The hereditary principle whether understood as a title to property or status is considered sacrosanct. Conservatives therefore support monarchy and aristocracy as well as private property rights. By contrast, liberals reject the universal application of the hereditary principle. They believe in hereditary property rights, but not in hereditary political rights or titles. In much conservative thought hierarchy is considered the natural form of human existence, equality, by contrast, is artificial.
Hierarchy is defended because it provides continuity and encourages diversity.
Conservatives tended to approve 19th-century Social Darwinist ideas in which existence was seen a struggle for survival of the fittest and hierarchy the natural outcome of this struggle. Today they are inclined to believe sociobiologists who argue that there are fundamental and immutable cognitive and emotional differences between the races and sexes. Such thinking easily slips into racism , the belief that certain peoples are innately superior to others, or sexism, the belief that men are superior to women. It is mistaken to assume that all conservatives share such views, or that all who hold such views are conservatives, but there is no gainsaying the historic association between conservative hierarchical political thought and racism and sexism. Hierarchicalism also explains why conservatives have generally been suspicious of democracy , because of its levelling consequences and its rejection of caste principles in favour of the presumption of the political equality of all adult citizens.