Perhaps of all of our sources of direction or guidance, our consciences receive the highest regard and trust. In many ways, we attempt to obey our consciences without fail. We hold our consciences to be the absolute truth that acts as a ground for our actions and beliefs. But what is a conscience and where does it come from? Merriam-Webster's English Dicti

"By virtue of this endowment (conscience), all men automatically and intuitively know right from wrong and are encouraged and enticed to do what is right. . . it is an inborn consciousness or sense of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one's conduct, intentions, and character along with an instinctive feeling or obligation to do right or be good." (p 156)

In man's search for direction and guidance, he has become biased in favor of those ideas that seem to give us a clear-cut outline of where to go and what to do. The popular view of the conscience as an absolute guide for our choices is premature and even wishful thinking. If only things were layed out so well for us. We do not have enough evidence to show that we can trust our consciences and we have plenty of evidence to mame us a bit reluctant to give our trust to ourselves. The importance of having a conscience and listening to one's thoughts is very significant, but can become dangerous when one begins to disregard their reason and other peoples welfare to follow what seems to be right for oneself at a particular time. The process of making a choice that may effect another person must be taken slowly and carefully.

When I was a boy at a very young age, I was shopping with my mother at a local grocery store. My interpretation of what went on when we went to the shopping mart was that we were picking up supplies and food for free. I just assumed that it was that way. I had no knowledge of money and how it was used. It just made sense to me that food was free. Why would someone make us pay for something we need? This was my reasoning and it led to some problems. For one thing, I would reach out my hand from the cart and grab anything that looked neat and placed it with the rest of the supplies without my mother noticing, which began to add up in dollars after a few items. But what was a larger problem was the day I was caught by an emplayee stealing a candy bar. I picked it off of the shelf and began to eat it. I had no understanding of stealing. In my little world, people just shared. My conscience was clear of any guilt whatsoever and it was still wrong. This example of wrong without feeling guilty may be a bit silly, but it works as a perfect analogy of any other case that is similar. But in all cases, the characteristics are the same. A wrong is commited in the presence of one's conscience and the act is interpretted as good or alright. In light of these and countless other examples, it is safe to say that our consciences are not an accurate source of direction for what it right and wrong. Our consciences are influenced and even created by our environment and experiences.

In "Group Minds," novelist and essayinst Doris Lessing illustrates the "very flattering portrait" with which we have identified ourselves. what she is speaking of is the way in which we veiw ourselves as individuals with separate thinking minds, dependent from our peers and from aut

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Approximate Word count = 2006
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)