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I think this is false. Too see it, take an issue that people have an actual moral position on, rather than something that boils down to material comfort. Should we promote surrogacy if we can guarantee that outcomes are "good", or should we do everything we can to limit it, even if it meant [insert catastrophe of your choice]? My opinion is the latter, because I think surrogacy is wrong in itself.
What you said is also projection. It is utilitarians who try to hide their ontological / virtue-based morality behind utils and calculus. Like I pointed out above, you're not going to get utilitarians to endorse slavery, just because it increases utils. If they ever address you, it will be a copout like "nooo, slavery causes negative-infinity utils!"
I should've slotted in 'evolution' along with 'decentralized system of humans'. Yes, we should do that, and natural selection did do that when it created inborn moral instincts. At one point in the past, internal fertilization was unnatural, a freak accident of nature that one deformed organism happened to have, with all sorts of awful second order side effects. Except it turned out internal fertilization was beneficial for survival and capability, and it spread, and then the second-order effects were worked out, and now it's natural and good and we can't imagine anything else. *(I know natural selection is more complicated than that, but the argument still applies to however internal fertilization really evolved.)
I'm defending morality being contingent and relying on complex calculation. I'm not defending universalist egalitarian hedonic utilitarianism. I also don't have an infinitely strong principle against slavery!
According to you, maybe. According to me, not. So as you can see, I'm not hiding utilitarian analysis anywhere up my sleeves.
From where I sit it looks like you have an intrinsic moral reaction against slavery, and the complexity of the calculation is just there to hide the fact.
I'm saying you got your current morals from past individuals or evolutionary processes that were actively making those calculations. That you're only doing them partially or a flawed way doesn't change that's where they emerged.
I have almost no intrinsic moral reaction against slavery! I'm rather reactionary by instinct, at this point. I'm still more or less against slavery because it seems pointless.
That strikes me as much closer to nihilism than utilitarianism.
I might believe you if I start seeing you well-ackshullying comments that express revulsion with slavery.
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Would you object to me saying you are not against slavery, if your primary objection is pointlessness? Would you be pro slavery if someone had a good reason for it? This isn't meant as a gotcha - well, it sort of is if you say no I guess - because what I'm getting at is that objecting to slavery because it's pointless sounds like a subconscious deflection.
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