Why do humans have a moral sense?"?

Answer 1

Any social animal will exhibit "moral" behavior, because morals exist whenever there could be a conflict betwen individual and group interest. In other words, we evolved to have morals because it was part of evolving into a social animal.

Suppose there were only a few dozen humans in the whole Earth, so that each person lived alone in the wild with no contact with any other human or intelligent animal. What then would be an example of moral behavior? How does one act morally in such a circumstance? Be kind to rocks, show non-violence to trees, and respect the rules of insects? As a matter of fact, how would anyone "enforce justice"?

To argue that morals are "not based on rational thought" is a straw man argument. It first assumes that the rational course of action is to be entirely self-centered, so that therefore any altruistic act has to be irrational and maybe God-inspired. In fact, game theory has shown over and over again that when individuals are involved with each other, it's often advantageous, for rational reasons, for them to exhibit cooperation instead of pure self-interest.

Answer 2

Individuals who are altruistic, especially toward their kin group, enable their kin group to survive while kin groups composed only of selfish individuals may perish. This is because, at the most basic level, what evolution selects for is the fittest genes. Thus if your kin group survives, your genes survive even if you don't.

Therefore altruism is beneficial (not just in man, but in many species) and genes that encourage altruistic behavior are conserved in the population and spread widely. This creates an innate sense of morality that is difficult to understand on a rational basis (because it's innate). This innate sense tells us that doing good things for others is "right" and doing selfish things is "wrong".

Answer 3

Because God wanted us to walk the righteous path. This is what a conscience does. Some people just ignore it, and do their own thing.

Answer 4

This is a God question, not a biological question. He has written His word on our hearts.