Reply to David Graham and Nathan Nobis, "Putting Humans First?" (Fall 2006): Putting Humans First? YES!

In "Putting Humans First?" David Graham and Nathan Nobis question Tibor Machan's critique of the idea of "animal rights." They suggest that Machan does not adequately respond to arguments about the impact of ' marginal cases' on theories such as his, which claim that natural rights stem from the manner in which human beings as a species interact with the world. Altick argues that Graham and Nobis' critique is misdirected and that it misses Machan's underlying argument, thus leaving his defense of distinctly human natural rights relatively untarnished.