We need more than empathy

Empathy seems to connote interpersonal relationships. What’s needed is something more : a totalizing sense of purpose with which we redefine our collective meaning for ‘progress’ and ‘freedom.’ It’s a new type of spirituality based in our indisputable dependence on Earth, and not necessarily based in a belief in incorporeal being.
The technological and intellectual prowess humans develop should, in my opinion, be utilized for the purpose of maximizing well-being and minimizing suffering. The idea that humans should do something simply because we can might be part of what is driving our flirtation with premature extinction, for humans and other life forms.