[525] and this means the ethical contents---come? How can we know, in a special moment, what to do? If this is understood and accepted, then we are driven to a very difficult alternative. This alternative is the unconditional^a character of the form of ethics^b, and the conditional character of the content of ethics. Ethics are dependent on culture; they change with every special situation; they have a certain kind of continuity in periods which have continuity themselves; they tend to get into complete dissolution in periods in which the fundamental principles

disintegrate. This is the argument for the relativity^c of ethics. And of course, if you look at the history of religion and the history of culture, you find much evidence for ethical relativism, evidence which cannot be denied, not only with respect to primitive cultures^d, or with respect to different high cultural groups, such as the Asiatic and the European, but also with respect to national and sociological differences within one group, as for instance American culture. The ethical contents, although they are comparatively homogeneous, if you compare them with the contents in Asia, or Africa (the primitives), are nevertheless very much differentiated with respect to social groups, local conditions, and historical traditions. All this has a tremendous influence on ethical contents, and this relativism goes even deeper into the individual who, if he is autonomous, makes decisions about his ethical decisions about his moral attitude--- you remember I defined morals^e as the matter itself and ethics^f as the science of this matter. And they are different, and nevertheless they can be justified.

Now the anxious question, which is very often asked about this point, is the question of a relativism^g which makes not only community impossible---how can you live together if the ethical contents are completely relative and different?---but also with respect to the individual himself: what is the situation if you don't know what to do if you are in the cross-section of different cultural influences---and everybody is, to a great extent. We all are in the cross-section of at least humanistic secularism, Christian traditions---and