Maybe the reason I seem like such a jerk to ethics professors is that I tend to look at things from an entire-earth point of view, instead of from a human point of view.

The first thing anyone does when they're trying to convince you that you're not really a moral relativist, that there's no such thing as moral relativism, is ask you how the Holocaust could possibly be viewed as morally OK.

This is not a hard question to answer, in my opinion. It not being a hard question to answer has nothing to do with me not thinking, personally, that the Holocaust was horrible. I do think it was horrible, which is so obvious as to almost be unnecessary to say. I would have lost relatives in it had they not very recently immigrated to the U.S.

But it's still easy to answer, even though the questioner will think you're dodging the question and must therefore be anti-Semitic, homophobic, gypsyphobic or whatever the word for hating gypsies may be, etc.

Anything that so drastically lowers the number of humans on this earth is of direct benefit for virtually all species of animal and plant. Our system of ethics is based on humans. We don't think of it in a big enough picture to notice this; we think we're being objective and all-encompassing. We're not. The death of the entire human race would be such good news for everything else on the planet, that upon hearing it, they should all burst into their version of celebrating and getting wasted.

This says nothing about my personal opinion of whether it should be worth it. You can't ask a living being to discuss the morality of the obliteration of its species, no matter the benefits for anything else. Biology precludes it. But I do think it funny that ethics professors think there is no way around the 'Holocaust Question'. All you have to do is love animals more than humans. And though I'm not one of those people (close, but not quite), there should be more than enough 13-year-old girls and angsty farm boys on this earth to pretty much tip the balance the animals' way.

Maybe it isn't a serious issue now, but when our population reaches the point that the death of millions, perhaps billions, will save OUR species (all other species aside) from extinction, this is going to have ethicists' underwear all in a bundle.