Conscience and values
The normative values
For every human being, what is considered reality according to his or her knowledge and conviction is absolutely authoritative. This unconditional standard is the conscience. (...) That is why everyone acts against his own conviction if he acts contrary to the harmony of will and ought, i.e. of purposeful self-interest and harmonious understanding of meaning (...), i.e. if he behaves contrary to meaning. Whoever behaves contrary to meaning, whoever acts against his conviction, must critically judge or condemn himself. Because no human being can escape this self-criticism, i.e. the judgement of his conscience, the "remorse of conscience", that is why the attitude, the orientation towards meaning, belongs to the essence of the human being. (Max Lüscher)
The four basic feelings of self — inner satisfaction, self-esteem, self-confidence, inner freedom regulate all areas of human existence through the law of functional unity. Based on the categorical definition of the self-feelings and their relations, regulative values can be derived which are a guarantee for humanity and thus as well for the meaningfulness of human action. Each sense of self is determined by three categories, whereby two senses of self correspond to each other in one category. Each of these categorical correspondences corresponds exactly to an ethical value.
Self-confidence and self-esteem coincide in one category. They both have a “directive” aspect, whereby “directive”, considering the other two categories of self-confidence, shows itself as a leading attitude. In contrast, “directive” appears as steadfastness in conjunction with the other categories of self-esteem. Together, the two attitudes of “leadership” and “steadfastness” form the prerequisite for the normative value of “responsibility”.
The six normative values of ethics emerge from the categorical derivation of the four self-feelings:
Tolerance — responsibility — sincerity — open-mindedness — benevolence — justice.
As normative values, they regulate the equal weight of self-feelings. This regulation process accompanies all actions and decisions without us being aware of it. Disturbances that arise from interactions with our environment are controlled by the self-regulation process.
If one or more of the self-feelings is disturbed or if we find ourselves in a conflict situation, the balance of the inner psychological forces begins to waver. In any case, the regulatory system steers towards relative stability and creates an apparent “balance”. As a result, the self-feelings become dysfunctional. Thus, our thinking and feeling can become contradictory, our speech ambiguous, our behavior manipulative, and so on. If, for example, self-esteem and self-confidence are disturbed, the person affected cannot take on any real responsibility, he or she behaves in a lavish or cowering manner.
If these disorders become entrenched, manipulative structures develop. We play a role; wear a mask; feel and experience what we tell ourselves or are highly impressionable etc.
Based on psycho-logic, all actions can be checked in the opposite way for the values on which they are based and thus for the unconscious motivations. This applies to both private and professional actions, to individual and institutional actions.
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