Putting Humans First passionately argues for the primacy of human life in the natural world and the corresponding justice of humans making use of animals; it disputes the concept of "animal rights" and "animal liberation." It shows human beings to be very much a part of nature, though not, ordinarily, of the wilds. Given their nature, Machan argues that human beings not only can, but ought to use nature to serve their own needs.
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This cranky manifesto opposes the excesses of animal-rights ideologues with an equally doctrinaire libertarianism. Countering animal-rights stalwarts like Tom Regan and Peter Singer, philosophy professor Machan contends that, as the only beings with the capacity for moral choice, only humans can have rights; "wondrous humanity" should therefore stop worrying about "speciesism" and enjoy guilt-free dominion. Machan scores some points on the concept of animal rights (what framework, he wonders, can encompass the rights of both zebras and the lions who feed on them?), but the link to his laissez-faire politics is murky, and his "private property rights approach to managing environmental problems" seems highly inadequate. Shrugging that he is "not sure" about anti-cruelty laws, he hardly mentions industrial livestock rearing or the other institutionalized abuses of animals that have fueled the animal-rights movement. Larger problems like pollution and ecological degradation are a "tragedy of the commons" best handled by privatization of the public realm and perhaps lots of litigation; private landowners, he assumes, will be faithful stewards of their earth, while polluters will answer in court to those whose property or bodies have been damaged by them. Since Machan doesn’t explain how to privatize the upper atmosphere, he allows that there may be a problem with ozone depletion, but he’s satisfied to wait for more research. In Machan’s exuberant call for individuals to do as they please with their animals, their land and their SUVs, the rights of property seem to overshadow those of humans, let alone animals.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
In Putting Humans First, Machan offers an insightful, philosophic, and practical assessment of animal rights and environmental movements. Machan reveals how these philosophies would willingly sacrifice human freedoms by denying basic truths about both man and nature. He shows us that stewardship would be better served by celebrating and employing—rather than vilifying—mankind’s creative and moral nature. (Angela Logomasini, director of risk and environmental policy, Competitive Enterprise Institute )
Tibor R. Machan doesn't like the animal-rights or radical environment movements, and with good cause. Both exhibit anti-human attitudes, he writes, for each rejects the idea that human beings should be the primary concern of human beings. A Chapman University professor, Machan begins his slim volume on a strong note with a cogent critique of the philosophical underpinnings of animal-liberation philosophy. (Wesley Smith The Weekly Standard )
Putting Humans First should become the gold standard for warm and friendly human beings endeavoring to understand and explain why, though we may love animals and nature, they are intrinsically inferior to humans. (Jay Lehr, science director for The Heartland Institute )
A defense of human primacy in a hierarchy of nature and a critique of radical environmentalism. (Chronicle of Higher Education )
Tibor R. Machan doesn't like the animal-rights or radical environment movements, and with good cause. Both exhibit anti-human attitudes, he writes, for each rejects the idea that human beings should be the primary concern of human beings. A Chapman University professor, Machan begins his slim volume on a strong note with a cogent critique of the philosophical underpinnings of animal-liberation philosophy. (Wesley Smith The Weekly Standard )
Putting Humans First should become the gold standard for warm and friendly human beings endeavoring to understand and explain why, though we may love animals and nature, they are intrinsically inferior to humans. (Jay Lehr, science director for The Heartland Institute )
A defense of human primacy in a hierarchy of nature and a critique of radical environmentalism. (Chronicle of Higher Education )
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
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It is unfortunate that writers too often believe they get paid by the word. As a result, we end up with not only overly long books, but bad overly long books. Excessive verbiage often confuses rather than clarifies.
Of course, those of you who have read my book reviews might accuse me of the same failing. Admittedly, my approach is to overwhelm my readers with an amount of information that will cause them to buy the book I review or dissuade them from buying it. At the very least, I aim to impart much of the message of the book, in case readers ignore my advice.
Imparting the total message of Putting Humans First is extremely difficult: Its density of thoughtful content defies its brief narrative.
