tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post2345975188481648500..comments2024-03-15T19:54:18.063+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: The Biological Naturalism of the Lockean Pursuit of HappinessLarry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-9061288305868108162012-11-21T20:56:41.519+00:002012-11-21T20:56:41.519+00:00It sounds like Mr. West is approaching the Groucho...It sounds like Mr. West is approaching the Groucho Marx standard for accepting club memberships. <br /><br />Perhaps the membership committee should consider expelling Mr. Zuckert for his numerous deviations. Even though he founded the association of Midwest Straussians, it is not clear he truly accepts its principles.<br /><br />In fact, it’s not clear that anyone except Mr. Arnhart really gets it. And me, of course. <br /><br />In any event, if this is ever going to become a movement, some discipline will be needed. Otherwise it will remain just another discussion group. Let the purge begin!Kent Guidahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00119882444127499607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-55218657527403711682012-11-18T23:13:40.316+00:002012-11-18T23:13:40.316+00:00Larry, Thanks for posting. I appreciate your anoin...Larry, Thanks for posting. I appreciate your anointing me a member in good standing of Midwest Straussianism. But if the paterfamilias of that movement is Michael Zuckert, I may have to decline the offer. As you noted in your blog post, he and I differ fundamentally on Locke (to say nothing of other topics). If, as you say, a "Midwest Straussian" is "someone who combines Aristotelian ethics and Lockean politics, in affirming (contrary to Leo Strauss) that one can combine ancient virtue with modern liberty," then I don't see how Zuckert qualifies. As I note in my Locke essay, "In his long discussion of Lockean natural law in "Natural Rights and the New Republicanism," 187-288, Zuckert focuses almost exclusively on Locke's doctrine of natural rights as opposed to the duty of everyone to preserve others and of parents to care for their children." Locke's teaching on parental and spousal duties--which tend not to be much noticed among Straussians--brings Locke closer to Aristotelian ethics than does Zuckert's emphasis on Lockean self-ownership.<br /><br />Actually, your definition of "Midwest Straussian" reminded me more of Harry Jaffa than of Zuckert. In fact, isn't combining ancient virtue with modern liberty almost the definition of "Western Straussianism"? If it is, then maybe it is not I who am a Midwest Straussian but rather you who are a Western one!<br /><br />But enough with such superficial labels.<br /><br />I do have my differences with Jaffa. One of them is the way he and I might respond to Zuckert's critique of Jaffa in Z's book "The Truth about Leo Strauss." In "The Truth" Zuckert says one way Jaffa could respond to his critique is to make a more robust defense of Locke. That is in effect what I did in the Locke essay that you reference.<br /><br />The implication of my argument is that the American Founders do not have to be viewed as breaking with Locke (or as embracing some sort of incoherent "amalgam" in their political theory) in their simultaneous concern with natural rights and with the moral and religious character of the people.<br /><br />Tom West at HillsdaleTom Westhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10466141343273312669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-39709555918379440122012-11-18T01:26:29.280+00:002012-11-18T01:26:29.280+00:00If the "greatest happiness consists in the ha...If the "greatest happiness consists in the having those things which produce the greatest pleasure," doesn't that mean that it's not the enjoying but the having that's important? In other words, having a big bank account is the greatest happiness, not buying and consuming the things which wealth purchases. So the ideal Lockean will save and better his condition a little every day, but it's the having and not the consuming that's crucial to the Lockean. That's why Strauss ends the chapter on Locke with "joyless quest for joy," which can be restated as "joyless quest for the having but not the consuming of the things which produce joy."bjdubbsnoreply@blogger.com