Evolutionary Morality

One of the interesting and recurring debates between atheists/agnostics and religious types is the source of morality. Religious types tend to argue that moral principles are dictated by God (in whatever fashion She exists), while the non-theists like me argue that logic and heavy intellectual lifting (thing Rawls's Veil of Ignorance) will produce agreed upon moral baselines.

What if we're both wrong? What if morality, at least at some basic level, is evolutionarily hardwired into the human (and some other animal's) brain? Today's New York Times discusses a new book, Moral Minds, by a Harvard biologist, who argues just that:

The proposal, if true, would have far-reaching consequences. It implies that parents and teachers are not teaching children the rules of correct behavior from scratch but are, at best, giving shape to an innate behavior. And it suggests that religions are not the source of moral codes but, rather, social enforcers of instinctive moral behavior.

It's an intriguing prospect.