The infamous Aristotle quotation that serves as the title of Peter K. Hatemi and Rose McDermott's edited volume is deceptively pithy. The clever turn of phrase (not discussed in the text) hints at the volume's underlying conclusion, that political science has overlooked the biological and evolutionary bases of many political behaviors. Yet “man is by nature a political animal” is in fact the start of a much more complex exploration of Aristotle's understanding of animals, politics, and nature. It opens up an exploration of his teleological view of nature that underpins a view of human nature that, while acknowledging the biological nature of human beings, is hardly a parismonious model for explaining the political world. For this reason—the complexity under the surface of a seemingly simple claim—the quotation may be a perfect description of the text itself.

As a political theorist, I acknowledge that I am woefully underqualified to examine most of the scientific claims contained in the text. Consequently, my discussion focuses on two important debates within which this text must be read. One is an ongoing debate about the philosophy of (social) science within the field of political science and the utility of the models imported from the biological sciences. The second is an equally important consideration of the normative implications of models of human nature, in particular looking to materialist, biological models. To begin, I consider the ways that these debates are already ongoing both within the field of political science and in interdisciplinary discussions about man as a political animal, considering both the import of the animal model and the role of politics.

While debates over epistemology and ontology and, in particular, the science in political science are hardly new, they got new attention in two quite different editorials appearing in the New York Times in 2012, both debating the scientific merits of the field. Jacqueline Stevens suggested that the study of politics fails to rise to the level of a science according to positivist requirements, yielding few adequately predictive hypotheses. Kevin A. Clarke and David M. Primo argued that political science suffers from “physics envy,” a misperception about the nature of science itself: “The ideal of hypothetico-deductivism is flawed for many reasons. For one thing, it's not even a good description of how the ‘hard’ sciences work. It's a high school textbook version of science, with everything messy and chaotic about scientific inquiry safely ignored” (“Overcoming ‘Physics Envy,’” New York Times, 1 April 2012, SR9).

In their volume's first chapter, Hatemi and McDermott place the text in relationship to what they see as the two primary explanatory theories in political science, behavioralism and rational choice, which they describe as environmental theories, placing an emphasis on changing behaviors as a consequence of socialization or incentive structures outside of the individual: “Such models, while useful in their own environmental or cultural domains, tell only a portion of the ‘human’ story. None directly incorporate the innate part of the equation regarding human biological development: that is, why humans developed as they have, and how their political preferences and social actions may be decisively influenced by their biological needs and drives” (p. 19).

This focus on innate biological impulse, by identifying generalizable patterns based in biology, whether neuroscience, evolutionary science, endocrinology, or genetics, frames the goal of the book, in a search for explanations for human behavior that the authors insist supplement rather than replace traditional political science models. The goal of subsequent chapters is to explore the biological explanations for human behavior, ranging from evolutionary adaptation and hormonal levels to the genetic transmission of traits. The purpose of the research is, of course, to discover a biological rationality at work within human political behavior, seeking universal patterns with explanatory powers across the species. Ultimately, the goal is a greater predictive power yielded by greater understanding of the causal processes: “If a significant portion of individual variation in behavior is explained by non-environmental influences, then our current models are limited in their ability to accurately predict political behavior” (p. 18).

In many ways, the text demonstrates Clarke and Primo's claims about the operation of “real science.” In spite of the search for parsimonious and universalizable claims, many of the chapters present discussions that emphasize the sorts of complexity and indeterminacy that we often think of as characterizing the political world. For instance, Darren Schreiber's analysis of the neuroscience of conscious and unconscious attitude formation about race demonstrates the complexity of interactions between environmental and biological influences (p. 285). This complexity does not undermine the research but highlights the ways in which scientific inquiry does not always lend itself to parsimony. For example, Evan Charney's critique of the use of the explanatory power of genetics in political preference formation highlights the ways that genetic expression is itself a complex process of biological/environmental interaction.Footnote ¹ This reading of the role of biology in politics suggests that political science has much to learn substantively and philosophically from the model of the biological sciences. Of course, this insight is already operative in many of the other social sciences where the natural sciences often comingle with social science and social theory, as in anthropology and geography. Indeed, political theorists have recently devoted significant attention to the intersection of politics and biology, engaging with insights from neuroscience, biology, genetics, and chemistry.Footnote ²

For a political theorist, the discussion of the nature of human life is a familiar question with normative overtones, a fact recognized by the editors. They acknowledge concerns about the reductive nature of scientific inquiry, and the specific worry about reducing human behavior to immutable natural causes. They assert that their analysis retains a role for human agency since “humans remain the only species whose understanding of ourselves allows us to change our own evolutionary trajectory and in so doing exhibit the ability to globally change our environment” (p. 8). This analysis reflects the political importance of any theory of human nature since, clearly, that understanding plays a role in policy formation and the treatment of humans (and other animals). Indeed, Hatemi and McDermott dismiss many of the most famous theoretical constructions of human nature in classic works by Aristotle, Rousseau, and Hobbes as providing “an almost arbitrary account of human nature” (p. 19).

