Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-v2bm5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T13:56:26.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Grandeur of Biopolitical Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 May 2013

Larry Arnhart
Larry Arnhart*
Affiliation:
Northern Illinois University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

John Hibbing's essay is a persuasive defense of biopolitical research. I argue, however, that Hibbing does not go far enough in recognizing the broad vision of biopolitical science as a science of political animals. We need to see this as a science that moves through three levels of deep history: the natural history of the political species, the cultural history of a political community, and the biographical history of political actors in a community. I illustrate this by discussing Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation at these three levels of biopolitical science.

Type
Reflection Response
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 500 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achenbach, Alexandra, and Foitzik, Susanne. 2009. “First Evidence for Slave Rebellion: Enslaved Ant Workers Systematically Kill the Brood of Their Social Parasite Protomognathus Americanus.” Evolution 63: 1068–75.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arnhart, Larry. 1994. “The Darwinian Biology of Aristotle's Political Animals.” American Journal of Political Science 38(2): 464–85.Google Scholar
Arnhart, Larry. 1995. “The New Darwinian Naturalism in Political Theory.” American Political Science Review 89(2): 389–400.Google Scholar
Arnhart, Larry. 1998. Darwinian Natural Right: The Biological Ethics of Human Nature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Arnhart, Larry. 2006. “Darwinian Liberal Education.” Academic Questions 19(4): 6–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnhart, Larry. 2010. “Biopolitical Science.” Politics and the Life Sciences 29(1): 24–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arnhart, Larry. 2012. “Biopolitical Science.” In Evolution and Morality, ed. Fleming, James E. and Levinson, Sanford. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Avital, Eytan, and Jablonka, Eva. 2000. Animal Traditions: Behavioral Inheritance in Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cobb, Thomas R.R. 1858. An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery in the United States. Philadelphia: T. & J.W. Johnson.Google Scholar
de Waal, Frans. 1982. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Goodall, Jane. 1986. The Chimpanzees of Gombe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. 2005. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Gordon, Deborah. 2010. Ant Encounters: Interaction Networks and Colony Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Guelzo, Allen C. 2004. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Hammond, Kenneth R. 1996. Human Judgment and Social Policy: Irreducible Uncertainty, Inevitable Error, Unavoidable Injustice. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatemi, Peter K., and McDermott, Rose, eds. 2011. Man Is by Nature a Political Animal: Evolution, Biology, and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Holldobler, Bert, and Wilson, Edward O.. 1990. The Ants. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jablonka, Eva, and Lamb, Marion J.. 2005. Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jaisson, Pierre, Fresneau, Dominique, and Lachaud, Jean-Paul. 1988. “Individual Traits of Social Behavior in Ants.” In Interindividual Behavioral Variability in Social Insects, ed. Jeanne, Robert L.. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Laland, Kevin N., and Galef, Bennett G.. 2009. The Question of Animal Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lincoln, Abraham. 1953. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Ed. Basler, Roy P.. 9 vols.New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Patterson, Orlando. 1982. Slavery and Social Death. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Stroeymeyt, Nathalie, Robinson, Elva J. H., Horgan, Patrick M., Marshall, James A. R., Giurfa, Martin, and Franks, Nigel R.. 2011. “Experience-Dependent Flexibility in Collective Decision Making by House-Hunting Ants.” Behavioral Ecology 22(3): 535–42.Google Scholar
Thiele, Leslie Paul. 2006. The Heart of Judgment: Practical Wisdom, Neuroscience, and Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar