Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty - Institute of Economic Affairs

h ay e k ’ s t h e c o n s t i t u t i o n o f l i b e r t y
t h e u s e a n d l i m i t s o f k n o w l e d g e
with the sources of values and would look to his theory of social
evolution to identify these sources.
(1) As for the fact–value dichotomy, Hayek denies that sense
data, particularly as defined by natural science, constitute meaningful
facts. In the 1940s, he had undertaken to show that the
social sciences cannot possibly succeed in their task of understanding
social reality if they limit themselves to facts as defined
by natural science: ‘our data must be man and the physical world
as they appear to men whose actions we try to explain’ (1952b
[1979]: 60). Hayek here emphasises that the facts of the social
sciences are merely ‘beliefs or opinions held by particular people
… irrespective of whether they are true or false’ (ibid.: 47).
The important point to note here is that people’s ordinary
beliefs and opinions about the world – the starting point for social
science – are suffused with values. The facts of the social sciences
are inseparable from values, and social inquiry cannot abstract
from them, as natural science attempts to do. In The Constitution
of Liberty, as in these earlier writings, Hayek emphasises the
centrality of values to all social life. He would continue decades
later to insist that values are ‘the indispensable foundation of all
our civilization,’ including all our efforts at rational construction
and science (1973: 6–7).
(2) Hayek’s reservations about theories of action that centre
on the exercise of will and on means/ends calculation are more
or less implicit in The Constitution of Liberty, but they are developed
elsewhere. In sum, he associates such theories with constructivist
rationalism, inasmuch as they ‘attempt to assess an action
by its foreseeable results in the particular case,’ based on what
is presumed to be an ‘incontrovertible knowledge of cause and
effect.’ From the rationalist standpoint, values are understood as
‘the concrete ends which determine [the individual’s] actions at
particular moments.’ Projecting into the future and drawing on its
presumed knowledge of cause and effect, the rational will supposedly
deduces the best means of achieving the desired end.
Hayek, by contrast, denies the will’s autonomy and subordinates
it to habit. Values are not particular concrete ends, but
general rules that are embodied in tradition and opinion. These
rules, derived from countless centuries of human experience,
tell us what is permissible or impermissible insofar as action is
concerned. They ‘confine our actions to the limited range within
which we are able to foresee relevant consequences’ and also
prevent us ‘from overstepping these limits.’ In fact, it is because
of such boundaries that our causal knowledge about the likely
consequences of a particular course of action can serve us effectively.
These rules enable the individual actor, when caught up in
the emotions of the moment, ‘to avoid actions of a kind whose
foreseeable results seemed desirable, but which were likely to lead
to the destruction of the order on which the achievements of the
human race rested’ (see 1978a: 82–8).
(3) As we see, values are indispensable to action, but where
do they come from? Hayek insists on the ‘givenness of the value
framework,’ by which he means that each of us is born into some
system of values – one that ‘supplies the end which our reason
must serve.’ When Hayek declares that we ‘must always work
inside a framework of both values and institutions which is not
of our own making,’ he is referring to an evolving framework
and not to one that reflects absolute eternal values (63). So long
as reason remains within this given framework, it can provide
useful clarifications and also formulate rules or laws that implement
sound values, but it cannot be the originating source of
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