Larry Arnhart (born January 13, 1949) is a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Political Science at

Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois. It was founded as Northern Illinois State Normal School on May 22, 1895, by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as part of an expansion of the state's system ...

in DeKalb, Illinois. He lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Arnhart has been described as one of the most prominent advocates of contemporary

classical liberalism Classical liberalism is a political tradition Political culture describes how culture impacts politics. Every political system is embedded in a particular political culture. Definition Gabriel Almond defines it as "the particular patt ...

along with

Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...

and

Thomas Sowell Thomas Sowell (; born June 30, 1930) is an American author, economist, political commentator and academic who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. With widely published commentary and books—and as a guest on TV and radio—he becam ...

. His areas of teaching and research include the

history of political philosophy ''History of Political Philosophy'' is a textbook edited by American political philosophers Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey. The book is intended primarily to introduce undergraduate students of political science to political philosophy. It is cur ...

biopolitical Biopolitics refers to the political relations between the administration or regulation of the life of species and a locality's populations, where politics and law evaluate life based on perceived constants and traits. French philosopher Michel Fo ...

theory, and American political thought. Arnhart is the author of five books and more than forty peer-reviewed articles.

Background and career

He has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1977, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1974, and a B.A. in Politics from the

University of Dallas The University of Dallas is a private Catholic university in Irving, Texas. Established in 1956, it is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The university comprises four academic units: the Braniff Graduate School ...

in 1971. In the Department of Political Science at Northern Illinois University, Arnhart teaches in the fields of

political theory Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...

and

biopolitics Biopolitics refers to the political relations between the administration or regulation of the life of species and a locality's populations, where politics and law evaluate life based on perceived constants and traits. French philosopher Michel F ...

. Arnhart is best known as a scholar in the history of political philosophy and as a proponent of "Darwinian natural right," "Darwinian

conservatism Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...

," and " Aristotelian

liberalism Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...

." He argues that the tradition of

ethical naturalism Ethical naturalism (also called moral naturalism or naturalistic cognitivistic definism) is the meta-ethical view which claims that: # Ethical sentences express propositions. # Some such propositions are true. # Those propositions are made true ...

from

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...

to Alasdair MacIntyre can be supported by a

Darwinian Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that ...

account of

ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...

as rooted in human biological nature, which combines liberty and order, freedom and virtue. In defending Darwinian naturalism, Arnhart has debated the proponents of "intelligent design theory" by suggesting that they employ a purely negative rhetoric of criticizing Darwinian evolutionary theory, while offering no positive theory of exactly where, when, and how the "

intelligent designer An intelligent designer, also referred to as an intelligent agent, is the hypothetical willed and self-aware entity that the intelligent design movement argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life. The term "intelligent cause" ...

" intervenes in nature to create " irreducibly complex" mechanisms. Arnhart has debated the leading advocates of

intelligent design Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". Numbers 2006, p. 373; " Dcaptured headlines for its bold attempt to ...

—

Michael Behe Michael Joseph Behe ( ; born January 18, 1952) is an American biochemist and author, widely known as an advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design (ID). He serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsy ...

William Dembski William Albert Dembski (born July 18, 1960) is an American mathematician, philosopher and theologian. He was a proponent of intelligent design (ID) pseudoscience, specifically the concept of specified complexity, and was a senior fellow of the ...

, John West, Jonathan Wells, and Richard Weikart—all of whom are fellows of the Discovery Institute. John West has written a book attacking Arnhart — ''Darwin's Conservatives: A Misguided Quest.'' In defending Darwinian conservatism, Arnhart tries to persuade conservatives that Darwinian science supports the conservative belief that social order arises not from rational planning but from the spontaneous order of instincts and habits. He suggests that Darwinian biology sustains conservative social thought by showing how the human capacity for spontaneous order arises from social instincts and a moral sense shaped by

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...

in human evolutionary history. He has also developed a Darwinian argument for

. Recently, Arnhart finished writing the fourth edition of his book ''Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Pinker.'' He is working on a new book — ''Darwinian Liberalism: The Evolutionary Science of Political Philosophy.'' This book will apply his Darwinian thinking to the history of political philosophy, while arguing for classical liberalism as supported by evolutionary science.

Works

"Human Nature is Here to Stay", ''The New Atlantis'', Number 2, Summer 2003, pp. 65–78
* ''Aristotle on Political Reasoning: A Commentary on the “Rhetoric”''. (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1981; paperback edition, 1986). * ''Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Rawls'', first edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987), second edition (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1993), third edition (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 2002). Turkish translation: Siyasi Dusunce Tarihi (Ankara: Adres Yayinlari, 2004). * ''Political Questions: Political Philosophy from Plato to Pinker'', fourth edition (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2016). * ''Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature'' (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). * ''Darwinian Conservatism'' (Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2005). * ''Darwinian Conservatism: A Disputed Question'' (Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic, 2009).

References

External links

Larry Arnhart blog

YouTube video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arnhart, Larry American political scientists Northern Illinois University faculty University of Chicago alumni People from DeKalb, Illinois University of Dallas alumni Living people People from Big Spring, Texas 1949 births