Why "mysterious ways" don't matter.

[Jenny A]

If then, objective moral values and duties exist, the question is what is the foundation and could evolution have produced it?

I'll start with an example. Most mammalian mothers rear their young. Feeding and protecting their young is a moral value, wouldn't you say? It's favored by natural selection because mothers who make sure their young survive are more likely to have their genes passed on to the next generation. Some mammals and most birds have gone further and the sir as well as the dam helps raise young. This principle can carry out into whole troops of related animals. ---- But it's not the only strategy. Most reptiles and insects simply produce many, many eggs and let the shear numbers do the parenting work for them. Are the reptiles immoral?

In other words morality come from behaviors that favor more viable off-spring. Raising off spring is obvious. But mutual protection from other species, not killing each other off so no one survives and so on are all moral behaviors with an evolutionary basis.

People are a little different because we've added reason to instinct. As a survival strategy that seems to be working pretty well.

If we had evolved differently with slight modifications to our brain or instinctive behavior, would these values and duties be different?

Yes. Polar bear mothers for example, raise their young. But male polar bears are the number one predator of polar bear cubs. That's rather different morality ain't it?

Stated a different way, if some current primate group's cognitive ability evolves enough to begin behaving in a civilization--co-existing with us, would you say that they would have a different set of moral values and duties or would ours apply? If different, why?

Hard to say. Our basic instincts aren't all that much different from chimps now. However, national morality, that is morality between nations operates rather differently than it does between individuals within a nation. How we would treat an intelligent but non-human race, is an interesting question.