Appropriateness is a moral question. Intelligence and morality are orthogonal. One intelligence's morality is another's atrocity.
Ann's intelligence and Bob's morality will seem orthogonal. Charles' morality is a function of C.'s intelligence as an ability as an effort spent to reach the current moral conclusion.
A century ago some Bobs decided that the best way to "protect and improve" society would be to remove undesirable genetics from the gene pool using chemical castration and gas chambers, among other methods.
So no, morality isn't derived from intelligence. Intelligence just gives you the tools to achieve unspeakable, horrible things with great efficiency.
Where is the argument? If Bob has determined that «preserving life on earth» has some important weight, for Bob's there unspecified own reasons, and has also determined that the best course of action would be «to eradicate the human species», the one question is whether Bob is right or not. What was stated is, that Ethical Calculus is a function of Intelligence - of course it is, it is a structure of assessments.
> A century ago some Bobs decided
And who has told you that those "bobs" were "intelligent"?!?!?!
> So no
All you have proven is that you dislike some moral conclusion of some decisors. Which is trivial, obvious, and part of the already stated framework - proper ethical judgement requires proper general judgement (Intelligence).
You claim intelligence leads to moral behavior because immoral behavior is insufficiently intelligent. That's circular reasoning.
It's possible to act morally without being intelligent and it's possible to be intelligent without acting morally. History is full of examples.
I have never said that. That is just your reconstruction.
There is Decision Theory. It outputs optimal action through evaluation of strategies, of contexts, of principles. In order to properly get the strategies, the contexts, the principles, you need that skill that approximates ideas to truth - and such skill is named Intelligence. Optimal action decided in light of principles within a well assessed context is ethical behaviour. Ethical behaviour hence requires Intelligence.
As written, «Ethical Calculus is a function of Intelligence - of course it is, it is a structure of assessments».
> possible to act morally without being intelligent
Random correct behaviour proves nothing. Of course one can guess the roll of a dice roughly every sixth event. If you behave "well" but do not know why that is "well", that is like guessing. "Good" behaviour without intellectual awareness is like memorizing arithmetic (multiplication tables) without knowing why those memorized notions are correct.
> possible to be intelligent without acting morally
No, because by definition that would be a fault in Intelligence. If your action was imperfect, suboptimal, it is because you could not think of a better action or understand that the other action was better. If two choices C1 and C2 can be ranked, there is a reason for their order; knowing and understanding that reason is the task of Intelligence.
The potential for random correct behavior proves that intelligence is not required for correct behavior.
Why does not the NN or whatever entity «understand ... what is appropriate»? Because it is not intelligent enough! How does an entity know what is moral and what is an «atrocity»? By being intelligent enough! Could an entity act appropriately without judgement? Yes, it happens all the time if the wind blows right, but we do not rely on that! How to make something act appropriately? Well, an Intelligent entity in the loop must be there to know what is appropriate and what not!
Most of the western world eats beef but vegetarians, vegans, and some religions strongly oppose it on moral grounds. Does that mean that we're less intelligent than them?
"Right" or "wrong" are words that evaluate actions against some existing ethical standard and those are completely arbitrary. There are about 8 billion of such standards in the world today.
> And who has told you that those "bobs" were "intelligent"?!?!?!
Would you say that Josef Mengele wasn't intelligent, without venturing into circular reasoning?
Who's that "we"? The question as proposed is nonsensical: some will have spent more effort, in the tools (general Intelligence) and in the work (applied Intelligence), some less.
> arbitrary
No. There exist reasons supporting one side or the other. And reasoning can be structured into calculus.
> [whoever] ... wasn't intelligent
Again bad wording. Whoever went for suboptimal choices was (information aside) at fault with respect to optimal reasoning: the tools and the work (see above) were imperfect.
Maybe you should check the rest of this tree.