On my way to eat lunch on the library balcony today, I picked up "Animals and their Moral Standing," by Stephen Clark. The cover had a black and white picture of a forlorn looking beagle puppy sitting on a pillar, like some unheard soul, or a neglected street child. Photographers can write essays with a single shot.
I didn't even make it through one chapter, but it got me thinking about change, about how the ocean tide of humanity shifts our thoughts wherever it goes. Some animals, for example, seem to be worthy of rights, and I speak not only of chimps or primates; in some countries the bovine are sanctified, in others, felines are worshipped. I live in southern California. We eat dead cows on bread, serve them up by the pound (or quarter pound with the waxy product of their mammaries and roots boiled in oil). Monkeys are a target of ridicule by some (not myself).
Supposedly, some of the theory in the book by Clark was based on Kantian philosophy, but it is apparently not something widespread in this generation as the forms or utopian ideals might be. The Road Runner and Wile E., Sylvester and Tweety, Garfield and Odie, Bugs and Daffy, Cats and Dogs; all these render the blended animal morality unimportant in the eyes of the entertained masses.
By the way, I personally hate Tweety and the beep beeping Road Runner.