[Daniel_Newby]

"... with limited capacity to adjust our behavior on the basis of reasoned morality."

We also have hard-wired general memory and reasoning faculties.

"We are not animals."

We are not base animals, to be sure. Neither are we angels of pure logic.

[crux_]

I'm not sure you understand me.

To illustrate with an extreme: If we happened to be hard-wired by evolution to be tremendously predisposed towards genocidal behavior, would that make any acts of genocide we commit morally acceptable behavior?

[yohui]

Halfway through my response to this, I realized that someone had already written it, and in a much more entertaining fashion. So I'll just point you to his post instead:

Three Worlds Collide, by Yudkowsky

http://lesswrong.com/lw/y5/the_babyeating_aliens_18/

"The most controversial story I’ve ever written. Starts with the baby-eating aliens and moves on from there."