Putting Humans First: Why We Are Nature's Favorite (Studies in Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy) (Hardcover)

Machan argues that the idea of animal rights is "a fiction" and "a trick." This is because a being has rights - it is wrong to harm it for pleasure or even serious benefits - only if it has a "moral nature," i.e., a "capacity" to see the difference between right and wrong and choose accordingly (pp. xv, 10). Machan says humans are of that "kind" and animals are not and so concludes that humans have rights and animals have none.

But these arguments are imprecise: true, only humans have this capacity, but only some humans, not all. Thus, his theory of rights seems to provide no protection for vulnerable humans who are not moral agents and so lack the moral nature he describes.

Machan disagrees: he argues that, contrary to appearances, human babies and severely mentally challenged individuals do not "lack moral agency altogether" (p. 16) and thus they have rights on his theory. To see this, however, he says that we must consider them as they would exist "normally, not abnormally" and focus on the "healthy cases, not the special or exceptional ones" (p. 16; cf. pp. 38, 40). Apparently, Machan thinks that since "normal" human beings are moral agents, abnormal humans are moral agents as well. But this inference is clearly illegitimate: while exceptional humans' characteristics include some properties they share with normal humans (e.g., being biologically human), it is not true that, in general, all features of normal beings are shared by abnormal beings: e.g., quadriplegics and cancer patients are in their unfortunate conditions even though normal, healthy humans - whom they share much with - are not.

So, in the absence of arguments to the contrary, the fact that normal humans are moral agents does not make abnormal humans moral agents. Thus, they do not meet Machan's necessary condition for rights; his defense of the rights of vulnerable humans fails and thereby so does his argument that animals have no moral rights. His criticism of one implausible theory of rights - that if someone merely has an interest in something, then he or she has a right to that thing - does little to defend his position either.

Machan's other main argument against animal rights is surprising. He claims that if animals have the right to not be harmed at the hands of moral agents, then they also have that right against "politically incorrect" animals who, as he repeatedly observes throughout the book, are not moral agents (p. 12). He argues that since they don't have that latter right (i.e., animals don't have rights against other animals), they don't have the former right (i.e., they have no rights against us). Basically he suggests that - when it suits our pleasure - it is morally permissible for us to act like some animals and kill other animals. Thankfully Machan does not endorse our imitating some animals by our eating our offspring (or our excrement), but since chickens, pigs, cows, rats, mice, and most primates are primarily vegetarian, they would surely welcome our imitation in that regard.

One important, surprising and encouraging remark might help resolve this ambivalence: Machan suggests that one might be "morally remiss" for not breaking the law to "invade" a neighbor's private property to rescue a cat who was being tortured by the neighbor, the cat's owner (p. 22). If this is Machan's true view, then he clearly does not believe that humans should always come first and the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts, as well as more moderate animal and environmental advocates, have found an ally in a most surprising place.