(March 10, 2017 at 3:29 pm)Khemikal Wrote: Defining them interchangeably means we can do away with one of them. Could the extermination of all lesser intelligence be a selectively optimal but immoral behavior? Similarly, couldn't a provision against killing of any kind be a moral and also selectively deleterious behavior?
That's right. The kind of objective moral truth I'm talking about-- that of a hypothetical best action at all given moments-- is useless in establishing and acting on a moral system. Would killing baby Hitler have saved the world, or would it have meant that America never hit the level of ingenuity it has, with advanced sciences that might one day save the world from disease?
I also have to admit that there's an undertone of theistic absolutism under the hood. Genetic fitness of a species gives way to other philosophical issues if the species succeeds enough to colonize space, to evolve in new environments, and so on. Without fast-forwarding and seeing whether a super-species finds out a way to save the Universe from a cold death or whatever, it's hard to know what time scale "best" would involve.
