APPRAISING THE CONDITIONS OF UNIVERSAL MORALITY

The hub of our discussion of the conditions of universal morality is predicated upon the fact that the argument that a society's social life can only be measured by the peculiarities of its culture cannot lead us too far in our bid to improve human lives and our social condition. In other words, it is a way of showing that there are certain elements of human life, both physical and social, the existence of which creates the atmosphere for the evolution of cross-cultural values and by which we can appraise values that will lead to the development of human society. The call for a context-bound conception of morality has lost much of its hold in view of the interlocking network of our contemporary life. We also observed, while explaining the distinction between absolution and universalism, that morality needs not be absolute in order to be universal. This, we did by explicating the conditions for the existence of universal morality across cultures. (Humanities Review: 2002 2(1): 123-133)