so, how do you explain cuteness in animals as a biological reaction, anyways? forget the philosophy, that's oldskool. stop thinking like that. start thinking biologically.

like, let's say you see a squirrel bopping about with a nut. awwww. but, you should probably want to eat the thing, really. or should you? squirrels really aren't the safest thing to eat, in terms of carrying parasites. rodents, in general, carry a lot of diseases....

perhaps it's a type of quality reversal. you're allowed to think psychologically, you just have to recognize it's a result of the biology, rather than vice versa. if you ought to want to eat the thing, but the thing is gross, you really, really ought to NOT want to eat the thing. so, because you would want to eat the thing if it wasn't gross, it's actually rather important that your response to a squirrel bopping about is "i don't want to eat that because it could make me sick".

see, but you might be tempted, anyways. the next step up is "well, i can't eat the thing, look how cute it is.".

perhaps cuteness consequently derives from grossness