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When people are discussing a humanist outlook,
they sometimes put that question in the following

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form: they say, 'are there any objective moral standards
that a humanist, or anybody for that matter,

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is bound to observe? Are there any objective
constraints on how we can think about the

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good?' And do you know, I think there are.
I think there are certain facts about human

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beings and about human nature, which tell
us that there are definite red lines about

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how we behave towards other people. So for
example, people are capable - and so indeed

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are all sentient creatures, other animals
- of suffering or of experiencing pleasure,

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of being afraid, of being alone. No human
being likes to be cold or lonely or deprived

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of opportunities or locked up or treated unkindly,
and those are just objective facts about people.

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And those objective facts tell us about how
we should behave towards them. When we see

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somebody in pain, somebody suffering, somebody
sad, somebody lonely, somebody deprived, that

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tells us what we need to do, how we might
be able to help a little bit. Because those

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facts are facts that we ourselves experience,
we have first hand knowledge of them. They

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teach us, therefore, about those parameters,
those borders, so to speak, within which and

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beyond which, our moral life and moral action,
and our ethical outlook in general, should lie.