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The problem of historic figures -- men of apparently otherwise good qualities and clearly possessing of good minds -- who apparently did not opt out of slave ownership could suggest that ethics and morality are entirely artificial (i.e. they were intellectual "victims" of their time), but that would seem to be a self-defeating position to take.
And what if this the extent of it? Of course we have aversions and preferences that we cannot physiologically escape, but what if everything else is balanced on top? Is it possible that this isn't a cynical perspective? Can it empower us? The price is alarming: our value is apparently dropping. (Damn those robots!) Who knows? They might be more capable of compassion than we. If educated societies are more socially empathetic, then maybe smarter robots will save us from ourselves. :/