(October 17, 2013 at 8:42 am)popeyespappy Wrote: As far as only existing in the human brain goes I doubt it. Other species on this planet exhibit behaviors consistent with what most humans consider moral behavior. We have observed them taking care of the weak, risking their own lives for the sake of others and even morning their dead. We don't communicate with them well enough to know if any one of them understand the concept of morality, but my guess is the closer many of them are to us on the evolutionary tree the higher the probability that they do.
You are ignoring the key difference between human and animal morality - human morality is considered.
As far as we know, animal morality is instinctive. Humans, on the other hand, don't need to necessarily act on instinct. Whatever compassionate, altruistic or empathetic instinct that we may have evolved do not constrain us to act according to them. In fact, they can be quite easily overridden by rational and pragmatic concerns. This key difference makes human morality more than "mixture of current social tastes and evolutionary beneficial behavior in a social species".
