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There’s a certain way of thinking about
morality which I suppose is inherited from

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religious systems, which consists in thinking
that the way in which we ought to live our

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lives is in obedience to a set of rules or
commands laid down for us by some higher authority,

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some divine authority. If we get trapped in
that way of thinking about morality and moral

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values that can be very limiting and it can
give rise to the idea that once you jettison

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religious belief you’re left with nothing,
you’re left with no values, no sense of

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right or wrong, you’re left with no sense
of what makes for a good human life. So when

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humanists approach these questions I think
it’s important to question that whole framework

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and to go back to the question that well what
is it that makes us moral beings and what

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do we actually mean by moral values?

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To understand what morality is and why we
might describe human beings as moral beings,

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partly of course what we need to do is look
at the evolutionary origins of our moral values,

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they’re not something mysterious that pops
up out of nowhere, we can trace what it is

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about human beings that gives rise to moral
questions and moral dilemmas.

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We can trace the idea of morality back to
certain primitive features of what it means

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to be human beings, the fact that we’re
social animals, the fact that human young

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need a long period of nurturing, and so a
fundamental feature of human beings is that

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capacity to form close relationships of care
and concern and love. What those features

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of human beings bring with them is a deep
capacity to imaginatively identify with other

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human beings, to respond to the needs of other
human beings initially those biologically

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close to us, but once human beings have those
capacities they’re able to extend them to

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be moved by the plight and the suffering of
human beings who are less closely related

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to them, and that's what brings with it I
think then questions that we can raise for

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ourselves about how we need to live as social
beings who crucially interact with other social

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beings, other human beings who depend on other
human beings, who depend on crucially on our

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capacities for co-operation, our capacities
for forging shared lives. Those are the features

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of what it is to be human that bring with
them the need to think about the right way

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to live within a human society.