Looking at the broad variety of human values, we hesitate to label actions as entirely moral. Morality depends on origin, beliefs, cultural belonging, and commitment to certain views of the individual. However, there are universal values shared across the cultures and religions. Statements like “do no harm to your fellow” or “treat people the way you would like to be treated” can be found in various religious books, probably paraphrased to some extent. They are the core motives of literary works that belong to the cultural heritage of numerous nations, which confirms that the whole bulk of moral principles are universal for people irrespective of the epoch or the country they live in.
Pieces of literature can be really helpful for those who search for an evidence of universal moral values. Ethics is not mathematics; there are no equations to calculate the universal character of values. But looking through the main ideas of acknowledged writers, we will inevitably discover that they repeat to some extent. Take fairy tales, for example. It seems that this bulk of fiction literature is nationally and ethnically colored, which means, tales mostly promote values characteristic to a certain nationality. But such motives as honesty, loyalty, respect to parents, and human dignity are found both in the Eastern and Western fairy tales.
Universal human values are what parents explain to their children in the first place. They are the basis for all other values, like a string that holds beads. Before kids discover subtleties and uniqueness of their own culture, they take in universal rights and wrongs because they are essential.