PreScript: I was fortunate to have been introduced to the age-old collection of Indian fables that I still hold dear to my heart: Stories from the Pañcatantra and Jataka Tales… The exciting and wonderful anthropomorphic world portrayed in these was my first foray into the moral dimensions and quite possibly the makings of me.
A dear friend of mine has been fixated on a book he bought recently:
Natural Enmity: Reflections on the Niti and Rasa of the Pancatantra
And hence I got lobbed a juicy full toss with a terribly misplaced metaphor, demonstrating how reasoning-by-analogy can make for a tenuous argument.
Making a priori assumptions about human nature (ie: arriving at conclusions from theoretical inferences rather than empirical evidence) from sagacious political guides from a bygone era may not be very prescriptive today: as the parameters with which we are playing the game of life has changed dramatically!
As I was penning down my thoughts after reading some stories from Panchathantra for my research, I realized where we are talking past each other:
The contention:
Morals should be different for different people,
just as how the morals of a Lion does not align with the morals of a Deer!
and the response..
What is seen as moral here (in terms of natural enmity) is what I call a survival strategy…
The objective morals in this case is the set of rules that all the Lions inevitably follow, will result in a stable solution to the Lotka-Volterra model for Predetor-Prey dynamics. The inevitability or the natural order, in these kinds of mathematical models, works on the premise that the agents in the model have no perceivable meta-awareness of their situation and act without free-will (which is a Whole Other Conversation!.. as David Hume rightly called it ‘the most contentious question of metaphysics!’)
It is not necessary to submit to all-things-nature just because it is only natural to do so… 
In fact, appeal to nature is even considered a logical fallacy!
A conscious entity,
willful enough to cause change and strong enough to effect it,
can subvert the stability of any mathematical model!
The Answer is Choice!
Analogies are just a device to help elucidate a point; by drawing a parallel or a comparison to assist contemplating a problem better.
But sometimes it becomes a game to point out where an analogy breaks down!
Of course not all analogies are evil, but certain attempts are:
- at best wrongheaded: because one can simply be wrong
- at worst deliberately malicious: intending to use rhetoric just to win the argument!
To dissect the contention:
a. in the abstract:
Though the dharma of a Lion is different from that of a Deer, you can see that this morality for a Lion may not change for Lions of different Forests!
Predators be predators
Hence between species, things are different in character. While it is endearing to our inner-child to see anthropomorphic characters engaged in a battle of wits, applying (without nuance) the morals preached in fables as broad-stroke guidelines to base societies off of can be a sub-optimal strategy.
b. and in the real world:
If you are going to draw comparisons with the food chain, understand that morality is a concept that is supposed to fight the natural order of animalistic actions.
The world today is no more a zero-sum game:
now, it is not necessary for someone to lose for another to win!
Forming a society to sustainably encourage spreading of comfort, not just to the immediate progeny, is the central tenet of our civilization project.
Struggle for Existance
We have a tough enough time to get by already!
let alone complicating things with human differences!
so what to do?
The Moral Landscape (Sam Harris) has convinced me that absolute morality, founded on objective values, should be the same for a species as a collective!
Different traditions need not have the same value system, but their moral foundations should align. After all, the whole world is benefiting from valuable advances that Science and Technology has to offer like in medicine, automation, trade, etc: all arising from a proper understanding of Physics! 
Need for co-operation
Tit for tat may lose battles, but wins wars!!
If we base our beliefs on incorrect foundational ideas, it is not surprising that we end up making bad decisions…
With a fundamental premise that reality is unique and is not subject quirks in our sense perceptions (like the Nyaya school of thought which professes an approach to observational inference), the conclusion to draw from that is to see
if the net-sum wellbeing of all individuals can be maximized through certain actions,
isn’t it a good idea to do more of those actions?
Feynman’s approach to tackling philosophy
It is of course not a simple question to answer, but you should watch out for r/badphilosophy. Here’s a good litmus test before you choose to consider any philosophical outlook that someone is promulgating:
- Hear out their point-of-view
- Take the exact opposite of it and see how the world would be different if it were true..
- if nothing is going to be different, then it might as well be either!
Philosophy is like Rain Man:
a slow elder brother, who lives in the dark, can’t help you out directly,
but without whom you wouldn’t be here today.
to be continued
Haha, drafting a simple text reply made me write enough for a whole blog post! 
As always, I would love to hear your POV on any of my thoughts here, like:
- Do you think non-fable-istic tales are better guides for morals than animal-centric-fables?
- Should different ethnics not share moral values?
- What would be the defensible reason to have different social morals across races?
Further Reading
-
In Defense of the Bell Curve: The Reality of Race and the Importance of Human Differences, by Vincent M. Sarich
- Lotka-Volterra model
- a post on Predetor-Prey dynamics