Reply to Herbert Gintis

Herbert Gintis has written a review of DARWINIAN CONSERVATISM for Amazon.com, in which he criticizes the book as a "failure" because it presents a "disingenuous argument." Since I have learned much from the work of Gintis--particularly in evolutionary game theory--I respect his opinion and so feel the need to respond. I will quote each of his six paragraphs, and then reply.

Larry Arnhart is a serious, perceptive ethical philosopher whose works deserve praise (and to be read), but this book is a failure. The arguments are weak and will certainly fail to convince most "conservatives" to embrace Darwinian evolutionary theory.

I agree that the opposition of some conservatives to Darwinian science is so deeply felt that my arguments are going to seem weak to them. But as I indicate in my book, many modern conservatives--such as Friedrich Hayek and James Q. Wilson--accept evolutionary theory and employ it in developing their political arguments. Furthermore, the founders of the conservative tradition--Adam Smith and Edmund Burke--belonged to a line of social thought based on the idea of spontaneous, evolutionary order that led to Darwin. Conservatives who reject evolutionary ideas will find themselves in opposition to their own intellectual tradition.

Evolutionary biology is scientifically correct, which is the main reason it must be accepted by anyone, whatever their political philosophy (Arnhart does not stress this). However, Darwinian biology can be either used or ignored in making political arguments, so I will rephrase the issue as: are there good arguments flowing from evolutionary biology for conservative political philosophy?

All political philosophy rests fundamentally on claims about human nature. Insofar as Darwin's evolutionary biology advances a general theory of human nature--particularly in THE DESCENT OF MAN--it is hard to assess Darwin's science without considering the moral and political implications of his account of human nature. For example, when Darwin early on adopted the idea of a moral sense that was rooted in human nature, he followed the lead of the Scottish moral sense philosophers (Smith, Hume, and others). Thus, Darwin's science is intertwined with this philosophic tradition of morality as founded on the moral sentiments. (In fact, some of Gintis's recent writing seems to be part of this philosophic tradition.)

We must note that at least in the USA, there are two quite different branches of conservatism, one espousing religious fundamentalism and the other classical economic liberalism. They have almost nothing in common intellectually and are simply politically linked by historical events. Arnhart does not stress this point.

There surely is a tension between the libertarian conservatism that begins with Smith and the traditionalist conservatism that begins with Burke, a tension that fuels much debate among conservatives. But in my book, I argue for a fundamental agreement between libertarianism and traditionalism, which is suggested by the intellectual friendship between Smith and Burke. Libertarians and traditionalists generally agree on a realist view of human nature as imperfecti ble and on the need for the evolved, spontaneous orders of family life, private property, and limited government as the basis for ordered liberty. Darwinian science helps to explain how those spontaneous orders conform to the evolved nature of human beings.

Arnhart's arguments directed towards religious conservatism can be summarized as: (a) evolutionary biology is compatible with belief in God; (b) evolutionary biology recognizes and reinforces the notion that religious belief is a universal element of human nature; and (c) a strong adherence to family values is part of human nature. I agree with these statements, but Arnhart never addresses the burning issues, which include abortion, homosexuality, gay marriage, and state-religion separation. He does deal with intelligent design, which he rejects as a scientific theory. This is part of why I call his book "disingenuous": he simply avoids the hard topics.

If I can persuade religious conservatives to agree with (a), (b), and (c), I will consider my book a great success. And if I can even get them to question the "intelligent design" arguments, I will be elated. As far as I'm concerned, these are the "burning issues"! It is true that I have said nothing about a wide range of policy issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and so on. But these are issues to be determined by prudential judgment rather than broad principles of human nature. For example, I argue that parental care for children is a natural human desire. But whether we should identify embryos as children and extend to them the same moral concern that we give to children is a matter for debate.

Turning to classical liberalism, Arnhart says that Darwinian evolution supports a Burkean political philosophy. I think this is a plausible argument, although Arnhart avoids all the hard questions by choosing as the alternative political philosophy an absurd caricature of the leftist alternative that is more or less 19th century Utopianism. Societies grow organically, Arnhart says, and cannot be socially engineered using the principles of Reason alone. Of course this is correct, but this is accepted by all relevant political philosophers today (except Peter Singer and his bizarre ilk). What about the proper extent of government, the treatment of poverty, the environment, and foreign relations? Nothing here.

I will be happy to have my readers agree with Gintis that I have made a good argument for Darwinian science as supporting Burkean political philosophy. That's the whole aim of my book!

If it is true that "all relevant political philosophers" have embraced a Burkean rejection of utopian rationalism, then I must be completely out of touch with the world of political philosophy today. But then what does Gintis mean by "relevant"? And does he really mean to claim that no serious political thinkers today advocate social engineering to achieve social justice? If he is right, then Friedrich Hayek's critique of rationalist constructivism has persuaded everybody. I wish.

I concede that I haven't laid out policies for treating poverty, foreign relations, and so on. But as I indicated above, I see such issues as matters of practical judgment rather than general principles of human nature.

I am not a conservative, and I don't think much of conservative political philosophy, but if I were, I would not be moved by Arnhart's arguments. (I am also not a liberal, by the way, and in fact I think the liberal/conservative dichotomy is a sick joke, but that's a topic for another day.)

The liberal/conservative dichotomy might be crude, but it is not a "sick joke." If I am right in arguing that conservatism rests on a realist view of human nature, while the Left rests on a utopian view of human nature, then the political history of the West over the past two centuries has turned on the conflict between these two visions. (Here I follow Thomas Sowell's lead in his book A CONFLICT OF VISIONS.) The claim of my book is that Darwinian science confirms the conservative realist vision of the natural imperfectibility of human beings. That's why conservatives need Charles Darwin.