smoofra comments on Homogeneity vs. heterogeneity (or, What kind of sex is most moral?) - Less Wrong

-8 Post author: PhilGoetz 22 May 2009 11:25PM

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Comment author: smoofra 23 May 2009 05:10:30PM 2 points [-]

More like I'm asking whether to override evolution. But now I'm curious. Never a good idea?

Really, it's never a good idea. Morality may have been produced by evolution, but that does not not not mean we can go looking at the behaviors evolution comes up with as examples of moral behavior. Morality is only one aspect of the behavior of one species. Evolution may have invented morality, but it also invented AIDS, and cannibalism, and war, and sharks, and parasitic wasps.

An exploding aphid is not acting morally. There aren't different moral rules for aphids because they live in genetically homogeneous groups. In fact, there aren't moral rules for aphids at all. The aphid is just being an aphid. It has nothing whatsoever to do with morality, any more than a rock or a robot or a quasar does.

If you think that your ethics are above your biology, we're not going to have much of a conversation.

I think my ethics are above the process that invented my biology.