You couldn't be more wrong there, Helix.
Guilt has nothing to do with status. However LACK of guilt may...it is those who seem to have hardened their hearts toward others and consequences of their own actions regarding others who climb to the tops of various ladders.
And if it were true that the higher in status you are the more you can pass on your genes, why is it that birth control and abortion are so prevalent among the rich and powerful? It's those poor folk who have all the kids, remember?
In fact a lot of those rich and famous and powerful people seem to be rather hesitant to pass on many of their genes at all. We've lost a lot, evolutionarily, evidently!
Back to guilt -- it has NOTHING to do with loss of status. It has to do with knowing you have done something wrong. The definition of 'wrong' may be different with different people, but the concept of 'wrong' is universal to mankind and transgressing into this area produces guilt.
Actually, I don't recognize your 'examples' as having much to do with reality at all. Where animals defecate is instinctive. We have raised a number of them! Mares, for instance, will choose a corner of a paddock for bathroom duties. However the male of the species could care less. Cats and rabbits instinctively prefer specific areas (although when you keep a rabbit in a hutch it is impossible to see this), and dogs are not nearly as concerned with their habits.
Dogs want to please their owners, and thus they are house trained fairly easily. Cats are litter box and/or house trained NOT because they care about pleasing their owners. They could care less! But they prefer being neater by nature and so we exploit that. If the cat goofs and we find a cat mess, the cat will run away to avoid punishment if it senses such is coming, but it is not out of guilt. It is an avoidance mechanism.
The dog, however, recognizes the human as the pack leader and pack instincts come into play. The pack leader must be pleased in order to avoid discipline. Thus the dog can be trained and the dog's response to a bathroom goof may look like guilt, but it is actually a simple pack reaction to the leader who is displeased. So we see the submissive behavior of exposing the underside by rolling over, or cowering, which is the opposite of a challenge to authority.
None of these things have the remotest relation to the reality of human guilt. Our sense of guilt comes from a concept of right and wrong and the knowledge that we have trespassed. Even when undiscovered or even undiscoverable, the man or woman can experience guilt for years until it is confessed and forgiven.
We have seen this time and time again with young mothers who allow abortion to kill their little ones. It is not uncommon that about five years later they will see a kindergarten age child and burst into tears or become severely depressed. I have helped counsel some of these women. The guilt over something that allowed them to climb a social ladder (not being restrained by motherhood), was legal, was socially acceptable, was even encouraged and applauded, still tore at their insides. Because, inside, they knew it was wrong.
I have seen sisters apologize for things done twenty and thirty years earlier when they were just kids growing up together, because even though they remained close through the years, one of them still wanted to confess and apologize for something.
You are completely off where your ideas of morality and guilt are concerned, Helix. Allow me to suggest you get out of your theoretical books for awhile and maybe spend some time volunteering in a youth facility or an old age home, or a hospital. You will see a lot of things your theoretical stuff never talked about.
You will discover both nobility and degradation -- and you will, I hope, wonder why some people turn out one way and some the other.
Clue: it's not genetic.