Did evolution create our morals? Or should we accept what one wag said: "If morals were related to evolution, then it would be the height of morality to make a deposit in the local sperm bank every day."
Personally I found that quote (from Sam Harris) to be a sophomoric view of evolution and morality.
SLD
Yes, evolution leads to morals. The first multicelled organisms arose about 600 million years ago. And evolved brains, and social animals.
Sponges and jelly fish et al do not have brains and therefor no sense of morals.
When we are assaulted, robbed, raped, murdered or otherwise mistreated, we react rather strongly. And we react when we have good things happen to us also. We do not have to consult old books of myths to know how to react when such things happen to us, members of our families, or friends.
There have been a lot of claims made about moral absolutes and basically here, evolution has supplied us with absolutes, these feelings we have in response to things that happen to us.
The problem is we have developed brains that can deal with abstract reasoning. We can thus create moral codes based on these objective facts. But we can also develop bad moral codes because we abstractly create things like racism, religious fanaticism, political fanaticism that allows us to create bad moral systems based on these things.
We learn to dislike people not because they harm us by things like assault, robbery or rape, but because they stubbornly cling to the wrong religion, or have darker skins, or other even more petty reasons.
Basically though, objective facts, that we have emotions cause by things that happen to us, because we have large brains that can have emotions, thanks to evolution, is why we have moral and ethical systems. It is our duty to make sure we do not create bad systems of morality based on bad abstract reasons.