Philosophy is never going to definitively answer questions like this: it’s the exercise of collecting and categorizing possible answers to these sorts of questions. Philosophical progress produces a longer list of possibilities, not fewer.
What you need isn’t a philosophy of ethics, it’s a science. Which exists: it’s called evolutionary ethics — it’s a sub-branch of evolutionary psychology, so a biological science. Interestingly it gives a clear answer to this question: see my other comment for what that is.
Philosophy is never going to definitively answer questions like this: it’s the exercise of collecting and categorizing possible answers to these sorts of questions. Philosophical progress produces a longer list of possibilities, not fewer.
What you need isn’t a philosophy of ethics, it’s a science. Which exists: it’s called evolutionary ethics — it’s a sub-branch of evolutionary psychology, so a biological science. Interestingly it gives a clear answer to this question: see my other comment for what that is.