The Origins of Values

You can listen to Analysis: The Origins of Values on BBC Radio 4, and from this page, on Thursday 11 April at 2030BST

In the West, we're called to a defence of our values. But what origin of values will enable us to argue that these and not others, are the right ones?

We all have moral codes, we all want reasons to believe in them, but when reasonable people disagree, what authority do they have?

The traditional sources of moral authority are in God, nature or culture. All have problems. Placing moral authority in one religion or another can simply lead to a clash of unyielding certainties, one absolute truth pitted against another.

In nature, why should 'what is' determine 'what ought to be'? In the past an equation of nature with morality has produced racism, exploitation and genocide.

And if we trust culture to produce our values, they can be dismissed as valid only in the culture which made them; the prospect of universal values seems lost and relativism or even moral nihilism looms.

Kenan Malik searches for the source of our values, in God, in nature and in society, asking how, in an age of cultural conflict, we can ever agree.

His conclusion is daring and unfashionable but, he argues, represents our only hope for finding agreement.

Presenter: Kenan Malik
Producer: Michael Blastland
Editor: Nicola Meyrick