[goodpoint]

> Humans are much closer to “other” animals than what they think

Plain false. Humans are very unique compared to other animals as I wrote in another response. See prof. Sapolsky's lectures on the topic. He's an outstanding anthropologist.

[jrockway]

I think I agree with this. Society's laws and contracts mirror our instincts and feelings. We create laws because they encode a deep-seated feeling that most of us have about things. Not everyone agrees on every law; most of us don't want to murder, and would be sad if we did, but there are still serial killers.

We don't change our instincts just because there are laws. Look at how many people are in prison for drug possession. The law is much weaker than brain chemicals being expressed. (Also, not every law is based on wide agreement of human emotion. Sometimes lawmakers simply do whatever. I'm mostly talking about the ones that have been around since the dawn of humanity.)