I thought it was a sort of mundane statement that morality is a set of evolved heuristics that make cooperation rather than defection possible, even when it is ostensibly against the person’s interests in the moment.
Evolutionary, and other naturalistic accounts, aren’t quite a slam dunk, because they leave the open question—the question of what is actually moral, beyond what you have been told is moral—open. A society might tell its members to pillage and enslave other socieities, and that would be good for the society, but it can still be criticised from a universalistic perspective.
The question of what is the prevailing, de facto morality is different to the question of what is the best-adapated form of the prevailing morality, given the constraints a society is under. But that question itself is itself different to the question of the ideal morality without any material constraints—but note that such morality could be a “luxury belief”, an unimplementable ideal.
Evolutionary, and other naturalistic accounts, aren’t quite a slam dunk, because they leave the open question—the question of what is actually moral, beyond what you have been told is moral—open. A society might tell its members to pillage and enslave other socieities, and that would be good for the society, but it can still be criticised from a universalistic perspective.
The question of what is the prevailing, de facto morality is different to the question of what is the best-adapated form of the prevailing morality, given the constraints a society is under. But that question itself is itself different to the question of the ideal morality without any material constraints—but note that such morality could be a “luxury belief”, an unimplementable ideal.
that is what a moral realist would say
To say there is a question is not to insist it has an answer.