In an ABC News interview following the shooting at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, a neighbor, Pat Scallen, recalls how he ran from his house to the scene and sought to help in whatever way he could. Soon, he saw children running out of the building.

According to ABC News,

Scallen said the girl [who, let’s recall, is 6- or 8-years-old] shot in the head asked him, “Please just hold my hand.”

“I did,” he [Scallen] said.

Our hearts, if they’re open, can’t not be touched by this.

*

The philosophical question is how it’s possible to extend moral concern to strangers–that is, to wider and wider circles of beings until all beings–including animals and plants–are included.

I see two basic ways. One is bottom up, the other top down.

The first–bottom up: one starts to have a sixth sense for the suffering (dukkha) of others. Once it’s possible to recognize that this one–a colleague, a mere passerby, a bee with a broken wing, a neighbor prone to talking your ear off, and so on–is suffering, then the response is a kind of softening.

The second–top down: your metaphysic needs to be universalist in nature. For example, the nondual teaching says: “All this, verily, is Brahman.” That is, all appearances are, in essence, nothing but the same, and only, Reality. This means that while the appearances may seem to vary in terms of names and forms, the essence is invariable, permanent, and ever the same. Thus–metaphorically speaking–all beings are but the many faces of God.

Either way, what must be rejected is tribalism or, indeed, subjective relativism. Any moral theory that hives one off from others amounts to coldness, callousness, and pettiness. Universal love–not protectiveness, not stern hardheartedness–is to hold sway.