judgement of what is right or wrong in how to treat others. In this sense, the joy of gained self-esteem, when doing, what is right, and the pain of damaged self-esteem, when doing, what is wrong, can be the emotion, that is called conscience.
But the individual's sense for right or wrong can come from very different sources. It starts with the super-ego, that puts rules into the child's head, then religious upbringing and the culture influences it too. That is it all for many people.
But rational people can decide on a fair balance of giving and receiving, on a tit-for-tat strategy, and when they feel good in their self-esteem about themselves by following it, and feel bad otherwise, then they can have a conscience, that is independent from any religion.
