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Originally Posted by willravel
Precisely. Morality is an extension of our hunter-gatherer days where the good of the pack was as important if not more so than the good of the individual so far as survival of the species. A lone human a little over 10,000 years ago stood a lesser chance of survival without a pack. With a pack, a human could defend against predators, hunt with a higher success rate, could find a mate, and could establish better shelter. This even lead to specific skill sets becoming possible, which lead to the shift to an agrarian society.
This is also why I believe that socialism is the natural state of humans, but Ustwo may not agree with that 100%.
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Very, very few evolutionary biologists in the world would argue that survival of the species has been a motive/function/factor in the evolution of human morality/sociality. There is very little/no evidence of biological mechanisms in any species that function to preserve the survival of the species (group selection). From an evolutionary standpoint, any genetic variation that functioned to "preserve the species" would be very quickly weeded out by individual/genic selection. Any organism that acted to "preserve the pack" before itself would be outcompeted by organisms that acted to preserve themselves and those that carry copies of their genes (their kin). A brief explanation can be found below or in any evolutionary biology text written after 1970 or so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_selection
This does not mean that humans and other animals must not possess innate mechanisms designed for cooperation (certainly related to the morality question of the OP). Cooperation between humans and between members of other species whether in forms that appear socialist(insects, naked mole rats, etc.) or species that have more familiar social/reproductive interactions (humans, prarie dogs, bats, etc.) is better accounted for by individual/genic selection. The first papers on the topic are listed via the links below, but there has been an enormous amount of research in the area since then:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection
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Originally Posted by Archetypal Fool
If every individual within a species acted on its own accord, as selfish and individualistic as Thrasymachus suggests we should, that species would quickly go extinct
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From an evolutionary perspective, this is false. Cooperation can be in the best interest of the individual either via a reciprocal altruism perspective or a kin selection perspective.
All of that said, my position is that much of our morality is a product of the evolutionary forces outlined above (a variation of the position of the OP and willravel).