Can you turn off your conscience?

[slobake]

I have done it before. The trick is to keep ignoring that inner voice that says what I am doing is wrong. If I do it enough that voice gets weaker and weaker.
For instance, when I was younger I would exaggerate things to make myself look better. As time went on I got to a point where I was telling outright lies about myself. Eventually I started believing some of those things myself. Even today I sometimes catch myself starting to tell some old fable and realize what I am saying is not true.
Doing better these days with this ( do you believe that? ). Not making up new stories but it can be humiliating to admit to those close to me that something I have been saying for years is not true.
Of course there are other ways to turn off my conscience but this is not the place to confess all my faults.
Then there are folks on both ends of the spectrum. Some are sociopaths and seem to have no conscience at all. I do my best to love those people from a safe distance.
Others struggle with things that maybe we shouldn't. Take homeless people for instance. I can't help out every person that is struggling. It is really tough but I have to pick and choose. I beat myself up for it when I know intellectually that I shouldn't. Don't even know if that is my conscience or just a nagging voice of accusation that I need to tell to shut up.
So there you have it and NO I don't feel guilty for hating tuna noodle casserole.

 

[bholder]

I turned mine off for years, for a price, in order to keep gainful employment in corporate America. No more. Cost me my career, though not my job. Now debating whether it was worth the cost. 41 years water under the bridge, trying to buy my soul back on the installment plan...

 

[Alkali Ike]

I think most of us selectively turn off (ignore) our conscience from time to time. There are degrees to this. For example my conscience will not allow me to just ignore a dog locked in a hot car. But I'm not too worried about that $50 income I might have forgotten to declare to the IRS that would require filing an amended return.

 

[Pilgrim]

I can't. I can still clearly think of an event where I acted poorly at age 12, and another at age 55. In both cases I feel badly every time they come to mind. Neither was a major transgression, but in the first case I embarrassed myself and my parents, and in the second my poor judgment lead to the death of a family cat.

I think the key is I learned later just how poorly I acted, and my conscience is troubled by those acts.

Of course, there are probably many other things that I SHOULD feel badly about, but those are the ones which always come back to me.

 

[hbarcat]

I can't. I once worked as a car salesman for a major dealership where we were mandated by the owner to maintain a high ethical standard at all times, especially regarding the integrity of our statements. If any of us ever lied to a customer to make a sale, we would be summarily fired because they knew that reputation is everything.

Yet, I found that there is something fundamentally unethical about high pressure sales tactics. Even if you're completely honest with your customers and never say anything that's factually incorrect, the sales process itself (they paid to send me to sales school) requires that the salesperson intentionally manipulate the thoughts and emotions of the customer in order to make them more amenable to buying a car.

Within only a few months, I learned how to read a customer's behaviors and attitudes and use that information to fabricate a sales pitch on the fly that was designed to override any skepticism they might have and replace it with a generally happy and satisfied feeling about the product and also the overall conditions of the sale.

I was surprised how easy it is to do given only a little practice, particularly at just how much actual difference there is between passive selling and active (high pressure) selling. An experienced salesman who pushes his customers through the sales process will sell 2x - 3x as many cars as one who doesn't.

Frankly, I didn't feel comfortable manipulating people's minds that way, so I quit.

 

[MJ5150]

We can choose to ignore our conscience, but I do not think it is possible to turn it off.

-Mike

 

[StereoPlayer]

I can't. I once worked as a car salesman for a major dealership where we were mandated by the owner to maintain a high ethical standard at all times, especially regarding the integrity of our statements. If any of us ever lied to a customer to make a sale, we would be summarily fired because they knew that reputation is everything.

Yet, I found that there is something fundamentally unethical about high pressure sales tactics. Even if you're completely honest with your customers and never say anything that's factually incorrect, the sales process itself (they paid to send me to sales school) requires that the salesperson intentionally manipulate the thoughts and emotions of the customer in order to make them more amenable to buying a car.

