Where do we get our ethical values/beliefs?

Question

need answers fast (like rite now)

Answer 1

From our community, our family, our parents.

Answer 2

In the back of everyone's mind is the learned idea of "Do NOT do unto others as you would NOT have them do unto you."

We don't want people getting in our space, is the best way to put "the things we would not want them doing to us."

That can be as little as knocking the books out of someone's hands at school as a mean prank, or anything you can think of that is worse.

So we determine our ethics based on how to prevent each other from getting in each other's spaces.

The American Founders based it on the political ideal of "individual sovereignty."

"Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day;"

http://www.friesian.com/ellis.htm

But for most normal people, what I said in the first paragraph is how we think of it.