I know the basic answer. Conscience is that little voice that tells you if something is right or wrong. And I know that the Christian view (at least I think) is that everyone has a God-given conscience that if they'd only listen to it, they'd know the difference between right and wrong.
But I wonder if the waters get muddied above that basic level. Example, some people in the Family were breaking up marriages and sleeping with other peoples wives and the kids suffered, yet they thought they did it with a pure heart and it was in love and so it was OK. Yet thee same poeple got horribly convicted over and wrote confessions that they ate a little white sugar. Seems like their wrong/right conscience was badly messed up.
And a lot of us wanted to leave the Family but were so "convicted" that we would be backsliding. We were convinced that God would be angry and our conscience wouldn't let us leave. I guess just cause something is broken doesn't mean the original doesn't work, but it still seems to me that people almost have different consciences about what is right and wrong and it's not necessarily some automatic built-in thing in every heart that always rings true at ground level. I think consciences can get so bad that they just can't give a true reading any more.
That's what we need outside rules like the Bible and society for. To help rewire our minds and consciences.