Hmmm . . . I don't believe in this hierarchy. And I do distinguish myself from wild animals that have a lesser capacity for ethical judgments. Also, while I get what you are saying about love, this is a rationalization that has been used since the time of Ur Nammu to excuse evil. Humans excel at equivocating with themselves, something other animals don't do. We are slippery that way. Thanks for explaining

Would you save a person at the expense of having another person starve? It is very true that we all draw the line somewhere different than another may.
I am not a wolf and neither are you. The wolf operates in his own natural world where I am guessing that love for prey is not the driving force. That would be instinct and hunger. And it's an entirely different story than mine.

We had a pig on the farm, I would not have been able to look into her intellegent, emotional eyes and choose to end her life. My children aren't starving as I say this so I can't speak for that moment if it were ever to come. I am saying Now that this is not something I would do. I can't live in a future mentality where the prioritizing of life is based on such crucial need, it's not a current reality. In this here and now I can afford to feel compassion for the prisoner fish, for the frog in the yard, for the bug on my counter, for all life. I choose that.

Tam
Without the cycle or hierachy of nature where one thing gives its life so that another may live, there would be no physical life on earth. I don't consider this to be corroborative evidence for my own sense of morality, and I don't think that it conveys an inherent moral code of its own either. As I said in my last post, I believe that the domain of true morality exists within love and that it supercedes rationality.

Like... every situtation has its own requirements and no one rule fits all. I think that if I try to understand it rationally from a level where I view myself and everything else as seperate parts, that I'll only ever have a partial comprehension of it. But I'm ok with this. It makes sense to me that being only 1 person in 6 billion in this world, it is fairly likely that my truth isn't "THE" truth. Although this is a digression.

Coco
Your question is so unspecific that I couldn't answer it, and even if I did it would be hypothetical anyway. I find that it can be supprising to find out how you realy react in a situation over how you might think you would. I would also add that it might change from one time to the next. As I have just said above, I don't consider my sense of morality to be the "right" one, its just mine. I act with as much love as I can and leave moral rationality alone as much as possible.

I have noticed that what I focus on in my daily life, and how I act in all of the minor interactions actually shapes and changes my understanding of morality in the more complex ones. Like... as I foster more compassion toward everything in general, the way that I understand domestic, social and political issues etc actually changes with it.

uplifting?
that this is all temporary and we die

It's a brilliant, brilliant life while we've got it made even more special by it's temporary nature. We don't live in a state of near death, we live in a state of being fully alive! It's amazing! We're amazing! That fact that we exist at all is just incredible to me. I don't need a purpose to fulfil, just being is enough. Being in the now, the now is all there is.

I spent the day at 'the shore'. Thats uplifting isn't it? I found it so much fun, I haven't rode waves in decades!

I also like to call it the 'jersey beach' just to break up the common term 'jersey shore'.