Putting Humans First is the only book I have encountered that views today's environmental movement from a historical and philosophical perspective and convincingly argues why we have been on the wrong track. Machan then lays out a simple blueprint for man's future interaction with the planet and animal kingdom.
Putting Humans First should become the gold standard for warm and friendly human beings endeavoring to understand and explain why, though we may love animals and nature, they are intrinsically inferior to humans. They warrant "rights" only as we humans define them.
A Logical Argument
Author Dr. Tibor Machan, who is emeritus professor of philosophy at Auburn University, presents an irrefutable argument that will arm with unbeatable ammunition anyone inclined to debate this topic.
Machan develops his argument in a logical manner. He describes most warm, fuzzy members of the animal kingdom as being driven by uncontrollable instinct that is often brutal to their own young, not to mention competing animal families. The phrase "dog eat dog" may no longer be accurate with respect to domestic pets, but it most assuredly applies in the wild with other mammals. Machan vividly describes unambiguous situations where an animal's life must be sacrificed to save a human. Then he points out that "animal activists" and many "eco-activists" are not persuaded by this argument because they truly hate people.
He explains how public policy has already subjugated human rights to animal rights through the Endangered Species Act and wetlands legislation, which stifle human progress and property rights.
He then offers a lengthy philosophical argument, of which Plato and Aristotle would be proud, to explain why humans warrant extensive individual rights but animals only modest rights. He supports, as do I, the prevention of cruelty to animals, though neither of us defines as "cruelty" the humane ending of an animal's life for medical and nutritional purposes.
Machan defines the flaws of environmental activism with skill equal to his assault on animal rights activists. Any student of recent history knows collectivist political economies have failed everywhere in the world they have been attempted--China, USSR, Cuba, and East Germany to name but a few modern examples. Machan traces strong warning against collectivist societies from Aristotle and Plato thousands of years ago to Ludwig von Mises early in the twentieth century and Garrett Hardin more recently still.
For those of you who may make the mistake of not investing the time and money to spend a few hours with this book, let me share with you what Aristotle said in the 4th Century B.C. and what Garrett Hardin said in 1968.
Aristotle
"That all persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other consideration, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families, many attendants are often less useful than a few." (Politics 1262a30 37)
Hardin
"Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning--that is the day when the long desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all." (Science December 13, 1968)
Addressing the Tragedy
The main thing we need to solve the tragedy of the commons, Machan says, "is a theory of justice fully informed by Aristotle and Hardin's recognition of the problem." He says libertarianism is the only such theory currently afoot, but he worries over its inability to become mainstream.
Machan points out that each succeeding generation spawns an intellectual elite convinced "they can make collectivism work," regardless of past failures. He brilliantly portrays today's radical environmentalism as a variant of socialism, in turn a variant of collectivism--the theory that the individual counts for nothing when compared to some greater collective whole, whether the state or mother nature. "Yesterday it was socialism, today it is environmentalism," Machan writes.
Though a philosopher by trade, Machan proves to a be a strong proponent of free markets, private property, and the rule of law. While we know this to be capitalism by definition, he proves its effectiveness as a mathematician might prove an equation in differential calculus. He writes,
"Governments use force to accomplish their goals. But force, unless used in self-defense--as the military is supposed to use it--wreaks havoc in its path, even when the ostensible results seem to be grand. And nowhere is this more evident than in environmental matters. When the laws and public policy favor the system of eminent domain and the use of publicly owned lands and waters for whatever happens to be in quasi-democratic demand, the usual result is akin to a zero-sum game: the favored policy wins, the disfavored one loses. By contrast, in the free market, there are many disparate demands that get satisfied to a greater or lesser extent. This has vital implication for environmental policy."
Machan concludes there is evidence for the environmental benefits of free markets all around us but, perhaps most clearly, in the contrast between what Soviet-style socialist central planning has done to the environment in eastern Europe and the comparatively less-harmful results arising from the far more capitalist, free market, private property-based system of the West.
