Influence of the Unconscious

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(a) What implications does this have for morals and ethics?

(1) Research was conducted to explain morality and ethics as having a foundation in the biological mechanisms of human functioning. For instance, "The brain receives a vast array of inputs or signs about the environment through various kinds of sensory neurons; it also receives a vast array of inputs from the rest of the body...." (i.e., hormones or neurotransmitters)—that mean pain or hunger or fear or sexual attraction; it then integrates this information and oversees the resultant responses that we call emotional behavior (Goodenough, & Deacon, 2003, pp., 805-806).
(2) These semiotic feats are referred to as brain-based awareness based on a sensory system that when stimulated make synaptic connections in the brain to produce neural pathways that encode emotions, instincts and memories Goodenough, & Deacon (pp. 805- 806)
(3) experiences are applied to traits, thus the human being has unconsciously evolved through a biological lineage of brain awareness and social lineages, "we are uniquely aware if what it feels like to be prosocial, and to be moral. This moral experience—that undergirds and motivates the actions of a moral person (pp. 814-815).
(4) Freud's perception of unconsciousness and consciousness was based on the view that both the ego and super-ego operated within consciousness and unconsciousness. The id was viewed as strictly unconscious. Given that the ego originates and develops from the id, most of mental activity occurs on the level of unconsciousness.
(5) Freud believed that images and thoughts surface to the level of preconscious awareness. On this basis, the ego can obtain material and bring it to conscious. Freudian thoughts on the unconscious can be linked to morality in critical thinking that takes place in decision making. For instance, "Morality and moral reasoning affect decision making. For example, with recent attention given to neuroscience, moral factors such as emotions, and reasoning are considered helpful framework for understanding the interplay between morality and human decision making (Knabb, Welsh, Ziebell, & Reimer, 2009).

(6) Each thought, each idea once created or experienced is forever stored in unconsciousness unless it can gain access to the preconscious thereby becoming a possibility for consciousness. This includes everyday experiences that eventually descend into latency including childhood memories, and even archaic memory-traces from past generations that brought individuals through a genetic heritage (One on nature, pp. 76-77).

(b) Address the issue of responsibility - for example, what implications does this have for acting-out or criminal behavior?

(1) Criminality and morality has to do with factors in the environment and the influence on the children (Cullingford, Cedric, Morrison, 1997). There is a tension between the general environmental circumstances and the relationships that occur with parents, grandparents and other siblings (Knabb et al., 2009. They present research to suggest that evolutionary changes to the prefrontal cortex allowed human morality to emerge (e.g., Moll and colleagues (2005 as cited in Knabb, Welsh, Ziebell, & Reimer, 2009) define morality as ''the sets of customs and values that are embraced by a cultural group to guide social conduct, a view that does not assume the existence of absolute moral values'' (p. 799).
(2) Thus, Ideas of right and wrong have been a part of societies since the beginning of ...