we punish those who steal from old ladies, because the stealing is wrong.

I would say we punish those who steal from old ladies because we would prefer the old ladies not be stolen from. It is that preference, the subjective value we all (except the thief of course) place on a society where the meek are not abused by criminals, that causes us to call that behavior "wrong".

The evolutionary origins of that preference seem pretty obvious. In any group of social animals there will be one or two top physical competitors, and the remainder would be subject to their will. Of those many weaker individuals, the ones who survived to procreate were those who banded together to make bully-free tribes.