Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fine Contribution to a Perilous Subject, July 3, 2000
Arnhart holds that the good is desirable, and since we are a natural species, the good can be discerned from our individual environments and our universal constitution as a species. Arnhart's contribution is Aristotelian, in that this philosopher started from the natural position of humanity (e.g., we are a zoon politican--a social animal) rather than from Plato's Ideal World. Arnhart is a Darwinian, in that our constitution as a specied derives from our evolutionary history.This book can be read with profit by professional philosophers as well as beginners interested in understanding evolutionary ethics. It is clear and systematic, avoids jargon, and amply discusses alternative views. I take issue with one part of Arnhart's analysis. I learned that "the good is the desirable" in my graduate student days in economics. I have always thought this quite incorrect (I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on the topic!). For instance, I may desire potato chips (or heroin) but not consider it good, and may indeed wish that I did not desire these things. In place of Arnhart's principle, I would suggest "The good is what allows us to flourish and to use our natural capacities to the fullest." The idea of flourishing as a criterion is associated with Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen and others, and the idea of developing one's capacities to the fullest is associated with the young Karl Marx, in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. At any rate, virtually all of Arnhart's arguments go through with this minor change. People like me, behavioral scientists, tend to ignore ethical philosophy and have contempt for its practitioners because it tries to find ethical truths independent from the natural position of human beings in the world. Arnhart is a wonderful antidote to this tendency, maintaining a high level of both philosophical and scientific reasoning.
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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A new look at morality and ethics, April 17, 2000
This book looks at morality or ethics and tries to tie together an Aristotelian with what we now know is a moral system that was part of our primate past. Part evolutionary psychology and part philosophy, it is well written, cogent and easy to read. Its message is simply that humans are social and political animals that have innate desires, but need not act on them. Humans can choose to act contrary to their evolutionary past in ethical terms. But also, political systems must not IGNORE our human nature either, or they will fail. From page 259 of the book: To justify his laws, Moses repeatedly insisted that if the Jews obeyed, his laws, they and their children would survive and prosper in their new land. He made no claims about immortality of the soul or about rewards and punishments in an afterlife. Instead, like Darwin, he argued that the purpose of morality was to secure the earthly survival and prosperity of oneself and one's progeny. The first commandment of God in the Bible is "Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28). For Moses, promoting the survival and reproduction of the Jews required social norms that led individuals to cooperate within their group to compete with other groups (Deut. 4:40, 6:1-3, 11:8-9, 20, 23:9-14,25:11-16, 30:15-20). Moses taught that "whoever obeys the law will find life in it" (Lev. 18:5). Saint Paul cited this as the fundamental aim of the Mosaic Law (Rom. 10:5). It should not be surprising, therefore, that Darwinian theorists can explain the Mosaic law as promoting the reproductive interests of the Jews (Hartung 1995; MacDonald 1994, 35-55). As a product of natural human experience, not only Judaism but all religious beliefs and practices serve the natural desires of human beings in diverse social and physical environments, and consequently we would explain religion as an adaptation of human ecology (Burkert 1996; Reynolds and Tanner 1995). So even one of the first moral successful systems, the Mosaic Law, recognized the purpose of morality in an evolutionary form, survival of the group. This book tries to go beyond group interests and argues (not always persuasively in my opinion) that a Darwinian morality can subsume the current value system that we all want to see. The book covers the essence of an evolutionary morality. That is, humans evolved with social ranking, justice as reciprocity, political rule, war when group interests collide, religion to explain the fear of the unknown and eventual death, etc. Morality then became part of the pleasure of serving the tribe or belonging. Kin selection, inclusive fitness, reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity; these evolutionary processes required that humans have fear and guilt if they act against the tribe's rules. Morality included honor, fearlessness, willingness to die for the group -- that is what the communal sense was all about. Adherence to the tribes moral codes meant the group could fight of predators and other human groups when necessary. Those tribes that could not unify against a common enemy -- what we now call patriotism -- more than likely died out in favor of the more fearless tribes. And how does this morality come about? Well contrary to what folk psychology tells us, from Dr. Laura to President Clinton, both conservatives and liberals, infants are born with a moral nature and seek the rules naturally. That is, even when playing with other children, a child will develop proper behavior by observing others and learning what works and what doesn't, similar to chimpanzees. So the moral do not have to be taught so much as just observed by children. We are naturally moral animals, but the morals change over time and are different for different cultures. However this book argues that we can now change those moral rules that should be abandoned: slavery, clitoridectomy, circumcision, cannibalism, genocide, etc. Perhaps.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought provoking, but there are a few annoying problems, December 23, 2005
Darwinian Natural Right, by Larry Arnhart, argues for a moral system in which we should seek to fulfill our natural desires, which exist due to Darwinian natural selection and evolution.
I think it's important to note that in this book Arnhart holds no distinction between statements of nature-what is-and statements of ethic-what ought to be. As such, his arguments tend to ignore this dualism. However, being a person who generally holds this dualism to be true, I found it easier to understand his argument by understanding his claims within such a distinction; the best way for me to describe his arguments is in such a way. His argument acts as a statement of nature in that it says that human beings, as part of their existence, seek to fulfill natural desires. Furthermore, these desires are, at their most basic level, determined by Darwinist evolution. What we typically see as morality, society, and moral sense is in fact the act of human beings seeking to fulfill these natural desires. Arnhart's claim also takes on tones of a statement of ethic, in that he further claims that not all desires are truly desirable; only those that lead to our flourishing are actually desires. He says that we ought to use reason to assess the best ways to fulfill our desires within environmental constraints, and then seek to fulfill them. Finally, he claims that an Aristotelian prudence is required in dealing with conflicting desires and finding the proper balance of desires that produces the greatest good.
