I cannot see how non-violence (and I use that as a synonym …

I cannot see how non-violence (and I use that as a synonym of ethics/morality) is ALWAYS preferable over violence from an evolutionary point of view. At all. It is sometimes, but not always. It's situational. A lot of the time the best thing a tribe can do is to wipe out the neighboring tribe that uses the same resources. If the goal of morality is power, it is pseudo morality. Morality and power are mutually exclusive by definition. And this is where my beloved body/mind/soul trichotomy comes into play. I think the "ethics" you can arrive at in absence of metaphysics are just the mind trying to justify the satisfaction of the selfish urges of the body. It creates all kinds of narratives (usually based in victimhood) that try to make evil seem good and necessary. The mind pretends to be good (the soul), but it isn't. It's a magician trying to make evil appear good. The mind creates fake "collectivist" morality of the "greater good" usually to hide selfish motivations. The soul, on the other hand, because of its connection to metaphysics, strives for objective good, not situational "good for me/us".