I thought of your comment above as it occurred to me that we are once again face with a dilemma of ‘Natural Selection’ and ‘Cultural selection’.

We come to consider if to save a life is a virtue - a human virtue - therefore a part of cultural selection.

Now to save a life from certain natural way of life (that one is saved but another go hungry and may die or one is saved but another victim will come along - that just a way of life) or to save a life from certain cultural way of life (for example a sacrificial lamb, insects from insecticides, cattle from slaughter houses, dogs run over by cars, animals from zoos,…) makes us feel the same ‘satisfaction’ and therefore (in our mind) a save is a save - beautiful feeling and virtuous.

What do you think?