Well said.
I’m always uncomfortable when the hyper-religious choose to lecture others on “morality”. We could get into the utterly chilling lack of ethics and morality that is evoked by the treatment of people under religious authoritarianism - considering that bastion of enlightenment such as the Christian Europe during the Dark Ages - but that’s a thread unto itself.
The sense of self-sacrifice, nurturing, decision making and making “moral” choices is a higher brain function and it's seen in comparably lesser degrees in lesser animals. This in and of itself is enough to suggest that "morality" is a natural phenomenon of higher brain functions. A measure of language, nurturing, survival, industry, and even environmental control, all can be attributed to animals lesser on the sentience strat than man.
Ultimately, I would propose that morality involves decision making (or making a choice), where decision making is accomplished with a cognizant awareness of consequences. The mammalian sense of nurturing the young is not morality, it’s a function of evolution that seeks to preserve the species.
I suppose what defines morality is our expectations and choices as to how we extend such gestures as compassion, empathy, fairness, etc.
Going further, I don't think all moral impulses are learned. I think left to our own devices in a world devoid of civilization, we wouldn't blindly and blatantly kill, we likely wouldn't mate upwards with our parents. Fitness for survival would likely preclude this from happening as we would likely nurture our babies and try to protect them.
If we were to posit a world where humans are stripped of their morality, they’re still going to behave in ways that favor survival, not only of self but of the species, whether that boils down to a nuclear family or a tribe.
