briansd, it sounds like you are assuming that we are purely selfish unsocial creatures with no altruistic tendencies.
You and I and any student of human nature know that is not true. Whether you characterize it in flattering terms like altruism or ethics, or less flattering like “pack-like”, we are inherently and instinctually social creatures that strive to work cooperatively in groups. Yes, we do some antisocial cheating and all in between, but if the downsides of that were not outweighed by the upsides of the cooperation, we’d never congregate in social groups, and we always do.
Anyway, if we didn’t have inherent drives to cooperate (and adopt supporting common standards of behavior, aka ethics) then we’d have no one pushing the laws. All those laws would be there, unsupported by human nature. Do you think people would obey them after they began to notice that no one else supported the laws?
I don’t think it’s even close to chicken and egg. That’s like saying that people educate their kids because there are schools. People make sure there are schools so they can educate their kids.