There are gems of wisdom on nearly every page of this wonderfully short book. I will conclude with this one.
"Environmentalists need to be more optimistic about the prospects of managing environmental problems in a legal framework of individual liberty. What many in the environmental movement fail to realize (or perhaps admit to) is that the environmental problems that can be clearly identified rather than merely speculated about are generated by the tragedy of the commons. They are not generated by the privatization of resources or by the implementation of the principles that prohibit dumping and other kinds of trespassing, principles derived from an individual conception of justice and public policy."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Lehr [...] is science director for The Heartland Institute.
Of course, those of you who have read my book reviews might accuse me of the same failing. Admittedly, my approach is to overwhelm my readers with an amount of information that will cause them to buy the book I review or dissuade them from buying it. At the very least, I aim to impart much of the message of the book, in case readers ignore my advice.
Imparting the total message of Putting Humans First is extremely difficult: Its density of thoughtful content defies its brief narrative.
Putting Humans First is the only book I have encountered that views today's environmental movement from a historical and philosophical perspective and convincingly argues why we have been on the wrong track. Machan then lays out a simple blueprint for man's future interaction with the planet and animal kingdom.
Putting Humans First should become the gold standard for warm and friendly human beings endeavoring to understand and explain why, though we may love animals and nature, they are intrinsically inferior to humans. They warrant "rights" only as we humans define them.
A Logical Argument
Author Dr. Tibor Machan, who is emeritus professor of philosophy at Auburn University, presents an irrefutable argument that will arm with unbeatable ammunition anyone inclined to debate this topic.
Machan develops his argument in a logical manner. He describes most warm, fuzzy members of the animal kingdom as being driven by uncontrollable instinct that is often brutal to their own young, not to mention competing animal families. The phrase "dog eat dog" may no longer be accurate with respect to domestic pets, but it most assuredly applies in the wild with other mammals. Machan vividly describes unambiguous situations where an animal's life must be sacrificed to save a human. Then he points out that "animal activists" and many "eco-activists" are not persuaded by this argument because they truly hate people.
He explains how public policy has already subjugated human rights to animal rights through the Endangered Species Act and wetlands legislation, which stifle human progress and property rights.
He then offers a lengthy philosophical argument, of which Plato and Aristotle would be proud, to explain why humans warrant extensive individual rights but animals only modest rights. He supports, as do I, the prevention of cruelty to animals, though neither of us defines as "cruelty" the humane ending of an animal's life for medical and nutritional purposes.
Machan defines the flaws of environmental activism with skill equal to his assault on animal rights activists. Any student of recent history knows collectivist political economies have failed everywhere in the world they have been attempted--China, USSR, Cuba, and East Germany to name but a few modern examples. Machan traces strong warning against collectivist societies from Aristotle and Plato thousands of years ago to Ludwig von Mises early in the twentieth century and Garrett Hardin more recently still.
For those of you who may make the mistake of not investing the time and money to spend a few hours with this book, let me share with you what Aristotle said in the 4th Century B.C. and what Garrett Hardin said in 1968.
Aristotle
"That all persons call the same thing mine in the sense in which each does so may be a fine thing, but it is impracticable; or if the words are taken in the other sense, such a unity in no way conduces to harmony. And there is another objection to the proposal. For that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it. Every one thinks chiefly of his own, hardly at all of the common interest; and only when he is himself concerned as an individual. For besides other consideration, everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty which he expects another to fulfill; as in families, many attendants are often less useful than a few." (Politics 1262a30 37)
Hardin
"Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land. Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning--that is the day when the long desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all." (Science December 13, 1968)
Addressing the Tragedy
The main thing we need to solve the tragedy of the commons, Machan says, "is a theory of justice fully informed by Aristotle and Hardin's recognition of the problem." He says libertarianism is the only such theory currently afoot, but he worries over its inability to become mainstream.
