Post von Ulf Posé!

This is good ethical stuff, but both dogmatic and muddled. It seems that three types of conscience are defined, moral, functional and conventional. But these are not clearly separated. Also there are „bad conscience“ and „punishing conscience“ presumably just sub-categories of the main three?
Perhaps there are people who are lumbered with a defined moral conscience from an early age as stated, but I at least am not like that. Particularly in matters of sex, there are things that made me feel guilty, but are now no problem, and vice versa. Perhaps my upbringing was unusually liberal.
Similarly, rules of a firm or family were for me always something to follow in normal situations, if only due to common sense. Seriously misleading a customer as instructed was something I only did once, and determined never to do again. On the other hand, I occasionally took a pencil for my private use, although that is punishable, arguing to myself that the firm certainly got them cheaper than I could. I certainly saw it as right for my firm to demand honest work from me, as long as I was being paid, (and even slightly longer). Anyone whose father (or mother) has run a small firm must surely feel the same.
The conventional (sittlich) conscience is for me the most problematic. To what extent should Germany help worse run countries with their financial problems? In the short and medium term, considerable help is beneficial to almost all. Those helped (real help) obviously benefit. Germany also keeps its markets open, has nicer places to go on holiday, and can improve everything by organising better management in the countries concerned. But exponential growth cannot last for ever, and the longer it continues, the worse the crash may be. Anyway, competition is the main (?) „driving force“ of evolution, which has got us to our current happy (?) situation, so perhaps we should not interfere with it. As I pointed out at length, long ago in this blog, it is hardly possible to find an ethical base for this conscience, which is more solid than what we learnt at mother’s knee.
The division of conscience into three parts reminds me of Cesar’s division of Gaul. It is now accepted that Cesar made this up to structure his book, and help his propaganda. Can Ulf give references to scientific papers supporting his structuring, e.g. via brain scans?