I think morality is largely a matter of frame of reference. When humans look at morality, more often than not they’re not looking to completely redesign the society they live in, but to act morally within that context. There are going to be parts of that context that are more or less taken for granted, and while it may be more moral to investigate and seek to change these cultural and environmental conditions, that’s not the only avenue for moral behavior.

Someone who lives in the context of their culture and does their best to help others within that context rather than by seeking to eradicate the conditions that cause the suffering may still be argued to be acting in a positive way morally. It may be that snuffing out the root cause of a particular plight is outside of their reach, while lending assistance to those who suffer from it is much more achievable. Especially if they would ostensibly support such a change, it’s hard to find major fault for not setting their sights high enough or risking enough on a presumed positive outcome.

So if I were looking for moral actors in other species, I’d start by looking for instances of aberrations from more or less species-wide behaviors that lean toward the cruel side. I don’t think looking to the behavior as a species as a whole is necessarily the place to start.

Frankly, I don’t think that humans should typically be viewed as remotely ‘moral’ on a species-wide level when considering their collective behaviors. We’ve turned torture and oppression into a science in a way that other species don’t come anywhere close to. We’ve created cultures that focus the entirety of their energy on consolidating power as much as humanly possible, favoring parasitizing laborers and artisans to extract as much value as possible with no regard for the creations of human hands of the needs of human bodies and minds.

The idea of a human judging any species on this planet on a moral basis is absurd.