Machan points out that each succeeding generation spawns an intellectual elite convinced "they can make collectivism work," regardless of past failures. He brilliantly portrays today's radical environmentalism as a variant of socialism, in turn a variant of collectivism--the theory that the individual counts for nothing when compared to some greater collective whole, whether the state or mother nature. "Yesterday it was socialism, today it is environmentalism," Machan writes.
Though a philosopher by trade, Machan proves to a be a strong proponent of free markets, private property, and the rule of law. While we know this to be capitalism by definition, he proves its effectiveness as a mathematician might prove an equation in differential calculus. He writes,
"Governments use force to accomplish their goals. But force, unless used in self-defense--as the military is supposed to use it--wreaks havoc in its path, even when the ostensible results seem to be grand. And nowhere is this more evident than in environmental matters. When the laws and public policy favor the system of eminent domain and the use of publicly owned lands and waters for whatever happens to be in quasi-democratic demand, the usual result is akin to a zero-sum game: the favored policy wins, the disfavored one loses. By contrast, in the free market, there are many disparate demands that get satisfied to a greater or lesser extent. This has vital implication for environmental policy."
Machan concludes there is evidence for the environmental benefits of free markets all around us but, perhaps most clearly, in the contrast between what Soviet-style socialist central planning has done to the environment in eastern Europe and the comparatively less-harmful results arising from the far more capitalist, free market, private property-based system of the West.
There are gems of wisdom on nearly every page of this wonderfully short book. I will conclude with this one.
"Environmentalists need to be more optimistic about the prospects of managing environmental problems in a legal framework of individual liberty. What many in the environmental movement fail to realize (or perhaps admit to) is that the environmental problems that can be clearly identified rather than merely speculated about are generated by the tragedy of the commons. They are not generated by the privatization of resources or by the implementation of the principles that prohibit dumping and other kinds of trespassing, principles derived from an individual conception of justice and public policy."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jay Lehr [...] is science director for The Heartland Institute.
Format:Hardcover
Jim Lehr, the Director for The Heartland Institute, a public relations "nonprofit" and member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which drafted and lobbied for the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), writes, "[Machan] points out that "animal activists" and many "eco-activists" are not persuaded by this argument because they truly hate people."
[...]
[...]
Does Machan explicitly state that a majority of bio-activists are misanthropic? It's a very weak argument to even state that "many ... truly hate people;" ad misercordium (pity-appeal) and bandwagon logical fallacies are right on the surface of that statement. More specifically, it could be argued that many activists are frustrated and even infuriated that the habitat for humans and all other species is being eaten "away," flushed "away," thrown "away" and that industrial animal agriculture is a primary contributing factor in the rapid deforestation and desertification of the arable land on Earth.
Many activists are aware of the beauty of human potential as much as that the fallacy of human significance is as fundamentally fallacious as ideologies of supremacy in eugenics, the gender spectrum and monetary economics. There is sex-slave trafficking, genocidal warfare with endemic gang-rape, mutilations, drone military aircraft bombing civilian children, etc., while Machan, Lehr and similar hominids of barbarous habituation/perpetuation are composing verbose refutations of compassionate philosophy in preference of sense-gratification and grandiosity in the taproot of violence, predation.
There is ample evidence for a tight academic argument that meat-centric cultures are more warlike, aggressive and hostile to outsiders than veg-centric societies. For anyone interested in researching that claim, The World Peace Diet (Will Tuttle, Ph. D.) is a formidable work that Machan may drizzle his britches over and over about. The work of renowned anthropologist, Marija Gimbutas is cited by Tuttle.
Also, in the documentary Forks Over Knives they animate and detail the effect of consuming animal cholesterol (there is no cholesterol in plants); natural predators aren't effected as much because of the higher concentration of hydrochloric acid in their stomachs. However, the arteries in human beings become coated or clog and cause heart-failure or stroke, the leading causes of death in the world in 2011. When cholesterol plaque covers the cells that line the interior walls of arteries, the cells become diseased or die and then cannot perform an essential function; those cells produce nitrous oxide to thin the blood and it has a mood lifting effect in the psyche. People who have eaten a lot of meat over the course of their lives are often chronically depressed, restless, irritable, discontent, diabetic, develop osteoporosis and/or die from intestinal/colon cancer or other aforementioned maladies.