Of course, critics of these accounts charge that they, like any accounts of human nature, are neither arbitrary nor neutral. Indeed, these authors' understanding of human nature provides a justificatory edifice for their conceptions of the political universe, demonstrating that the stakes are high in any theory of human nature. In particular, while authors like Rousseau describe their theories of human nature as “setting aside all facts,” the grounding of human nature in the presumed neutrality of science necessitates particular scrutiny as it has significant normative consequences.

In the volume's Forward, James Druckman notes that biological approaches have often been tied to conservative ideologies, though he correctly recognizes that political consequences “[are] more complex and domain specific” (p. xi). As he notes, biological explanations of sexual orientations are often utilized as a legal and political foundation for gay rights. However, concerns about conservatism go beyond his aside that “biological approaches often privilege individual actions and responsibility rather than social situations” (p. xi). Indeed, there is much in the history of the intersection of biology and politics that should at least alert us to the normative concerns at work.

While biology itself may have no inherent political leanings, the accusation of conservatism may emerge in part from the historical experience of the deployment of science to conserve the status quo, in particular in reinforcing hierarchies of power. The history of scientific racism demonstrates the ways in which science, and in particular the field of biology, was central to the development of ideas that justified inequality.Footnote ³ Feminist scholars have examined the ways not only that the presumed neutrality of science contributed to gender and racial inequality in justifying differential treatment of certain groups but also that those unchallenged presumptions about gender and race provided an unconscious lens through which scientific observations and data were seen.Footnote ⁴

In addition, political theorists have discussed the ways in which the reduction of human beings to their biological selves can have troubling consequences. Many historians have documented the ways in which comparisons with animals have been a common means of stigmatizing groups. Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer (Reference Agamben1998) argues that the reduction of certain groups of human beings to bare life or mere life (homo sacer), as opposed to subjects of the law, enables their mistreatment or killing. The defining feature of “bare life” is the ability to “be killed without sacrifice,” to be reduced to the status of an animal. For Agamben, the prototype of this reduction is the modern concentration camp, the ultimate site of dehumanization. Certainly, we need not posit that biological approaches lead to genocide in order to recognize that the theoretical concerns about the consequences of specific views of human nature certainly have historical precedent and that these concerns warrant attention. Comparisons or equivalences between humans and animals have often justified human atrocities. Even more famously, Hannah Arendt argued in The Human Condition ([1958] Reference Arendt1998) that a reduction of human beings to the material realm of necessity threatened the possibility of human agency, the possibility to act on and change the world.

On the flip side of these normative concerns about dehumanization is a literature that argues for the ethical possibilities opened up by the new engagement with biology and, in particular, its decentering of human exceptionalism. Certainly, scholars in animal studies would embrace the biological approach that suggests humans exist on a continuum with other animals. Indeed, Darby Proctor and Sarah Brosnan's chapter, “Political Primates: What Other Primates Can Tell Us about the Evolutionary Roots of Our Own Political Behavior,” begins with an observation of male–male aggression reminiscent of chimps but that is revealed to be the Bolivian congress, a move that echoes some of the literature arguing for a revived consideration of whether humans are unique in being political animals. Much cross-disciplinary work has been done bringing together scholars in the natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences examining our understanding of the relationship among humans, animals, and the natural world, suggesting that the turn to biology, instinct, and innate capability need not be a dead end for the politics of human nature but may provide opportunities for political theorists to return to their concepts anew. Undermining the insights of humanism that underpin arguments for human rights, democracy, and equality is certainly cause for concern, but such a critique of humanism also provides new opportunities for considering the relationship between humans and animals and between nature and culture.Footnote ⁵

The editors of this volume argue for a greater consideration of the relationship between politics and biology, strengthening the cross-pollination between science and politics. While emphasizing the role of biological rather than environmental influences would seem to undermine the place of theory within the discipline, it may in fact do the opposite. Theorists have already been engaged with many of the epistemological and normative questions that are raised by the call for a greater consideration of the biological, including the kinds of transdisciplinary scholarship called for by the editors. Perhaps most significantly, the emphasis on human nature invites a deeper consideration of implications of a materialist paradigm of politics. As the volume suggests, the biology of politics may be an invitation to complexity rather than a new, simpler view of political life.