Abstract

Humans do not choose to be cognitive, have a conscience, or be free. Humans are cognitive, have a conscience, and are free. If humans are to take responsibility for choices made, then it is imperative to give reasons as to why we believe in the self, freedom, and morals. Here, an attempt is made to establish the relationship between consciousness, conscience, freedom, and morality. This article posits the need to accept the conscious self as the basis for the individual mind and freedom. The conscious self is understood as an irreducible neural emergent. It is argued that while the conscious and cognizant self is related to neural activity, the self is irreducible and undetectable. The fact that anesthetics can temporally negate the conscious self implies that there is a neural connection. However, the fact that a cloned being can have a different “self” implies that the “self” has a neural connection but is irreducible. We can duplicate the body with consciousness but cannot duplicate the same conscious self. The conscious self, like gravity, is real but invisible. Acceptance of the cognitive self provides the basis for the moral and volitional self. The conscious self and the “freedom of the self” are fundamental, without which the cognitive self would be a petrified state of being. Humans are moral not because we share the same values, but because we share the same neural base to ascribe notions of right and wrong to what we believe to be just, good and true. Establishing self-evident truths is to attest to moral rightness or wrongness. It is concluded that humans “were” moral, “are” moral, and “will remain” moral even if we do not agree on what is right, just, good, and legal. To be moral is either to subscribe to what is rational or to ascribe rationale to what we hold as right, good, just, and legal. This study revisits ideas expressed by Plato, Aristotle, Mill, Sartre, Kant, Kierkegaard, David Rosenthal, Ned Block, David Chalmers, and Joshua Greene on the grounds or basis of morals.