Darwinian Conservatism

By Larry Arnhart

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0907845991
• ISBN13: 9780907845997
• Release Date: August 2005
• Publisher: Imprint Academic (Ips)
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Conservatives....Please read this!

The one other review here by H. Gintis is nonsense. Arnhart is one of the most thoughtful conservative academic thinkers of our time. To get a peek at him look up the debate he had in First Things with Demski, Johnson et al. a few years ago. It's easy to find with Google. This is a great little book jam packed with conservative ideas that are found only in dis-jointed form elsewhere. For example, where else have you read or heard discussed Hayek's idea of "spontaneous order?" This was a profound insight by Fredric von Hayek, and virtually unknown to most conservatives who think they know Hayek. At 144 pages you can read this book in an evening, and if you're an open-minded conservative you'll feel great and sleep well. Those conservatives who have fallen for and swallowed whole the vacuous and silly arguments about "intelligent design" will admittedly have a little harder time with this book. There is no religion bashing. Quite the contrary. But the intelligent design claptrap is simply not accepted as either science or good religion. If you are a center or center-right thinking person whose mind is open, or if you are a hard right religious conservative but have some room left in your brain for a little cognitive dissonance, this book and it's arguments will expand your horizons. This is a book that will be profitable even to those who ultimately disagree with it. But of course, if you read it you may be persuaded. Buy it!