What we humans call ethics or morality depends on four interlocking brain processes: (1) caring (supported by the neuroendocrine system, and emerging in the young as a function of parental care); (2) learning local social practices and the ways of others - by positive and negative reinforcement, by imitation, by trial and error, by various kinds of conditioning, and by analogy; (3) recognition of others' psychological states (goals, feelings etc.); (4) problem-solving in a social context. These four broad capacities are not unique to humans, but are probably uniquely developed in human brains by virtue of the expansion of the prefrontal cortex (this formulation is based on Chapter 1 of my book, Braintrust: What neuroscience tells us about morality).
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