He listened to this all seriously, before replying. "Your society may have already found better ways, but it does not exist in isolation. You speak as though your people are the mice of the kingdom, who never needed among them a law to say that no person shall eat another. No mouse would, so why should there be a law about it? But the mice do not live in isolation. And where their society clashes with that, of say, a predator, then rules need to be in place. To the Lions of Pride Rock it is understood that there are those who eat plants, and those who eat those who eat plants, and then when all die, all become that which the plants themselves grow strong from. To them what the mice do, taking the milk from another animal and intentionally spoiling it to make cheese is a far greater horror. And again where the societies clash, rules need to be put into place. So too, with you and your humans. Even if that requires a third party from outside to enforce those rules."

"I am not saying that our way is better because it is familiar, but I am saying that your scope is perhaps too small and inwardly focused. Maybe I was hasty in suggesting that human leadership would be the proper third party, and if so I apologize. But the point remains that in the clashing of two cultures, one side or the other, or worse both sides, claiming the moral high ground - claiming the right to punish people of the others indiscriminately, so near as the other side can tell, will only lead to a worsening situation."