Helping one's family rather than one's neighbours does not shock anyone, similarly helping one's compatriots preferentially over foreigners is often accepted. We provide expensive help to people local to us with relatively minor problems, but in some cases not even life-preserving help like food and water to people with much bigger problems in distant places. An example might be medical funding for minor or lifestyle illnesses, while a vaccine against river-blindness caused by onchocerciasis parasite is barely researched (none currently exists, similarly to a malaria vaccine).

Another recent example, is European countries being relatively far more welcoming of Ukrainian refugees (European/Slav) than they have been of Syrian ones (Middle Eastern/Arab), as has been the case especially in Britain despite direct involvement of the British state in the rise of Daesh/Islamic State.

Ethical theories usually universalise, talking about what are moral actions in all cases, without discriminating between people in those cases based on where they live, or how like us they are.

Are there theories of moral philosophy that can help us explain and understand this?