Arnhart has been described as one of the most prominent advocates of contemporary classical liberalism, along with Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Friedrich Hayek and Thomas Sowell.
Arnhart has debated the leading advocates of intelligent design—Michael Behe, William Dembski, 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.
[6] 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 in human evolutionary history.
This book will apply his Darwinian thinking to the history of political philosophy, while arguing for classical liberalism as supported by evolutionary science.