Conservatives like Mansfield need Darwin, because they need a Darwinian
account of the human nature of sex differences to explain the natural inclinations that
support the manly virtues of men and the womanly virtues of women. Human beings
have natural desires for sexual identity, sexual mating, parental care, familial bonding,
and political rule, which shape the order of every society around the differing capacities
and propensities of men, women, and children.
Men have evolved to be more aggressive, dominant, and sexually promiscuous
than women, while women have evolved to be more nurturing and more inclined to child-
care. Men compete with other men for sexual access to physically attractive women,
while women compete with other women for marriage to men willing and able to invest
resources in their children. The violent aggressiveness of young men becomes socially
destructive when it is not domesticated by marital and familial duties or channeled into
military service. Because of the male desire for rule or dominance, political ambition is
more characteristic of men than women, and the highest positions of political rule tend to
Because conservatives have a realist vision of human nature, they accept these
natural constraints of sexual identity. Because those on the left have a utopian vision of
human nature, they deny these natural constraints. Conservatives see these propensities
of men and women as rooted in a human nature that cannot be changed. Those on the left
see these propensities as social constructions that can be abolished, or at least radically
altered. Darwinian science supports the conservative position by showing how the sex
differences expressed in marriage, family life, and politics conform to the biological
nature of human beings as shaped by evolutionary history.
31
See Arnhart, Darwinian Natural Right, 123-60; and Arnhart, Darwinian Conservatism, 46-58.
19
Convention