In the Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a says "Anyone who saves a life is as if he saved an entire world." and anyone who destroys a life is considered to have destroyed an entire world.

In this sense care does scale in long timelines. When pregnant women go hungry, predispositions towards obesity remain in the epigenome even after several generations[0]. As a trivial example, in Les Miserables, the criminal Valjean can only become a hero because he is forgiven completely and totally by one man. It may sound ridiculous but surely life is also ridiculous.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/science/dutch-famine-gene...