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19The evolutionary psychology of ownership is rooted in the Lockean liberal principle of self-ownershipBehavioral and Brain Sciences 46. 2023.The psychology of ownership is rooted in self-ownership. The human brain has an evolved interoceptive sense of owning the body that supports self-ownership and the ownership of external things as extensions of the self-owning self. In this way, evolutionary neuroscience supports a Lockean liberal conception of equal natural rights rooted in natural self-ownership.
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14Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the Study of the American RegimeRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1999.Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fundamenta…Read more
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312. The Darwinian Science of Aristotelian VirtueIn Peter Augustine Lawler & Marc D. Guerra (eds.), The Science of Modern Virtue: On Descartes, Darwin, and Locke, Northern Illinois University Press. pp. 208-281. 2013.
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The Darwinian Moral Sense and Biblical ReligionIn Michael Ruse (ed.), Philosophy After Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings, Princeton University Press. pp. 511-521. 2009.
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2Aristotle on Political Reasoning: A Commentary on The RhetoricNorthern Illinois University Press. 1981.
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63Thomistic natural law as Darwinian natural rightSocial Philosophy and Policy 18 (1): 1-33. 2001.The publication in 1975 of Edward O. Wilson's Sociobiology provoked a great controversy, for in that work Wilson claimed that ethics was rooted in human biology. On the first page of the book, he asserted that our deepest intuitions of right and wrong are guided by the emotional control centers of the brain, which evolved via natural selection to help the human animal exploit opportunities and avoid threats in the natural environment. In 1998, the publication of Wilson's Consilience renewed the …Read more
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The Rationality of Political Speech: An Interpretation of Aristotle's RhetoricInterpretation 9 (2/3): 141-154. 1981.
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35Education and Culture in the Political Thought of Aristotle (review)International Studies in Philosophy 18 (1): 95-96. 1986.
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66The behavioral sciences are historical sciences of emergent complexityBehavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (1): 18-19. 2007.Unlike physics and chemistry, the behavioral sciences are historical sciences that explain the fuzzy complexity of social life through historical narratives. Unifying the behavioral sciences through evolutionary game theory would require a nested hierarchy of three kinds of historical narratives: natural history, cultural history, and biographical history. (Published Online April 27 2007).
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29Darwinian ConservatismIn Michael Ruse (ed.), Philosophy After Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings, Princeton University Press. pp. 349-365. 2009.
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59The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of DarwinismZygon 36 (1): 77-92. 2001.As a young proponent of “creation science,” I rejected Darwinian biology as false, bad, and ugly. Now I defend Darwinism as true, good, and beautiful. Moreover, I now see Darwinism as compatible with the natural piety that arises as one moves from nature to nature's God.
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58The New Darwinian Naturalism in Political TheoryZygon 33 (3): 369-393. 1998.There has been a resurgence of Darwinian naturalism in political theory, as manifested in the recent work of political scientists such as Roger D. Masters, Robert J. McShea, and James Q. Wilson. They belong to an intellectual tradition that includes not only Charles Darwin but also Aristotle and David Hume. Although most political scientists believe Darwinian social theory has been refuted, their objections rest on three false dichotomies: facts versus values, nature versus freedom, and nature v…Read more
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34Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human NatureState University of New York Press. 1998.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…Read more
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29Barbour's Fourfold Way: Problems with His Taxonomy of Science‐religion RelationshipsZygon 36 (4): 765-781. 2001.In this paper several problems are raised concerning Ian Barbour's four ways of interrelating science and religion—Conflict, Independence, Dialogue, and Integration—as put forward in such publications as his highly influential Religion in an Age of Science (1990) and widely adopted by other writers in this field. The authors argue that this taxonomy is not very useful or analytically helpful, especially to historians seeking to understand past engagements between science and religion.
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Northern Illinois UniversityRegular Faculty
DeKalb, Illinois, United States of America