Conscience is a cognitive process that elicits emotion
and rational associations based on an individual’s moral
philosophy or value system. Conscience stands in contrast
to elicited emotion or thought due to associations
based on immediate sensory perceptions and reflexive
responses, as in sympathetic central nervous system
responses. In common terms, conscience is often
described as leading to feelings of remorse when
a person commits an act that conflicts with their
moral values. The extent to which conscience
informs moral judgment before an action and
whether such moral judgments are or should
be based on reason has occasioned debate
through much of modern history between
theories of basics in ethic of human life in
juxtaposition to the theories of romanticism
and other reactionary movements after
the end of the Middle Ages.

Religious views of conscience usually see it as
linked to a morality inherent in all humans,
to a beneficent universe and/or to divinity.
The diverse ritualistic, mythical, doctrinal,
legal, institutional and material features of
religion may not necessarily cohere with experiential,
emotive, spiritual or contemplative considerations
about the origin and operation of conscience.[1]
Common secular or scientific views regard the
capacity for conscience as probably genetically
determined, with its subject probably learned or
imprinted as part of a culture.[2]