john9blue wrote:people are selfish, and people form groups to ensure their own self-interests.
our society isn't becoming "more moral"... we are just getting better at enforcing our collective self-interests. nothing has fundamentally changed about our motivations.
on the contrary, there's also the idea that our increasing access to other people's perspectives had caused us to more often view others as extensions of ourselves, leading to higher empathy... not sure how much merit that idea has, though.
I think you discount the contrary point more than you should.
If you consider the behavior today that most would not only condemn but physically wince at now...much of it, was socially acceptable not so many years ago.
Motivations do change, as people become more educated, and while we hardly liven in a utopia, in many ways, the world is better for many because of much progress. Unfortunately, progress takes change and education, and many resist both, sometimes out of fear, but often simply out of habit, and perhaps most often, because they are corrupt.