[ev0lv]

Why do people even think that we can have a civilization by only making morally-sound decisions?

These types of experiments were reasoned to benefit the collective at the cost of the few. Which might be a decision one would make, if the factor to optimize for is the long term prosperity of the collective. Morality is relative, individualized, ambiguous, and always changing. Concluding that morality is not a stable pillar for civilization.

So why are we sitting here asking the government to be accountable to our morality?

I think morality is trending.

I think what happened is the government started to get good at Public Relations. Morality has become a reason fed to us for justification of legislation that somehow takes something from us. The irony is, government decisions cannot be biased by morality in principle.

[mhh__]

A lot of these experiments were scientists playing god for not much good reason other than they could.

Morality trending is a good thing, touch grass (as the saying goes)