‘Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me?’
missing the point?
so this is obviously because of the idea of leaving a legacy so others can know of you and profit from it and likely build on your legacy; pretty pointless aiming for posterity otherwise.
so he is using this argument to refute the claim that animals should be able to claim the same rights as humans (in some senses) even though they are on a different plane of 'being able to do anything' for us; however the two are not comparable in this fashion as the former is an idea in our minds, much like, i suppose, the idea that animals will be grateful in theory for what we do for them.
