I feel as though the behaviors that you claim are attained by human communion are just extensions of biological fitness. Various acts of kindness tend towards the health, preservation, and mitosis of the human species, not something that is specific to humans' superior sense of self.

Social conditioning, culture, and more education are all extensions of biological fitness. Non-human animals exhibit signs of "universal altruism" perpetually. To maintain genetic diversity, inadvertently stunting chromosomal mutation, animals do not only seek mates from the ingroup they were raised within, but instead seek mates from varying backgrounds. Adoptive behavior and mutualistic relationships -- such as the toad and old-world spider or fox and honey badger -- can be seen all throughout the animal kingdom, not only in humans. Together, these factors create what you call "the continuation of life"; however, the human psyche likes to think these behaviors are exclusive to humans.

I agree that human culture is greater than that of a non-human culture, yet the mechanism responsible for these behaviors is the same; hence my argument. The idea that animal instinct is 'immediate', in the context you use it, is factually incorrect. These 'immediate' behaviors are traits genetically and traditionally passed down from tens of thousands of generations of behavior. Subconscious, yes, yet refined. And this idea that ethics are more than the pursuit of not harming one's biology, both mentally and physically, things biology strives to maintain, is fallacious. To take from your metaphor, I believe a more accurate representation would be: All biology is coded by a different programmer, yet written in the same language. Finally, the occurrence of radical cultural shifts in norms and conditions is most literally a pursuit of self-preservation, for better or for worse. Cultural evolution is the result of a macrocosm receiving a stimulus and changing behavior that once benefited its survival to one that continues to benefit its survival but under the newly introduced variables that caused the initial stimulus. These rapid changes are not random; they occur as a response to a threat to the group's survival.

If we introduce institutionalized abortion into the equation, that changes nothing. Abortion is done out of a necessity for one to maintain their own fitness potential, not their potential offspring's. A zygote is incapable of any biological fitness, but the mother is. If that zygote becomes a liability in the future, it would further hinder the potential for the woman to propagate. Even if we bring the death penalty into the equation, the person on death row was a threat to the fitness of others around them, so, by ridding the world of that person, there is a net-positive fitness. Even in death, the species can thrive more than it would without death. This can be seen cellularly. Your own cells will cull themselves if they are mutated, diseased, damaged in a manner that would affect their genome, or if they have become unfit. Apoptosis is done so that those around them have a better chance of survival. Your claim that an environment is the only factor that determines behavior is factually incorrect. Instincts are something that can be tested in the neurology of animals and humans alike.