Psychopathic tendencies and domestic violence are documented by researchers as being correlated to people who are cruel to animals. Cruelty to animals is commissioned by the majority of Americans at three meals a day, yet it goes ignored because of fear of change or an apathetic preference of "convenience." The workers who do the actual killing are suffer greater injury rates and are exposed to more hazards than many other industries. They are often migrants without legal right to work, so they get paid very low wages to do strenuous, dangerous work. Here's an article summarizing research that correlates Animal Cruelty and Domestic Abuse: [...]
Putting Humans First represents and touts collective selfishness; it is the "you can't play with my toy" or "Who Moved My Cheese?" It epitomizes the ego-centric approach whether or not it is intricately articulated and stamped by a "stuffed suit" in an upper-division position. Can we instead put reality or Truth first and see where humans can fit ourselves to it without doing unjustifiable harm on a daily basis? If you really want to research animal agriculture, see what the Pew Commision says here: [...]
"The pcifap is a two-year study funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts through
a grant to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. This report
reflects the deliberations and consensus recommendations of the Commission."
Governments use violent force unnecessarily, no differently than is mainstream for the constituency to do for three meals every day. Make the connection. Veganism saves lives from cruelty, suffering and death. You reap what you sow, you needn't so afflict yourself. A well-planned vegan diet is more than adequate; ask the American Dietetic Association!
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." - [...]
So why, when we don't need to consume death by violence to live do we continue in the madness, the mad hominid-carnivore disease? Is the taste of rotting flesh worth the trouble it generates? How many more Machans are going to write tirades and use countless tons of wood pulp to print thousands of copies of worthless philosophy?
Moreover, why when the United Nations' report, Livestock's Long Shadow summarizes: "The livestock sector [is] one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with the problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity."
Jay Lehr writes, "Machan vividly describes unambiguous situations where an animal's life must be sacrificed to save a human."
In truth and contrapuntally, nonhuman animals must be given mercy to save the home world of humanity and the hope to reify the Uppermost of human potential.
[...]
[...]
Does Machan explicitly state that a majority of bio-activists are misanthropic? It's a very weak argument to even state that "many ... truly hate people;" ad misercordium (pity-appeal) and bandwagon logical fallacies are right on the surface of that statement. More specifically, it could be argued that many activists are frustrated and even infuriated that the habitat for humans and all other species is being eaten "away," flushed "away," thrown "away" and that industrial animal agriculture is a primary contributing factor in the rapid deforestation and desertification of the arable land on Earth.
Many activists are aware of the beauty of human potential as much as that the fallacy of human significance is as fundamentally fallacious as ideologies of supremacy in eugenics, the gender spectrum and monetary economics. There is sex-slave trafficking, genocidal warfare with endemic gang-rape, mutilations, drone military aircraft bombing civilian children, etc., while Machan, Lehr and similar hominids of barbarous habituation/perpetuation are composing verbose refutations of compassionate philosophy in preference of sense-gratification and grandiosity in the taproot of violence, predation.
There is ample evidence for a tight academic argument that meat-centric cultures are more warlike, aggressive and hostile to outsiders than veg-centric societies. For anyone interested in researching that claim, The World Peace Diet (Will Tuttle, Ph. D.) is a formidable work that Machan may drizzle his britches over and over about. The work of renowned anthropologist, Marija Gimbutas is cited by Tuttle.
