Abstract

It is worth beginning any discussion of the trends of universalization and particularization of value-normative systems with some refl ections on theory. Theories about values, norms, and morality are themselves closely related to the moralities they explain and to the moral outlook of those doing the explaining. A choice of a value is an act of faith, which echoes the Lutheran salvation doctrine of “justifi cation by faith alone.” The distance between these concepts and the “moral” ideas of Oceania, such as the idea of tabu, whose violation produces a mechanical consequence of harm to the violator, is obviously large.