Many consider conscience to be one of the most important and
fundamental qualities that distinguishes humans from animals and
machines, but to this day it remains a largely unknowable concept.
What is conscience? Is it a product of our biological roots, as
Darwin thought, or is it a purely social invention? If so, how did
it come to be? Beginning in ancient Egypt, Martin van Creveld
explores conscience throughout history, ranging across numerous
subjects from human rights to health. Along the way van Creveld
considers the evolution of conscience in its myriad, occasionally
strange and ever surprising permutations. The book examines the Old
Testament, which - erroneously, it turns out - is normally seen as
the fountainhead from which the Western idea of conscience sprang.
As we journey through the ages, we meet Antigone, the first person
on record to speak explicitly of conscience, and encounter the
philosophers Zeno, Cicero and Seneca; outstanding Christian
thinkers such as St Paul, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and, above all,
Martin Luther; and modern intellectual giants such as Machiavelli,
Rousseau, Kant, Hegel,Nietzsche and Freud. Individual chapters are
devoted to Japan, China and the Nazis, as well as the most recent
discoveries in robotics and neuroscience. The book concludes by
arguing that the claims of the artificial intelligence community
notwithstanding, we are still no closer to understanding the nature
of conscience. As one computer expert has said, we shall probably
build machines able to mimic conscience before we know what it
really is.
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