Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature (Suny Series in Philosophy and Biology) (Paperback)

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This book shows how Darwinian biology supports an Aristotelian view of ethics as rooted in human nature. Defending a conception of "Darwinian natural right" based on the claim that the good is the desirable, the author argues that there are at least twenty natural desires that are universal to all human societies because they are based in human biology. The satisfaction of these natural desires constitutes a universal standard for judging social practice as either fulfilling or frustrating human nature, although prudence is required in judging what is best for particular circumstances.

The author studies the familial bonding of parents and children and the conjugal bonding of men and women as illustrating social behavior that conforms to Darwinian natural right. He also studies slavery and psychopathy as illustrating social behavior that contradicts Darwinian natural right. He argues as well that the natural moral sense does not require religious belief, although such belief can sometimes reinforce the dictates of nature.

About the Author

Larry Arnhart is Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of Aristotle on Political Reasoning: A Commentary on the "Rhetoric" and Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Rawls.

Product Details

• Paperback: 332 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press (May 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791436942
• ISBN-13: 978-0791436943
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #859,428 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aristotelian View of Ethics Based on Human Biology, December 27, 1999

By A Customer

Arnhart argues that certain desires are universal in human societies because they are based in human biology. He sees this as grounding an Aristotelian view in which virtues are to be pursued because they promote eudaimonia--human flourishing. Humans can only flourish when biologically-based needs are satisfied. These needs include not only the appetitive ones like food and sex, but "higher" needs of meaningful social interaction and the pursuit of understanding. These universal needs provide the needed telos for judging the rightness or wrongness of actions: How well does the proposed action promote these biologically-based teloi? This view also provides a neutral standard whereby the ethical practices of diverse cultures may be judged, so complete ethichal relativism can be avoided. However, Arnhart recognizes that there may be multifarious, culturally-relative means of achieving the universal ends.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fine Contribution to a Perilous Subject, July 3, 2000

By	Herbert Gintis (Northampton, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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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.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new look at morality and ethics, April 17, 2000

By	Matt Nuenke (Pleasant Hill, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature (S U N Y Series in Philosophy and Biology) (Hardcover)

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.