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[Jordrake]

In reply to the OP, there is nothing in the game that encourages you to kill elves. You decided to kill elves. Why are you killing elves? I never kill elves. Mostly because I'm too lazy. But still. Dead elves are your own fault, not the game's.
On the subject of actual Dwarven Philosophy, I think for finding that we need to separate the dwarves, Dwarf Fortress, and the community surrounding it.
Let's start with the game, because that's super-easy. The only philosophy that it can have is that ascribed to it by it's creator and players. When playing, it is clear that it's message and the general sort of goal it's giving the player is "Grow your colony and successfully create a working community." Some players choose to take this to extravagance, but expanding upon that would be getting ahead of myself.
The dwarves themselves seem to share a roughly common philosophy, that summed up already in this thread. "Get stuff, kill stuff, be credit to fortress." The pursuit of happiness and alcohol seems to be their only driving factor.
The community's philosophy, and the personality it ascribes to both the game and the dwarves is the most interesting of all. From the game's basic interactions and pre-existing fictions they have decided what is dwarf-like and what is not, and through in-jokes, let's plays and other such things common to fan groups, have defined a stereotypical "Right way to play." A Dwarf Fortress fan's mindset in this regard is almost like a belief system, in that there are simply several things that should be and several that shouldn't. For instance, from dwarves' typical animosity towards elves in fiction, and the often uselessness and annoyance that elves bring to a fortress, the community have decided that kindness to elves and acting stereotypically elfish is bad. Racist? Yes, but it's all right because elves don't actually exist and it's funny, so shut up.
I can't be bothered to do any more thinking, so I'm gonna wrap this up.

[Sowelu]

Moral Guardians seem convinced that making pixels change colours is responsible for increasing violence. I'd theorise it has to do with sleep deprivation and bad parenting, myself.

sleep deprivation

So you're saying that Dwarf Fortress is responsible for increasing violence after all?

[Wnderer]

It's the abandoned babies that bother me. The mother dropped her baby in a puddle and went to a party and all the other dwarfs just walked by. The mother was a wood cutter and I set up all kinds of trees to be cut down so she would walk by the baby and pick it up but she wouldn't. The baby died of thirst. They throw tantrums if one of their drinking buddies die but they won't pick up a baby. Cruel.

[Zaik]

At least you can't rape children and run child bordellos for your mercenaries in Dwarf Fortress. Yet.

Then again, maybe the Universe is a giant Dorf Fortress game?

I just had to pop in here to say, 31.13 is giving you dwarven thief migrants, it can't be long before you can have them bring back goblin children.

[cog disso]

If you want to go back further than Tolkien for dwarven philosophy, the Nibelungen of Wagner's Ring Saga are essentially dwarves. The gods like to give them various tasks to do of fairly dangerous inevitable outcome.

In the Ring Saga, Alberich, the king of the Nyblings (...Wagner's word for "dwarves"), steals a pile of gold from the Rhinemaidens, upon the compulsion of Loki, and uses it to make a magic ring that will turn anyone who wears it invisible. Over the course of an indeterminate amount of time, the ring eventually causes a chain of events that ruins everybody who touches it and ultimately triggers Ragnarok, essentially the operatic version of a tantrum spiral.

Wagner spent 26 YEARS writing the operas, essentially in a "Strange Mood" the entire damn time. Hitler loved them so much that he'd rent the entire festival house for high ranking Nazis and force them to attend, which is a four night affair. They hated it and would rebel by sneaking out halfway through, until he had the SS station agents in the local beer halls to tag them and bring them back to the opera.

Nyblings are also in the Eddas, and it is believed that they represent a historical racist opinion of the Burgundian kings, who were known for their vast wealth, shortsighted political gaming and utter disregard for anything other than their own immediate gain, Burgundian mercenaries being legendary for not only being tireless thugs who could win you any war you wanted, but would turn on you the second they got a better offer. Pretty damn dwarfy.