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This is actually explored in many more ways than people might think. The first thing you hear from Professor Oak in Gen 1 is that Wild Pokemon are dangerous, and that you need to train your own to protect yourself. In Gen 3? Professor Birch gets attacked by a wild dog in his back yard, then orders you to take one of his Pokemon to fight it off. Gen 4? You get attacked by wild Starly, and are forced to use Rowan's Pokemon in self defense. In Platinum, he scolds the player and Barry for even thinking about going into the tall grass because they could get hurt. The unspoken justification for taming Pokemon in the early days was about survival, and building trust in your partners along the way.
This gets sort of lost in more recent games though, where Pokemon are "closer to humans" to use Masuda's words.