Also, in the documentary Forks Over Knives they animate and detail the effect of consuming animal cholesterol (there is no cholesterol in plants); natural predators aren't effected as much because of the higher concentration of hydrochloric acid in their stomachs. However, the arteries in human beings become coated or clog and cause heart-failure or stroke, the leading causes of death in the world in 2011. When cholesterol plaque covers the cells that line the interior walls of arteries, the cells become diseased or die and then cannot perform an essential function; those cells produce nitrous oxide to thin the blood and it has a mood lifting effect in the psyche. People who have eaten a lot of meat over the course of their lives are often chronically depressed, restless, irritable, discontent, diabetic, develop osteoporosis and/or die from intestinal/colon cancer or other aforementioned maladies.
Psychopathic tendencies and domestic violence are documented by researchers as being correlated to people who are cruel to animals. Cruelty to animals is commissioned by the majority of Americans at three meals a day, yet it goes ignored because of fear of change or an apathetic preference of "convenience." The workers who do the actual killing are suffer greater injury rates and are exposed to more hazards than many other industries. They are often migrants without legal right to work, so they get paid very low wages to do strenuous, dangerous work. Here's an article summarizing research that correlates Animal Cruelty and Domestic Abuse: [...]
Putting Humans First represents and touts collective selfishness; it is the "you can't play with my toy" or "Who Moved My Cheese?" It epitomizes the ego-centric approach whether or not it is intricately articulated and stamped by a "stuffed suit" in an upper-division position. Can we instead put reality or Truth first and see where humans can fit ourselves to it without doing unjustifiable harm on a daily basis? If you really want to research animal agriculture, see what the Pew Commision says here: [...]
"The pcifap is a two-year study funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts through
a grant to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. This report
reflects the deliberations and consensus recommendations of the Commission."
Governments use violent force unnecessarily, no differently than is mainstream for the constituency to do for three meals every day. Make the connection. Veganism saves lives from cruelty, suffering and death. You reap what you sow, you needn't so afflict yourself. A well-planned vegan diet is more than adequate; ask the American Dietetic Association!
"It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases." - [...]
So why, when we don't need to consume death by violence to live do we continue in the madness, the mad hominid-carnivore disease? Is the taste of rotting flesh worth the trouble it generates? How many more Machans are going to write tirades and use countless tons of wood pulp to print thousands of copies of worthless philosophy?
Moreover, why when the United Nations' report, Livestock's Long Shadow summarizes: "The livestock sector [is] one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global. The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with the problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution and loss of biodiversity."
Jay Lehr writes, "Machan vividly describes unambiguous situations where an animal's life must be sacrificed to save a human."
In truth and contrapuntally, nonhuman animals must be given mercy to save the home world of humanity and the hope to reify the Uppermost of human potential.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this book, Dr. Tibor Machan makes the case against rights for animals and makes a convincing argument that environmentalists should favor individual rights rather than an emphasizing the needs of nature over humanity.
This is the first of Dr. Machan's books that I have read and it is a short, well-written treatise that should provoke people, especially environmentalists, to think about the cause(s) they support or the positions they take.
To Machan, the notion that animals should be granted the same rights as humans is nonsense and demonstrates why it is. He contends (and I completely agree) that only beings who have the capacity to think and reason should have natural, individual rights.
Because only humans have the capacity to think, unlike animals, it is they who will and have the capacity to act morally and ethically.
Therefore, only humans should have rights.
A right designates someone's natural sphere of influence so they can remain free from force or the involuntary influence of others.
Government, in turn, is established to protect individual human beings from force and fraud and should not be preverted, like the environmentalist and animal rights groups want, into granting special privileges to certain groups. In this case animals.
The concept of rights took many centuries of struggle and thought on the part of humans to achieve and was nearly obliterated with the adoption of the collectivistic philosophies of fascism, naziism and communism.
Now, mankind is faced with other popular collectivist philosophies (the most prominent of them is environmentalism) in which a cause that is a natural outgrowth from that movement is animal rights.
Aside from the fact that animals had no part in the achievement and restoration of rights for human beings, its clear that rights were achieved for the betterment of human beings and are exclusively for them.
