Kristin Murry, age 15, of Vancouver, Wash., for her question:

JUST WHAT IS A CONSCIENCE?

A "conscience" is a sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives. It also impels one toward the right action.

Moral consciousness, or sense of right and wrong, has been variously explained by moralists and philosophers. In the history of ethics, the conscience has been looked upon as the rule of a divine power expressing itself in man's judgments, an innate sense of right and wrong resulting from man's unity with the unity of the universe, an inherited intuitive sense involved in the long history of the human race and a set of values derived from the experience of the individual.

Psychologists also differ in their analyses of the nature of conscience. It is variously believed to be an expression of values differing from other expressions of value only in the subject matter involved, a feeling of guilt for known or unknown actions done or not done, the manifestation of a special set of values interjected from the example of parents and teachers and a value structure which essentially defines the personality of the individual.