Actually, we can look to many studies of pre-linguistic children, primates, and birds showing that ALL of them show a significantly developed sense of fairness.
We can also look to vast quantities of documented examples of altruistic behavior in studies far "down" the animal scale.
There is substantial theory growing that religious and moral attitudes, cultural structures, and laws emerged from these innate qualities, rather than being some human invention.
So, this "natural law" that you posit at the top/root of all behavior evaluation is actually quite shaky, and it is not at all clear that it has the priority you claim.
It looks far more like a justification for might being right. By that standard, it'd be ok for me to steal your pay, enslave you, or simply kill you for the $10 in your pocket if merely had the means & whim, with all concerns about fairness, ethics, morality, relegated to the minor realm of "religious territory".
Yet even a chimp, dog, elephant, or dolphin would know that it's wrong.
We can also look to vast quantities of documented examples of altruistic behavior in studies far "down" the animal scale.
There is substantial theory growing that religious and moral attitudes, cultural structures, and laws emerged from these innate qualities, rather than being some human invention.
Here's an article on just two: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/true-altruism-seen-c...
So, this "natural law" that you posit at the top/root of all behavior evaluation is actually quite shaky, and it is not at all clear that it has the priority you claim.
It looks far more like a justification for might being right. By that standard, it'd be ok for me to steal your pay, enslave you, or simply kill you for the $10 in your pocket if merely had the means & whim, with all concerns about fairness, ethics, morality, relegated to the minor realm of "religious territory".
Yet even a chimp, dog, elephant, or dolphin would know that it's wrong.