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timtyler comments on Criticisms of the Metaethics - Less Wrong
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A biological perspective on ethics considers it to be:
Ethical philosophers tend to be especially hot on point 4.
I'm discussing prescriptive ethics here, not descriptive ethics.
Ethical behaviour is part of the subject matter of biology. If you exclude the science involved, there's not much left that's worth discussing.
Eliezer is not looking for a description of how human ethics works in his Metaethics (although he doubtless has views on the matter), but an argument for why individuals "should" follow ethical behaviour, for some value of "should". Hence, my argument against him revolves around such matters.
Reducing "a biological perspective on ethics" to "a description of how human ethics works" doesn't seem quite right to me. Naturalistic ethics isn't just concerned with the "how" of human morality. Things like "why" questions, shared other-oriented behaviours, social insect cooperation and chimpanzees are absolutely on the table.
Your original description was one which only makes sense regarding descriptive ethics- a topic in which I agree with the validity of your description. Prescriptive ethics, by contrast, is best described by my original description.