Arnhart goes on to elaborate on these claims in ten different chapters. The first chapter deals with the origins of his ideas, a series of claims that he feels best describes his argument, and a series of seven main objections that he discusses at various points later in the book. In Chapter Two he defends the idea that the good is desirable, defends the use of reason to determine the best way to achieve the good, and sets out what he sees as the basic natural desires of human beings. In Chapter Three he defends Aristotle's interpretation that human beings are by nature political animals (political in this case is synonymous with what we now consider social to mean). In doing so, he argues against two of the seven objections: the possible gap between biological instinct and learned behavior, and the objection that biological principles are fixed, and allow for no variability. In the fourth chapter he asserts the existence of natural morality and the Darwinian support for it, arguing against the Is-Ought objection; he also argues against the objection that Darwinism fails to allow for free will. In Chapter Five and Six he asserts the existence and significance of the parent-child bond and the male-female conjugal bond; the parent-child bond acts as the evolutionary origin of morality, and serves to aid reproduction, and the male-female bond satisfies needs of social dominance and stratification. He also claims that any society that lacks both will fail because they cannot handle the emotional frustration that results. In chapter Seven and Eight Arnhart deals with what he sees as the most potentially damaging flaws in his model: slavery and psychopathy. In seven, he claims that slavery is a moral wrong-it is the denial of the desire to be free of exploitation. In eight, he argues that psychopaths must be considered moral strangers, and removed from society. In the ninth chapter he deals with two more of the seven objections: the objection on the grounds that Darwinian evolution requires change, while Aristotelian philosophy seeks stability; and the objection that Darwinism is directionless, which conflicts with the essential teleological nature of Aristotelian philosophy. And in the tenth chapter he tackles the last of the objections: that Darwinian Natural Right denies the presence or need for God.
There are a few problems with the organization and structure of the book. First, Arnhart fails to adequately explain his argument in the beginning of the book. He lists ten premises that form the basis of his argument, but some of the premises don't follow from the ones before them. Furthermore, some of them seem entirely pointless to his argument (I'm specifically thinking of 7 and 8). Later in the book, you discover the reason behind the confusing premises; in fact, they are key to Arnhart's argument. Unfortunately, he doesn't actually make that very clear until chapters 5-7.
The second major problem with the book's structure is that Arnhart habitually changes the context some of his terminology, which in turn changes their definition, and this makes understanding his arguments VERY confusing. For example, at some points he seems to use the word "moral" in a solely traditional context: morality concerns actions that are more than mundane, such as lying, cheating, stealing, etc. However, in other contexts, he uses his working definition of morality, which is defined as whatever the good is (in this case, fulfillment of desire). As such, things others and I might not consider moral, such as eating habits, suddenly are discussed in a moral context. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with this definition. The problem comes from Arnhart's habit of changing the definition of "moral." (among other terms)
The final major problem I had with the book is that Arnhart spends quite a bit of time trying to connect his theory to the works of past philosophers. In essence, he tries to show how past philosophers would have supported his theory. There is nothing wrong with this, when the theory is adequately supported. However, Arnhart has a habit of focussing so much on connections to past philosophers that his support for his theory suffers. The section of his book in which he deals with the Is-Ought problem (the Naturalistic Fallacy) is a good example of this problem.
There are two main non-structural objections I have to the book. First is Arnhart's failure to deal with the problem of the falsifiability of natural selection. In DNR, Arnhart lists seven major objections to his book. Pretty much all of these are relevant, and he uses them to bring out evidence in favor of his theory (by the way, he does this very well). However, he never addresses the potential for natural selection to be disproven. Ideally, any scientific theory has the capacity to be shown to be in error--in essence, there is always the possibility that new evidence will show up that will render the scientific theory in question false. Furthermore, to paraphrase Karl Popper, error is manifest. Truth is not. In other words, error is something that can be instantly recognized by human beings. Truth, however, is not (this concept is the underlying premise behind falsifiability).
What does this mean for Arnhart's argument? Well, it means that he's supporting his moral theory from a non-absolute position. That is, he support for the existence of Natural RIghts--Darwinian evolution and natural selection--is not set in stone, or in any way known *for certainty*. Insomuch as Darwinism has the capacity to be falsified, Arnhart's argument has the capacity to be falsified. This seems to be a rather serious problem that I hoped Arnhart would address. He didn't.
The second "non-structural" problem is that Arnhart never really addresses the concept of human rights, and how it plays into his theory. His book, in my opinion, seems to imply that when we determine what the right thing to do is (the best way to fulfill a particular natural desire), we ought to do it. Can we force others to do it? To what extent can we force others to do it? In other words, to what extent can we use governmental and social power to promote this moral theory? Arnhart never touches on this.
Now, don't let my seemingly negative reaction to this book fool you. I did enjoy Arnhart's work. As an athiest and a humanist, I always enjoy reading works that put forth an essentially nonreligious foundation for ethics, and among those available, Arnhart's is one of the best. He provides excellent support and examples for the arguments he covers, and I found his argument against the Is-Ought dichotomy to be the best I have read. While I do hold to that dichotomy, I can't stand it's stranglehold on modern ethics, and Arnhart's willingness to argue against it--and his generally impressive argument--is refreshing. His chapter on parent child bonding is equally impressive and informative.
Overall, the book deserves four stars. I wouldn't go so far as to give it five, because there are some rather annoying issues in the book's format and the structure of Arnhart's *style* of argument. However, the book succeeds, for the most part, in defending Arnhart's theory, and it's VERY thought-provoking.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in nonreligious support for ethical systems, or in interactions of biology and ethics. It's not an easy read, but it's a good one.
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