Conclusion

We began this lecture by presenting that to define good society is to articulate certain values and the quest for values requires four things: (a) local consensus; (b) formal and procedural criteria; (c) worldwide parallelism; and (d) the sense that certain values are self evident. Today we face a situation in which

• there is a lack of consensus about good society even at the lowest level of population units – the village,

• since there is no consensus regarding the definition of good society, no clear cut procedures can be laid down to move towards the goal of goodness,

• world too is greatly divided regarding the utopias of good society, and

• postmodernization has weakened people’s faith in the very idea that values are self evident

Humanity is at a crossroad. There is a need to reassure people that it is possible to think in global and humanistic terms. We have to move beyond relativism and postmodernism without discarding the fact that the different classes of people are going to be affected differently from whatever decisions we take and whatever actions we take.