Summary: Is our conscience that voice inside our head, telling us what to do? Is there only one voice? How can we tell which voice is our conscience and which is the little devil on our shoulder? Can meditation help us hear the right voice? Is our conscience a voice in our head or a feeling in our gut? Is our conscience culturally acquired or innately present? When Huck Finn was running away with his slave, Jim, what was his conscience saying? Was it a reliable guide? Is our conscience a passive resource to be consulted or an active agent that intrudes itself upon us? Rather than an instrument providing an answer, could it be just an innate drive to grapple with the question? Are pangs of guilt a reliable indicator of wrong-doing? Does our conscience speak to us on multiple levels? Which is more reliable, our gut, our heart, or our head? How do we reconcile these multiple "voices" with the fact that we are really just one being? How does empathy relate to conscience? How universal is the conscience? Why do some individual get different answers from their conscience than someone else in the same situation? To what extent is our conscience programmed by our upbringing and our culture? Does the conscience mature with life experience? Are there universal stages of development for the conscience? Is our current narcissistic society and culture of rudeness a result of a lack of proper moral or ethical nurturing? Join citizen philosophers Billie Lagerwerff, David Rood, Deborah Martin, George Garrett, John Tytus, Steven Stokes and myself in this stimulating and insightful discussion. Music provided by David Rood.
