it doesn't work like that. i hope you guys aren't being unrigorous deliberately
no trait is ubiquitously superior, that's not how it works
i am saying in the human species, humans would die without morality, other species are adapted to compensate for their lack of human morality, so traits have purpose in relation to the entire organism and the environment they are adapted to, trying to judge their merit across species is misunderstanding how traits evolve and acquire utility or benefit in an organism or species; no trait has inherent value
if a human infant is born, and at the moment of birth is left without care, if it does not receive care from another human it will eventually die. it cannot survive on its own, or by aid from anyone or anything else, though i suppose some technology can keep it alive but that's essentially human care
the human species cannot assume the mode of adaptation of jellyfish, insects, and turtles because they are not these. no matter how many offspring humans have, if they neglect them they will die, that is the outcome of evolution for humans, that is their species' adaptation
so humans need morality or they go extinct, to the extent morality includes human caring of offspring, i would say it does. bonding hormones, empathy, the 'cuteness' factor of babies, and other such human experiences lead to care for young, and also seem to underlie moral and prosocial behaviour in general, so there is that effect too
arguing against this though, what if humans find some other reason to take care of young? i mean, are moral emotions the only thing driving this behaviour? are they
necessary? for sure, there are exceptions, like there are people who don't care about their kids from the day they are born they just have them because they cave into social pressure and/or want the perks of having a family, at least on paper, but what if all people were like this? would humans survive?
basically, the caring or not caring of the young would entirely depend on their utility to the living, similar to the motive behind our taking care of baby chicks on farms - we want to eat them. many species have survived solely because humans find them useful, species that would have otherwise gone extinct. could not this approach be used in relation to human offspring as well?
maybe, but what if we finely reach a level of robotics where robots become more useful and more efficient? this isn't sci-fi, if the above condition were the case, that all humans, or enough, a critical mass if you will, shifted to having children only based on utility and not moral emotions, and robotics reached a superior level in usefulness and efficiency, then that could pose a serious threat to our species, as the living would lack incentive to have children, preferring instead to invest in a personal robot, and....here's the kicker
i believe their 'avoid extinction' priority would not be sufficient to motivate them to have children, not in and of itself, and they would eventually die out. the remaining living humans would only be concerned with their own survival and not dying, the human population would decrease gradually, humans would justify there are too many people anyway yada yada...and eventually perhaps something would happen and wipe out the remaining humans
