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Adriano_Mannino comments on CEV: a utilitarian critique - Less Wrong
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Well, if humans can't and won't act that way, too bad for them! We should not model ethics after the inclinations of a particular type of agent, but we should instead try and modify all agents according to ethics.
If we did model ethics after particular types of agent, here's what would result: Suppose it turns out that type A agents are sadistic racists. So what they should do is put sadistic racism into practice. Type B agents, on the other hand, are compassionate anti-racists. So what they should do is diametrically opposed to what type A agents should do. And we can't morally compare types A and B.
But type B is obviously objectively better, and objectively less of a jerk. (Whether type A agents can be rationally motivated (or modified so as) to become more B-like is a different question.)
Of course we can morally compare types A and B, just as we can morally compare an AI whose goal is to turn the world into paperclips and one whose goal is to make people happy.
However, rather than "objectively better", we could be more clear by saying "more in line with our morals" or some such. It's not as if our morals came from nowhere, after all.
See also: "The Bedrock of Morality: Arbitrary?"
I don't think we'd be more clear by saying this, I think we'd be (at least partially) wrong.
Let's compare two worlds: World1 contains a population of pigs that are all constantly superhappy. World2 contains a population of pigs that are all constantly supermiserable. Clearly, World1 is objectively better than World2. If some morals deny this, they are wrong.
Things can only be good/bad for conscious beings (not for rocks, e.g.). So insofar the world takes the form of consciousness that gets what's good for it, it's objectively the case that something good has occurred in/for the world.