> If a global set of "Don't be an asshole" values could be defined,
The history of "rights" is what you're looking for, and this would come in the form of a list of rights.
You would probably get a lot out of reading The Declaration of the Rights of Man (https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp), as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-huma...).
Thomas Paine wrote about the philosophy of rights as well, and you would probably get a lot out of reading his works such as The Rights of Man (https://www.ushistory.org/paine/rights/c1-013.htm)
Something being a right means that law does not grant it. If law granted it, it would be a privilege rather than a right. Governments exist to protect rights, but they don't grant rights. That's the solution to the bootstrapping problem for non authoritarian forms of government and why it is always OK to defend your rights, even if they are illegal under a specific form of government. America's founding document, the declaration of independence, is explicit about this idea.
> shared and progressed
No, this is where you are wrong, you didn't use the word defend, and that's really where the problem with liberal ideas starts and ends. They must be defended, at personal cost, with force.
Defending an idea that can't reward or punish you will not be as profitable or safe as defending a man who can reward or punish you. It is much easier for a man to build an army than for an idea to build an army. It will always be painful to defend your rights in the short term, but if you don't you will never have rights in the long term.
Solidarity, risking your own safety and well being for the benefit of someone else, is the only way to achieve a world you want to live in, but some of the builders of that world won't get to experience it, and that's a hard sell to people who just want to see their kids smile.