In the Zulu culture to have unembeza (conscience) is the highest act of a virtuous person. In fact, in the Zulu language unembeza is such a strong concept that it goes even beyond just wrong and right, its the very essence of humanity. It is not just a subjective agent which is sometimes the key criticism of the Western understanding of conscience. The absence of unembeza is in fact an absence of the fundamental principle that makes a person a person.