By : Felix M. Podimattam

In a culture of 'canned happiness' of market-value and easy availability–a culture that gives only scanty importance to the moral realm of the ‘ought’–we find a daring thinker of the 'ought', Dr. Felix Podimattam, OFMCap, who has been disturbing the comfortable, and comforting the disturbed with his numerous writings. The present book, Relation and Relativity, is inspired by and dedicated to this thinker of the 'ought'. The ought-dimension, with which morality is primarily concerned, manifests itself concretely in humans' multi-directional relation: to the Divine, to others, to the Nature, and to oneself. The dignity of humans consists in living this relation as best as possible. If relation is the 'what' of morality, relativity is the 'how' of it–a 'how' that avoids the twin extremes of relativism and absolutism. Dr. Podimattam's daring and triumphant march through the moral field of relation, armed with relativity, has inspired many a moral thinker to join in this march. The various studies in this Festschrift are expressions of a concerted effort to keep on this moral journey of search and research.