Distance is the major factor in civic anything (morality, duty). I have a hard time thinking something is wrong when it doesn't affect anyone. My morality is mine, no one else's -- imposing my sense of moral right or wrong seems counter productive. (Of course the lady who turned left today from a stop light where she wasn't supposed to turn left evoked a negative moral response.)

Just where they always have lain, in the consensus of implicit and explicit interactions within society ... wherein people figure out how to coexist and cooperate sustainably and productively.

The most common basic principle has long been the so-called Golden Rule. But at the societal level I think it has been pushing us towards less poverty and inequality and therefore less war.