 While “morality” is subjective self-determination, Sittlichkeit or “ethical life” is both an attitude of individuals and a collective way of life, a set of values and practices or institutions. Its content is not derivable from a higher principle; it is externally a culture’s values and institutions, and internally an aspect of one’s identity. Hegel accepts that an ethical life is historically contingent, even arbitrary, in content, yet insists on its essential role in every society, and its need to develop organically. For him, some kinds of Sittlichkeit are more advanced than others; at any one time, a more advanced society drives world history forward by realising it in its institutions, customs, culture new ideas. This position goes beyond the minimal rationality and universality of conservatism, which makes no reference to historical advance.