Hakluyt
01-21-2006, 07:41 AM
http://www.imprint.co.uk/books/arnhart.html
Darwinian Conservatism
Larry Arnhart
September 2005, 162 pages
ISBN 0 907845 991 (pbk.), £8.95/$17.90
The Left has traditionally assumed that human nature is so malleable, so perfectible, that it can be shaped in almost any direction. Conservatives object, arguing that social order arises not from rational planning but from the spontaneous order of instincts and habits. Darwinian biology sustains conservative social thought by showing how the human capacity for spontaneous order arises from social instincts and a moral sense shaped by natural selection in human evolutionary history.
Larry Arnhart is a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of Aristotle on Political Reasoning, Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Rawls, and Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature.
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[from the introduction: http://www.imprint.co.uk/books/Arnhart-intro.pdf]
Conservatives need Charles Darwin. They need him because a Darwinian
science of human nature supports conservatives in their realist view
of human imperfectibility and their commitment to ordered liberty as
rooted in nature, custom, and prudence. The intellectual vitality of conservatism
in the twenty-first century will depend on the success of conservatives
in appealing to advances in the biology of human nature as
confirming conservative thought.
The debate here is not just over the scientific truth or falsity of Darwin’s
theory, but also over its moral and political implications. Many
conservatives regard Darwinian evolution as a key idea for a scientific
materialism that is morally and politically corrupting because it denies
the moral dignity of human beings as created in God’s image. So this
debate over the teaching of Darwinism in the public schools has become part of what is called the “culture war” in the United States. This is said
to be a war about moral values in which conservatives defend traditional
moral and religious values against the scientific materialism and moral
relativism of the liberals. Many people have suggested that President
George Bush’s re-election in 2004 was due, at least in part, by his winning
the support of religious conservatives who thought he was on the right
side of this cultural war over values.
But my argument is that conservatives can more easily win this cultural
war by using Darwinian biology as an intellectual weapon supporting
traditional morality — and conservative principles generally — as
grounded in human nature.
Darwinian Conservatism
Larry Arnhart
September 2005, 162 pages
ISBN 0 907845 991 (pbk.), £8.95/$17.90
The Left has traditionally assumed that human nature is so malleable, so perfectible, that it can be shaped in almost any direction. Conservatives object, arguing that social order arises not from rational planning but from the spontaneous order of instincts and habits. Darwinian biology sustains conservative social thought by showing how the human capacity for spontaneous order arises from social instincts and a moral sense shaped by natural selection in human evolutionary history.
Larry Arnhart is a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of Aristotle on Political Reasoning, Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Rawls, and Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature.
--
[from the introduction: http://www.imprint.co.uk/books/Arnhart-intro.pdf]
Conservatives need Charles Darwin. They need him because a Darwinian
science of human nature supports conservatives in their realist view
of human imperfectibility and their commitment to ordered liberty as
rooted in nature, custom, and prudence. The intellectual vitality of conservatism
in the twenty-first century will depend on the success of conservatives
in appealing to advances in the biology of human nature as
confirming conservative thought.
The debate here is not just over the scientific truth or falsity of Darwin’s
theory, but also over its moral and political implications. Many
conservatives regard Darwinian evolution as a key idea for a scientific
materialism that is morally and politically corrupting because it denies
the moral dignity of human beings as created in God’s image. So this
debate over the teaching of Darwinism in the public schools has become part of what is called the “culture war” in the United States. This is said
to be a war about moral values in which conservatives defend traditional
moral and religious values against the scientific materialism and moral
relativism of the liberals. Many people have suggested that President
George Bush’s re-election in 2004 was due, at least in part, by his winning
the support of religious conservatives who thought he was on the right
side of this cultural war over values.
But my argument is that conservatives can more easily win this cultural
war by using Darwinian biology as an intellectual weapon supporting
traditional morality — and conservative principles generally — as
grounded in human nature.