Sissela Bok's third category maintains that within every society there is a system of justice to deal with violations of the positive and negative laws. This category provides for a framework for victims of violators of the positive and negative laws (or those wrongly accused) to seek jus- tice. 15 Sissela Bok makes no claim that all people recognize these moral values automatically; rather, she envisions minimalist ethics as "a basis on which to build negotiation and dialogue about how to extend the scope within which they are honored. In turn, they also provide criteria and a broadly comprehensive language for critique of existing practic- es. "16 16 In Common Values, Bok suggests some areas such as humanitar- ian crises where the criteria and comprehensive language can be ap- plied. Note that minimalist ethics does not equate with relativism nor absolutism; the term absolute" is especially problematic in miminalist ethics when considering the historical meaning assigned to the term. Robert Kane explains why "absolute" is so loaded; we have arrived at the point of making moral decisions on the basis of "if others can do it, why can't we?"17 According to Kane, three points have contributed to a loss of a spiritual center: (1) the modern rejection of absolute values; (2) the reduction of the unique core of human personality to the objective and impersonal forces of heredity, physical environment, and collective social forces; and (3) the loss of roots, or a sense of cultural continuity that makes of the past a source of meaning.18 Kane claims that we avoid using "absolute value" as a term because of the Enlightenment associa- tion of absolute values, authoritarianism, and fanaticism. His solution is to seeks a middle ground between fanaticism and moral nihilism and skepticism that comes from a relativistic understanding of ethics that re- jects the absolute. 19