Putting Humans First

I am about half way through Tibor Machan's Putting Humans First. I've wanted to read it since it came out, but since he will be coming to speak to the Arizona Objectivists on 1/15 I thought it time to read it.

No surprises so far. It's a straightforward, pleasurable read. I am not sure its very convincing to someone already convinced of animal rights. Surprisingly, the book, so far, doesn't spend all that much time (part of the first chapter) on showing the faulty reasoning of the other side. And going by the table of contents, it won't. It is actually much more positive. Machan goes through the reasoning behind human rights and thereby shows why such reasoning can't be reasonably applied to animals. The book might have been more persuasive (again I am not finished yet) had it spent more time going through the problems with the argument on the other side.

But as I am in total agreement with Machan on this issue (see my piece on animal rights), the book is a pleasure to read.