There is nothing surprising or shameful about spontaneous expressions of support for France among Americans. France is part of the West, and so are we. France is also America’s oldest ally. Such sentiments — attachment and loyalty to those closer to us in time, space, culture, and history — are perfectly natural. They flow from our tendency to love, first and foremost, what is our own.

I love myself, which is why my instinct toward self-preservation is so strong. Next, I love my family and friends. Then my neighbors. Then those who share my religious, cultural, ethnic, linguistic, ideological, and national background. Then, and only then, can I begin to summon up a comparatively lukewarm love for a universal “humanity.”

These concentric circles of attachment define our natural moral experience. Don’t buy it? Imagine how you would feel at the death of your own child and then compare that to how you feel when you read about the death of a child on the other side of the world whose family, culture, language, and background are foreign to you. The second of these deaths cannot help but be felt abstractly.