From an evolutionary/materialist standpoint both are merely…

From an evolutionary/materialist standpoint both are merely options. One option is to trade, the other is to "crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women" (who are now your women/slaves). There is no moral imperative, it's a consideration based on what seems to be most advantageous. In my eyes that doesn't qualify as universal ethics at all. Sometimes it is vastly more advantageous to kill all those who are in your way. In fact, that's probably the most successful evolutionary strategy: protect your people, destroy the non-your-people. Nietzsche would argue that it is also the "good" thing to do, because it selects for strength and therefore serves the human race in the long term. And as long as we are exclusively talking about the material-mental world, that is absolutely true. But if we take some kind of spiritual layer into consideration, it isn't. I would argue that universal ethics exist in this spiritual layer of reality. They are a thing of the soul, while body and mind deal in mere survival and power, like any other animal.