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to Nool—over the Whos well-being, she fails to respect their inherent worth as persons. She thereby affirms that the denizens of Nool and the contentment they enjoy are more important than the Whos and their livelihoods and, indeed, their very lives. Therefore, although hers is not a completely selfish project—unlike Mayzie’s—she still commits the gravest of Kantian moral errors. However, upon realizing her error, she quickly makes amends. She exclaims to Horton “from now on, I’m going to protect them with you!” (“And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, ME TOO!”) (Horton). Sour Kangaroo changes her ways because of the obviousness that “a person is a person, no matter how small.”

That the temporary civil unrest in Nool was caused by willful ignorance highlights an important feature of doing moral philosophy: one must be sufficiently informed by getting the relevant facts straight. Horton and Sour Kangaroo disagreed about what ought to be done with the speck because they disagreed about whether it contained persons. (“On that speck—as small as a head of a pin—persons never have been!” [Horton]) But once the Whos “yopped” loud enough and Sour Kangaroo was sufficiently attentive, her disagreement with Horton disappeared. Ethically speaking, they didn’t disagree. Both agree with Kant that persons are of utmost moral value and deserving of respect.

Unfortunately, civil unrest caused by disagreements about the facts is not reserved to Dr. Seuss stories alone. The dignity of actual persons has not always been, nor is today consistently, respected. Blind (and willful) ignorance is often the root cause of the injustices associated with not respecting the inherent worth of persons. Those in the Jungle of Nool were blind to the Whos due to the fact that Whos can’t be seen with the naked eye. But we must remember that Dr. Seuss published this story in 1954, in the midst of the controversies of the civil rights movement. Although African American civil rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr. did their best (like the Who-ville mayor) to organize chants akin to “We are here! We are here!,” all their “yopps” to achieve social recognition went unheard for far too long. Many Americans remained “blind” to the plight of African Americans. At least Sour Kangaroo couldn’t see the Whos standing in front of her. Yet, people in this country could obviously see African Americans and the injustices they faced. Horton pleaded with Sour Kangaroo to try just a little harder—listen just a little more carefully—if her eyes failed her. Perhaps Dr. Seuss was pleading with his readers: just look and listen a little more carefully to what is going on right in front of you. So, perhaps the real beauty of Horton Hears a Who! is that once you realize that Whos are persons, you can better see that persons are “Whos.” As “Whos” and not “Whats” or “Its,” persons are deserving of your respect because they possess inherent worth. When “Whos” are treated like things, this is the gravest of moral errors.

Accordingly, what grounds the importance of human dignity is that human beings are persons. What Seuss recognized so clearly is that being a person—being a “Who”—is not merely a biological category. It is a moral category. In this sense, all the inhabitants of Nool are persons. Yes, they look like animals and insofar as they are kangaroos, monkeys, elephants, and eagles, they are animals. But they are also persons because they represent creatures who are autonomous—rational agents possessed of volition and foresight. In ways that only Dr. Seuss can, he was reminding us that persons come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Claiming that color, shape, or size does morally matter is to fail to recognize that persons are “Whos.” Horton recognized that the Whos are persons. He listened, he heard, and he acted—heroically. In doing so, he hears me and he hears you. We, too, are “Whos.” We, once again, should be more like Horton the elephant.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Pragmatist Ethics with John Dewey, Horton, and the Lorax

Thomas M. Alexander

Pragmatism is an unfortunate