On Virtues

Where do virtues come from? How do you know what is really right and wrong in this world? How could you truly know if an action was "correct" or "incorrect"?

I was having a discussion with one of my colleagues the other day about this. He didn't really end up telling me where he thinks our virtues as humans come from (he would probably say God -- which I deny). Before the church, and the Internet, and books, and newspapers, how did we come to settle on a group of ideals that people are supposed to have to be a "good" person.

As I was talking with him, it all became clear to me. It has to be related to our DNA and our evolutionary history. Because if humans our ancestors engaged in mass cannibalism, deceit, theft, etc. then a human society could not form. If you have an excess amount of people that do things to the detriment of others without even thinking about it, you won't have a functioning society. You'll have anarchy. So maybe in our evolutionary history, certain traits (we call them virtues) have been selected for and as a result, most of us inherently understand these virtues, because accepting these them has helped form our society. I think that most people know what the "right" thing to do is, but acting on it is different.

So then what becomes "right" and "wrong"? Something that is "right" would have to be related to the virtues that lead to the formation of our society (ex: honesty) and something that is "wrong" would undermine those virtues.

I'll have to think about it this more.