However, as we perceive SoA and SoR as real, this feeling makes us responsible for determining our moral rules and our compliance with the law ( Kahn, 1992). We know from psychology and cognitive neurosciences that moral judgment and intentional behaviour is the result of emotions, affects and rational
reasoning selleck compound ability ( Greene & Haidt, 2002). TBM suggests that decision-making and behaviour are the predictable responses to a stimulus chosen from a collection of individual memories sorted by the unconscious mind. The model explains how people falsely believe that they grow up freely and autonomously albeit with cultural restrictions imposed by the society and the affective and empathic relationships find more that develop between them and their environment. Since FW illusion is a sort of unconscious error, one is unable to enter into a ‘scientific’ discussion about it. This belief in FW exists prior to other cognitive process that attempts to disprove it, and thus, TBM will be unable to change the opinion of any individual. However, because laws are acceptable only if their ‘meaning’ is understood, we can argue that ‘education and scholarship’ will remain the root
of civilisation. Analysing our theory, we can see that action outcomes and incentives, such as blame and reward, are essential for the conscious mind to learn correct actions. For actions with ethical implications we may consider the motivational incentives of guilt. Feeling guilty may or may not determine an affective state by for which one learns how an ethical action should be performed in the future. Moral rules, which are essential for our collective survival, are therefore the product of natural selection. Through socialisation children learn the rules and standards of behaviour are impressed on their memory.
This collection of memories could function as a reference library to be utilised by the individual unconscious mind for future actions (point 1 in TBM). Obsessive–compulsive disorder, perpetuated by guilt symptoms that are not easily dispelled, was described by Freud (1929) as the result of a complex struggle of “Ego” against threats from the external world (nature and society), the instinctive demands of “Id” and the critical and moralizing demands of “Super-ego”. A malignant super-ego might also be the result of too lenient parenting. Thus, formal education together with familiar and social environments are essential for the imprinting of these moral values. We introduced this paper with a quote for Wegner’s model on the arousal of FW illusion and apparent mental causation of voluntary action (Wegner, 2002). This model (WWM) originated from an earlier work with Weathley (Wegner & Wheatley, 1999). The main differences between WWM and TBM are in the fundamentals by which a voluntary action is described or in the specific timing of events.