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DanArmak comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong
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Is it not worth considering "cuteness" to be defined in terms of threat levels. It seems to me that in most cases there is a direct correlation between cuteness and perceived threat.
By threat I am referring not just to physical (claws versus soft paws, large vs small, dominant versus meek, hard versus soft) but even biological (messy / unhygenic looking creatures versus fluffy / cuddly looking ones) or social (flawed versus flawless).
This may explain why some people perceive cuteness differently. One person may look at a human baby and see no possible threat, others may be more inclined to be considering health implications or even the threat of embaressment / fear it is associated with.
With this association in mind it would seem that selection towards lower threat is prevalent - babies looking cute leads to lower abandonment or attack by other parties, animals allowed to come close to humans without fear and benefiting from shelter / food / care etc.
Cats are dangerous predators and many housecats scratch or bite humans in play, but they're still cute, often in the very moment of doing so. They can also appear cute when hunting real prey.
Cats that are actually dangerous to us are generally not perceived as cute, though. Googling 'cute lion', for example, turns up primarily cubs, drawings of cubs, drawings of adults with cublike proportions (which look decidedly nonthreatening), or babies or pets dressed up to look like lions. The only picture of an actual adult lion on the first 5 pages that registers as even remotely cute is this one, and that stops registering as cute at all when I consider the chance that that lion could have mauled her.
I see this as saying that fear masks cuteness.
It makes sense that immediate physical fear overrides cuteness-attraction. But if fear is banished, the same animals - even adult felines - appear cute (to me, at least). For instance, if I had a bionic body that a lion couldn't maul, I strongly believe I'd find that lion kiss picture very cute and would very much want to play with big cats.
That's how I parsed the original comment's 'threat levels' - it's not that we're hardwired to see certain things as nonthreatening and thus cute; the perception of threat is learned or situational, and cuteness is the opposite perception, and thus also learned or situational.
(I'd want to play with big cats in that situation, too. Have you seen the videos of the guy who does? They're adorable.)