If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.
4. Unflag the two options "Notify me of new top level comments on this article" and "
That's not how morality works. If you say that something is wrong, it necessarily follows that the opposite is right. So if it's still wrong in that situation, they should go extinct, rather than waiting for better technology. If something "can't be helped," then that thing cannot be morally wrong, since you cannot blame someone for doing something that cannot be helped, while moral wrongness is something blameworthy.
The correct way to describe this situation is that it is right to kill for the sake of reproduction, but this is not an ideal situation, and it is true that they should hope they will be able to change it later.
In the same way, I already said that other things being equal, I prefer that other animals suffer less. So when we have technology that enables us to get equal or superior utility without eating other animals, we will stop eating them. Meanwhile, it is right to eat them, just as it is right for those people to kill.
I agree, but the point is not relevant, since it means that unfortunate situations evolve, not wicked situations. I have a post on that here.
Eliezer was very strongly opposed to the idea that morality is an abstract truth that has nothing to do with what humans have actually evolved to do.
We might be arguing word definitions at this point, but if your definition is "blameworthiness", then I think I see what you mean.
What? No it doesn't! Reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Neither is reversed immorality morality. The foolhardy action in battle is wrong, therefore, the cowardly action is right? The right answer is not the opposite. The courageous action is somewhere in between, but probably closer to foolhardy than cowardly.