Within only a few months, I learned how to read a customer's behaviors and attitudes and use that information to fabricate a sales pitch on the fly that was designed to override any skepticism they might have and replace it with a generally happy and satisfied feeling about the product and also the overall conditions of the sale.

I was surprised how easy it is to do given only a little practice, particularly at just how much actual difference there is between passive selling and active (high pressure) selling. An experienced salesman who pushes his customers through the sales process will sell 2x - 3x as many cars as one who doesn't.

Frankly, I didn't feel comfortable manipulating people's minds that way, so I quit.

 

[Tom Bomb]

Comes a time.​

 

[Funky Ghost]

We can choose to ignore our conscience, but I do not think it is possible to turn it off.

-Mike

This. I have an inner dialog usually, but I am always aware and conscious of my choices inasmuch-as any of us are.

 

[JRA]

if you have one (conscience) i think you can turn it off. if you can't, then you have to be good at compartmentalization because in the name of survival: deception is without conscience, right? and it's better to be able to turn it off than not to have one when you should be turning it on!

historically: not being able to turn it off = 'neurotic' dispositions/adaptations.

also, IMO: your version of "conscience" is related to your version of consciousness which is related to your version of 'independence' from your version of authority.*

* authority = e.g., god, cops, robbers, salesmen, checkout girl, any obligation, yada yada, etc......

 

[DrThumpenstein]

Some people have a very well-developed conscience, others, not so much. Sociopaths and psychopaths do not have a normally developed sense of conscience. They lack empathy, concern, or consideration for others and feel no compulsion to operate according to the norms of society. Cheating, stealing, manipulation, even violence without remorse are common behaviors in such people.

That's a whole different thing than wishing you had the resources to help every homeless person.

 

[Tom Bomb]

They can turn it off.​

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

If I turned off my conscience, how would I turn it back on?

 

[Alkali Ike]

If we can't turn off our conscience, how is it possible to ignore every homeless person we encounter without giving each of them a couple dollars or even spare change. Most of us could afford to do this but we choose not to.

(Granted the definition of homeless is open to discussion)

We can't individually fix every problem.

Edit: I see someone already used the homeless example.

 

[slobake]

I think most of us selectively turn off (ignore) our conscience from time to time. There are degrees to this. For example my conscience will not allow me to just ignore a dog locked in a hot car. But I'm not too worried about that $50 income I might have forgotten to declare to the IRS that would require filing an amended return.

Psst, be careful what you say here, you don't know who is watching.

 

[slobake]

I can't. I can still clearly think of an event where I acted poorly at age 12, and another at age 55. In both cases I feel badly every time they come to mind. Neither was a major transgression, but in the first case I embarrassed myself and my parents, and in the second my poor judgment lead to the death of a family cat.

I think the key is I learned later just how poorly I acted, and my conscience is troubled by those acts.

Of course, there are probably many other things that I SHOULD feel badly about, but those are the ones which always come back to me.

Reminds of the "cat haters thread" I started here. Not my best move and it got ugly.

 

[slobake]

We can choose to ignore our conscience, but I do not think it is possible to turn it off.

-Mike

You may be right but I believe you can bury it pretty deep and reduce the voice of our conscience to a whisper. It does seem like some people have turned it off , but I am not in their head.

 

[StereoPlayer]

My
conscience has a
conscience.

 

[shadowtippy]

I don't know about turning it off but I have ignored it at times to achieve a desired outcome. I do have regrets about most, if not all, of those times.

 

[Funky Ghost]

I don't know about turning it off but I have ignored it at times to achieve a desired outcome. I do have regrets about most, if not all, of those times.

Yeah, I think "turning off" is not the same as "acceptable outcome". As is the case with all choices, there is a hierarchy that we each have, which is highly personalize, that we adhere to. Call it a moral code if that pleases you. In the case of deviant personalities, they also operate in this frame as well, it's just the assignation of their tiers is based according to how they perceive their actions. The villain rarely perceives themselves as such. Usually, they perceive what they do as acting towards a greater good. There are exceptions, of course. Some are evil and revel in it.