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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Moral relativism by Moral Maze

Caught the last 10 minutes of Moral Maze. Repeated this Saturday, 22 February 22.15-23.00 and iPlayer.

Wednesday 8.00-8.45pm
Rpt Saturday at 22.15-23.00
Michael Buerk chairs a live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories: combative, provocative and engaging.
Programme Details
Wednesday 18 February 2009
Image: Michael Buerk
Moral relativism

This week the Moral Maze celebrates its 500th edition with a special programme in front of a live audience at the Royal Society of Medicine, in London.

The question Michael Buerk and the panel will be posing is; if you don’t believe in a set of divinely inspired moral rules, how do you decide right from wrong in a world with complex and competing interests?


We live in an age where there is no longer general agreement on religion and the time when our society was united by a common set of values based on a belief in God is long gone.

Is it hopelessly optimistic to believe that Man can create an ethical framework based on a belief in individual responsibility and mutual respect or are those secular values a much a better guide than any sectarian dogma or religious text?

Can a post-religious society be a moral society and if so, whose morals will we live by?

PANEL:
Michael Buerk (Chair) Melanie Phillips; Claire Fox; Michael Portillo; Clifford Longley

WITNESSES:
Tom Butler, Bishop of Southwark
Professor Alistair McGrath, Head of the Centre for Theology, Religion and Culture at King’s College and author of The Dawkins Delusion
Peter Cave, chair of the British Humanist Philosophers group and author of Humanism, a Beginner's Guide
Dr Evan Harris MP, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon

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