Conscience ...is not an unchangeable absolute. One dictionary definition, although
not covering all the usages of the term, presents the common understanding of
the word "conscience" as "the sense of right and wrong as
regards things for which one is responsible; the faculty or principle which
pronounces upon the moral quality of one's actions or motives, approving the
right and condemning the wrong".
The
functioning of one's conscience, then, depends upon one's understanding of
right and wrong; the conscience of one person may be established upon a
disinterested striving after truth and justice, while that of another may rest
on an unthinking predisposition to act in accordance with that pattern of
standards, principles and prohibitions which is a product of his social
environment. Conscience, therefore, can serve either as a bulwark of an upright
character or can represent an accumulation of prejudices learned from one's
forebears or absorbed from a limited social code. (From a letter dated 8
February 1998 written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an
individual believer)
