Cook, David2019-09-252019-09-252016-08-2019820950-1703http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/156346""Things ain't what they used to be". This is certainly our perception concerning morality. Moral standards seem to be shifting and changing. This process is often described as secularization. That is a shift from a culture and context in which morality, law and culture presuppose God to one in which atheistic, humanistic presuppositions form the basis for making laws, moral decisions and the cultural expressions within a society. This is certainly not to say that there was some golden time when everyone was a religious believer. Rather it is to suggest that in the framing of laws, the teaching and expression of morality, the drawing up of professional codes of conduct, and the development of ways of behaviour socially and culturally, Judaeo-Christian teaching, doctrine and beliefs played a major and fundamental role. In that sense, there was a God-centred morality at work shaping society. Now that is less and less true, and in its place there is a man-centred view of morality. In this man is the designer of all things and creates his own morality. This propounding of an humanistic moral view usually rests on the man's reason, feelings, or will, or on some amalgam of these"engWith permission of the license/copyright holderMedical EthicssecularizationphilosophyMoralityReligious ethicsMethods of ethicsPhilosophical ethicsBioethicsCommunity ethicsArticle