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Already covered by the "playing god" bit previously. Preserving one species that has plainly failed to adapt to its environment keeps another that would have from doing so. Misdirected empathy screws not only with our own evolution but that of most every species and potential species on the planet. Which would be fine if we A) knew what we were doing and B) had some sort of a plan.

This is the bit that I'm just not buying. Presumably, under the ethical system you are describing, any deaths that result from a corporation dumping thousands of tons of plastic into the ocean would be ethically justified provided the species that die are not of use to humans. You're not just implying that it's ethically justified, but, because a few humans decided that dumping the plastic there is of some use to humanity, also that causing those deaths does not come under "playing God".* You then go on to imply, if I'm understanding correctly, that any attempt to reverse this situation (removing plastic from the ocean or freeing nesting seabirds tangled in it for example) then does come under "playing God". Does my example fit your rules?

So far, in the above example, your ethical code seems pretty consistent (if distasteful to me) but the part that I really struggle with is where you go on to justify these sort of rulings by saying that the deaths free up niches for new species to evolve. It seems to me that you're actually suggesting that the lives of any hypothetical potential future species that, let's remember, may never come to exist, are of greater value than the lives of real individuals that are most definitely alive right now. That just seems nuts to me! How can they be of greater value if we don't even know whether they will exist? Perhaps they'd be of value to humanity, but don't forget they could just as easily be a terrible threat to humanity, so it's a risky roll of the dice. To me, it's tantamount to saying that murder of someone that poses no threat nor advantages is ethically justified because they might make way for someone different.

*I'm not even sure your code requires an action to be of use to humanity. Could it even be a pointless or mistaken human action that is still ethically justified so long as it doesn't harm humans and only harms an irrelevant (or threatening) species?

Have we switched sides here? I seem to be arguing for letting evolution do its "greater good" thing while you're arguing for the individual now. I'm going to take a couple days and explore if my political philosophies can live alongside my evolutionary philosophies and which needs to survive if not. You might want to do the same if you're able to see the cognitive dissonance we've managed to expose in the both of us.

You've certainly got me scrutinizing the foundations of my own ethical codes which is very cool. It's a field I haven't explored as fully as some others. My ethics are almost certainly arbitrary just as I believe yours are -- in fact I'm very inclined to believe that every specific ethical code is arbitrary to some degree or other. What I will also say though is that the suffering, pleasure and contentment of many living organisms are all unquestionably real attributes that can vary, even if they're notoriously difficult to quantify and compare. I generally define my ethics in terms of the effects of actions on those attributes. The dodgy bit is who does the assessment of an action's impacts and exactly how they choose to quantify and compare the pleasures and sufferings.

You're right I often find myself focusing on the wellbeing of the individual but don't forget that when we consider "the greater good" we're generally talking about larger quantities of, again, individuals. I absolutely do try to think of the greater good as well. Sometimes though, the two ideas seem to become almost paradoxical. They touch on this in Star Trek II and III where Spock sacrifices himself because "the needs of the many outweigh [...] the needs of the one" but is later rescued because "the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many". I also think sometimes there's an ethical case for doing good for one individual even if it's irrelevant or even futile with respect to the wider population (for example making someone's last moments more comfortable even if they have no family or all those involved are about to die).

I do think perhaps that I inadvertently focus a lot on the wellbeing of beings that are alive today perhaps to the detriment of those that are yet to exist, which is strange, because a lot of these ecological and conservational disciplines that I'm defending have a lot to do with the future. I rather expect short-termism is a deficiency of the human psyche.

To me, the fact that specific ethical systems are arbitrary does not justify completely abandoning them. You are right that we cannot fully understand every future implication of our actions involving other organisms but, to me, that doesn't excuse us from attempting to understand and, yes, also mitigate, the more immediate impact. I make the arbitrary ethical choice of siding with the ecological scientists that advocate avoiding the "playing God" when it interferes with the interactions between non-human species that go on with no (or little) relevant human involvement but that absolutely advocate stepping in when it's the destructive behavior of other humans that is unnecessarily destroying other species and their habitat. My choice is somewhat arbitrary but I'm still convinced it's good enough (against my stated goal of promoting global wellbeing and richness of experience) for me. I consider it better than any currently proposed alternative.