On animal cruelty, Tibor is not clear on this point. Yet there are property laws in place that can protect an owner's domesticated animals from acts of violence committed against them by another. This I agree with since one of government's proper functions is to protect private property.
Any attempt to pervert rights by extending them to non-humans or even potential ones (such as developing fetuses) is an attack on human life itself, is immoral and should be rejected outright.
"Putting Humans First" is not a medium to attack people who wish to give rights to animals and other forms of nature. It is a open letter to the average reader who may or may not have considered arguments to the contrary of what they believe or what leaders or activists of groups, like PETA or Greenpeace, may have told them.
This is the first and only book that I have found to openly challenge the concept of animal rights and bring arguments against them to the general public.
Accolades to Tibor Machan for doing so!
This is the first of Dr. Machan's books that I have read and it is a short, well-written treatise that should provoke people, especially environmentalists, to think about the cause(s) they support or the positions they take.
To Machan, the notion that animals should be granted the same rights as humans is nonsense and demonstrates why it is. He contends (and I completely agree) that only beings who have the capacity to think and reason should have natural, individual rights.
Because only humans have the capacity to think, unlike animals, it is they who will and have the capacity to act morally and ethically.
Therefore, only humans should have rights.
A right designates someone's natural sphere of influence so they can remain free from force or the involuntary influence of others.
Government, in turn, is established to protect individual human beings from force and fraud and should not be preverted, like the environmentalist and animal rights groups want, into granting special privileges to certain groups. In this case animals.
The concept of rights took many centuries of struggle and thought on the part of humans to achieve and was nearly obliterated with the adoption of the collectivistic philosophies of fascism, naziism and communism.
Now, mankind is faced with other popular collectivist philosophies (the most prominent of them is environmentalism) in which a cause that is a natural outgrowth from that movement is animal rights.
Aside from the fact that animals had no part in the achievement and restoration of rights for human beings, its clear that rights were achieved for the betterment of human beings and are exclusively for them.
On animal cruelty, Tibor is not clear on this point. Yet there are property laws in place that can protect an owner's domesticated animals from acts of violence committed against them by another. This I agree with since one of government's proper functions is to protect private property.
Any attempt to pervert rights by extending them to non-humans or even potential ones (such as developing fetuses) is an attack on human life itself, is immoral and should be rejected outright.
"Putting Humans First" is not a medium to attack people who wish to give rights to animals and other forms of nature. It is a open letter to the average reader who may or may not have considered arguments to the contrary of what they believe or what leaders or activists of groups, like PETA or Greenpeace, may have told them.
This is the first and only book that I have found to openly challenge the concept of animal rights and bring arguments against them to the general public.
Accolades to Tibor Machan for doing so!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
On the right track
There are many smart approaches to defending human rights as superior to animal "rights" and Tibor Machan is on the right track with this book. Read more
Published on January 22, 2007 by Paul E. Morphus
No Clue
I recently had the displeasure of reading this book, which ranks as one of the most smug, self-serving, pseudointellectual diatribes I've ever come across. Read more
Published on April 19, 2006 by Nick Jans
Response to Nobis' Review by author
Revisiting the Animal Rights/Liberation Debate
I say "revisiting" because I have addressed the topic in several places quite a few times and want merely to respond to a... Read more
I say "revisiting" because I have addressed the topic in several places quite a few times and want merely to respond to a... Read more
Published on August 29, 2004 by T. R Machan
a serious disappointment from a not very serious philosopher
Writings criticizing our treatment of non-human animals - in agribusiness, the fashion industry and in research labs - are being published at an astounding rate. Read more
Published on July 16, 2004 by Nathan Nobis
This has to be a joke!
This is a hideous display of human idiocy - there is no way that any thinking, reasoning adult could actually hold these views. Read more
Published on July 2, 2004 by "laurahhoyt"
Finally a book in our own defense
This short but nifty book is a concise defense of human life, with a critique of the muddle of "animal rights" theory and a sharp examination of anti-human... Read more
Published on April 27, 2004
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