The Importance Of Morality In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

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“The mind of the man is cable of anything.” These are the words Joseph Conrad uses to describe the potential of each human being, a potential that can be limited based on a person’s ideal of what is right and what is wrong. Conrad makes this ideal visible in his piece of literature “Heart of Darkness,” in which he describes Marlow’s, the novel’s protagonist, journey to the center of imperialism, Africa, where he encounters the dehumanizing treatment of white Europeans towards the African civilization. During his expedition, Marlow learns that morals are individual perceptions of what is right and what is wrong. Throughout his journey, Marlow discovers that morals as subjective. Marlow is able to make this realization after witnessing …show more content…

This mode is moral relativism which says that “the view that moral or ethical statements, which vary from person to person, are all equally valid and no one’s opinion of “right and wrong” is really better than any other"(“Moral Relativism”). Moral subjectivity gives an individual the freedom to determine for himself what is right and what is wrong. Based on this, individuals determine for themselves what is good and what is evil. What a person might see as immoral, others may see as being completely ordain. Moral subjectivity is a result of a person’s background. Morality changes according to the time period, culture, religion, and level of education of each person. For example, for a person living in the 21st century in the United States it is morally right to approve same-sex marriage. On the other hand, for another individual, who perhaps, lived in the 20th century in Argentina, where the official state religion was Roman Catholicism, approving same-sex marriage can be seen as being immoral. The difference in principles and thoughts arises from the fact that the two individuals lived in different countries in different time periods. As each individual has a different perception of what is right or wrong, good and evil cease to exist as such. Human nature at its rawest contains evil. People are born with evil, and are raised to become righteous human beings. In religious beliefs, every

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