What is the ability to know the difference between right and wrong?

Answer 1

Righteousness; it transcends the realm of human psychology. It is simply God's view of a particular situation.
Conscience, it is the ability to know the difference between right and wrong, or good and evil.

Answer 2

Right and wrong are completely arbitrary points in society, and can be entirely different - polar opposites in fact - if you simply cross the border to Another Country.

Within each society, right and wrong are concepts learnt throughout life by experience. You know something is wrong because you are taught that it is, and because you will feel the wrongness inherent in some actions. Likewise, you know something is right because you are taught that as well, although there is often an emotional and perhaps physical connection between "doing right" and "knowing you did right".

The most basic ideas of right and wrong stem from a basic principle: 'right' is something that is beneficial to an organism or group, and wrong is something malevolent to that organism or group. Doing right, therefore, means an action which leads to that thing becoming better able to live or work or otherwise perform other actions. Wrong is the opposite; an action which leads to decreasing that thing's ability to live or do.

Another answer:

We know the difference between right and wrong, because our Creator has told us in His Commandments.

The controversy about it all came into existence, however, when the god of this world confused the issue in the hearts and minds of the first two people in the Garden of Eden; when he exposed in them the true selfish, rebellious nature of the flesh; and convinced them that their Creator couldn't be trusted -- and that they had minds of their own to make such decisions, that they were their own gods and "the captains of their own destinies."

"'God knows that your eyes will be opened when you eat it. You will become just like God, knowing everything, both good and evil.'" (Gen.3:5 NLT New Living Translation)

The Truth is that God never left it up to man to decide what is right and wrong. He has told us what they are. Man's choice has never been to make that decision. His choice has always been "whether or not he would OBEY THE VOICE OF HIS CREATOR"... to choose whether or not he will LIVE or DIE!

"'Today I have GIVEN YOU THE CHOICEbetween Life and Death, between Blessings and Cursings. I call on heaven and earth to witness THE CHOICE YOU MAKE. Oh, that you would CHOOSE LIFE, that you and your descendants might live! CHOOSE TO LOVE THE LORD your God and to OBEY HIM and commit yourself to Him, for HE IS YOUR LIFE. Then you will live long in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.'" (Deut.30:19-20 NLT)

Answer 3

Almost all religions provide some guidance about right and wrong, including the Christian religion. Christians believe that all they need in order to live as good people is a knowledge of The Bible, but actually no one ever reads through the Bible whenever they intend to make important moral decisions. The evidence is that Christians are no less likely to be convicted of criminal offences than are non-Christians. In fact, the Bible can actually be used to 'prove' that what is unethical is 'right', if that is what the person wishes to believe. For example, the Bible was used as evidence in support of slavery in previous generations, but now seen as disapproving of it.

So the question is how you could really know right from wrong. The answer is that ethics, when taught as a secular subject looks for an absolute definition of morality, independent of religious tradition. By studying secular ethics, people can know that slavery is wrong, regardless of the Old Testament or what New Testament authors like St Paul may have said. Even complex questions of right and wrong that are often outside the scope of the scriptures, can be examined and an optimum approach identified.