Final answer:
The conscience serves as a guide in moral dilemmas, helping to select the most pressing duty. Philosophical and empirical studies offer insights into its role, suggesting that conscience is influenced by internalized values, reason, and possibly a shared moral intuition that transcends individual beliefs.
Step-by-step explanation:
The role of conscience when faced with a moral dilemma is to serve as a guide, often informed by one's moral compass, which represents internalized moral values. In complex situations where we face conflicting duties, conscience acts as a referee, helping to determine which duty is more pressing or immediate.
In the face of such dilemmas, it could be challenging to discern the correct course of action. For instance, choosing between telling the truth or avoiding harm to someone can put perfect duties in conflict. The conscience, influenced by habitual convictions and reason, helps balance such competing interests.
Philosophical perspectives further diversify our understanding of conscience's role. For some thinkers, conscience could be the expression of a divine principle, while for others, it is a construct that arises from social instincts like sympathy, potentially explainable through concepts like natural selection.
Empirical studies, such as web-based moral sense tests, show that people with various backgrounds, including religious beliefs and atheism, have similar responses to moral dilemmas, suggesting a common moral intuition or conscience that transcends individual beliefs.
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