conscience

The moral sense; the faculty of judging the moral qualities of actions, or of discriminating between right and wrong; particularly applied to one's perception and judgment of the moral qualities of his own conduct, but in a wider sense, denoting a similar application of the standards of morality to the acts of others. The sense of right and wrong inherent in every person by virtue of his existence as a social entity; good conscience being a synonym of equity. In law, especially the moral rule which requires probity, justice, and honest dealing between man and man, as when we say that a bargain is "against conscience" or "unconscionable," or that the price paid for property at a forced sale was so inadequate as to "shock the conscience." This is also the meaning of the term as applied to the jurisdiction and principles of decision of courts of chancery, as in saying that such a court is a "court of conscience," that it proceeds "according to conscience," or that it has cognizance of "matters of conscience." Conscience, courts of. In English law, courts, not of record, constituted by act of parliament in the city of London, and other towns, for the recovery of small debts; otherwise and more commonly called "Courts of Requests." Such courts have been superseded by county courts