Moral sense

There seem to be continuous discussions about whether there is a universal sense of right and wrong ( usually more discussions if there is a review in The New YorK Times):
http://scienceblogs.com/transcript/2006/09/the_moral_instinct.php
There seems to be universal sense of right and wrong ( though the content may be different for different groups. What is right for Bush and many Americans does not seem right to me):
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10022-physical-washing-may-help-clean-your-conscience.html
An excerpt:
"Those who were given an opportunity to wash their hands after recalling incidents of immoral behaviour showed signs of a clearer conscious than those who had not washed."
Do they mean Conscience?
"This final experiment establishes a link between moral and physical cleanliness, says Philip Tetlock, a psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley, US, who was not involved in the study.

“When you have been associated with something immoral, there are two ways you can cleanse yourself – engaging in moral behaviour or physically cleaning yourself,” Tetlock says. “We talk about things being dirty, slimy, or rotten. A lot of people would say those are just metaphors, but this study shows that there is a connection on a visceral level.”"
What about consciousness? I have my own doubts. Just like Russell's paradox in set theory, there may be questions that one cannot ask in a system.