In this episode we see the essence of moral empathy. When we perceive a living creature as an individual, not just a member of a class or category, we are able to see something of ourselves in that creature. But when we reduce a living being to a category of evil or undesirability we are capable of cruelty with little or no remorse. That is why tribalism, war, extreme politics, extreme religion, and other human institutions of alienation must strip away individuality and assign a stereotype or a category to others.

Hi Hillary! I think you may be disregarding one important factor in how people react in such a situation: What their past experiences and biases might be. These pre-judgments and memories can often determine how you will behave in a particular circumstance, because you remember what you did, or should have done, or wanted to do, before.
In my case, a childhood spent on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and Chinatown in the 1970s, when those neighborhoods were swarming with rats, make me less sympathetic. I remember my great-uncle’s building on Eldridge Street, where there was a serious rat problem around the garbage cans on the ground floor. I even hunted them with a pellet pistol once, and killed a rat. They were a threat to the health of that building’s residents, of that there was no doubt. So in this case I would have probably stomped the rat. But I wouldn’t have felt good about it. No guilt, to be sure, but no pleasure either. Necessary, and dirty.
And frankly, this is what the rat catcher would do. Rat catchers kill rats. So if you call 311, why not just do it yourself? You are already equally culpable, because you know the consequences of your call. You do not actually escape “more than I want to take on” if you call 311. That being the case, I accept that responsibility, and would do it myself. It is quicker, after all, if a humanitarian excuse is needed.
But to get back to my original point — I have memories of having done this before — so it is very easy for me, having already crossed that threshold in the past.

Maybe Alan is right that past experiences dictate present reactions, but I don’t agree. I have had to kill a mouse or two in my life, and with good reason. But my first reaction was to save the rat, and I’d like to think I would have. He is a living creature, and while I may not value his life as much as my own or my fellow human beings, I do think that unless his suffering will inevitably, or unavoidably, lead to death, the he deserves a chance to life. He is afraid and possibly in pain, and while that fear and suffering may not be the same we humans understand it, that does not make it any less real or any less important. Who am I to decide his death. If I can save him, I will.