Negotiation Without Criterion

"There is no way of dealing with conflicts between differing purposes except by a process of mutual exchange, in which each tries to communicate to the other his perception of what is the the proper objective of purposeful action, in other words, of what is good. In this context, the word good is obviously irrelevant if it means only 'what I want for myself.' It can only mean 'good absolutely, good for all.' If it does not mean this, the whole exercise in mutual communication is meaningless. If there is nothing that is 'good' in this universal sense, then in every conflict of interest the only argument that is not meaningless is 'this is what I want to do.'"





Lesslie Newbigin, Foolishness to the Greeks, p. 86