Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart

Traditionalist conservatives and classical liberals need Charles Darwin. They need him because a Darwinian science of human nature supports Burkean conservatives and Lockean liberals in their realist view of human imperfectibility, and in their commitment to ordered liberty as rooted in natural desires, cultural traditions, and prudential judgments. Arnhart's email address is larnhart1@niu.edu.

Friday, October 28, 2016

The Evolution of War and Lethal Violence

Over the years, I have written a long series of posts on whether evolutionary science can adjudicate the debate between Thomas Hobbes and Je...

Friday, October 21, 2016

Socialism and Human Nature: Cosmides, Tooby, Haidt, and Hayek

For the classical liberal proponents of capitalism, who point to the long history of socialism's moral and economic failures, it's h...

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Debating Hayek's Atavism Thesis at George Mason University

I recently participated in the Invisible Hand Seminar at George Mason University, which is directed by Daniel Klein of the Economics Depar...

Thursday, October 13, 2016

How Classical Liberalism Has Shaped the Evolution of the Modern Family: Hayek and Horwitz

The title of Steven Horwitz's new book is surprising: Hayek's Modern Family: Classical Liberalism and the Evolution of Social Instit...

Friday, October 07, 2016

Do We Naturally Desire Eternal Life? Or Is the Natural Limit of 115 Years Enough?

Is it natural for us to want to live forever? If that is so, is there any way to satisfy that natural desire--perhaps through a scientific ...

Tuesday, October 04, 2016

"The Evolution of Liberalism" at George Mason University, October 15

On October 15th, I will be at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. I will be leading a discussion for the "Hidden Hand Semina...

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

The Chimpanzee Politics of the Debate--Hillary Clinton, Bonobo Alpha Female

So what really happened in the Presidential Debate Monday night? The previously alpha male chimpanzee was defeated by the a...

Saturday, September 24, 2016

Smith and Strauss on Bourgeois Liberalism and the Philosophic Life

Steven Smith's Modernity and Its Discontents elaborates the argument of Leo Strauss and the Straussians for the "crisis of liberali...

Friday, September 23, 2016

Steven Smith's Straussian Scorn for the Bourgeois

Although the Bourgeois Era has brought the Great Enrichment--the unprecedented increase in human prosperity and population over the past two...

Friday, September 16, 2016

Does the Variability of Hunter-Gatherer Societies Deny Human Nature? A Response to Robert Kelly

Most of my thinking on this blog turns on the idea of human nature as shaped by human evolutionary history, and on the argument that this ev...

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