I don’t know if you’re even implying this, but the causal mechanism for altruism arising in humans doesn’t need to hold any moral force over us. Just because kin selection caused us to be altruistic, doesn’t mean we need to think “what would kin selection want?” when deciding how to be altruistic in future. We can replace the causal origin with our own moral foundations, and follow those instead.
For the record, I agree that evolutionary mechanisms need not hold any moral force over us, and lean personally towards considering acts to save human lives of being approximately equal value irrespective of distance and whether anyone actually notices or not. But I still think it’s a fairly strong counterargument to point out that the vast majority of humanity does attach moral weight to proximity and community links, as do the institutions they design to do good, and for reasons.
I don’t know if you’re even implying this, but the causal mechanism for altruism arising in humans doesn’t need to hold any moral force over us. Just because kin selection caused us to be altruistic, doesn’t mean we need to think “what would kin selection want?” when deciding how to be altruistic in future. We can replace the causal origin with our own moral foundations, and follow those instead.
For the record, I agree that evolutionary mechanisms need not hold any moral force over us, and lean personally towards considering acts to save human lives of being approximately equal value irrespective of distance and whether anyone actually notices or not. But I still think it’s a fairly strong counterargument to point out that the vast majority of humanity does attach moral weight to proximity and community links, as do the institutions they design to do good, and for reasons.