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
values. Rationalism’s hope of replacing tradition with a ‘deliberately
constructed, synthetic system of morals’ is destined to fail
(65).
Even though some particular value framework is ‘given’ for
each society, Hayek, in his theory of social evolution, does look
behind this ‘givenness’ for the primary sources of all values.
Values are general rules, and these may arise from man’s biological
instincts, from cumulative experience and from conscious
articulation. Instinctive values predominate in the earliest societies,
while the conscious articulation of values comes about only
with the advent of civilisation. Traditions in the strict sense –
those rules that arise from cumulative experience and are followed
habitually and unconsciously – develop in society from the beginning
and cannot be replaced by rules or laws that people frame
deliberately (see Hayek’s 1978 Hobhouse Lecture, ‘The Three
Sources of Human Values,’ which appears as an epilogue to the
third volume of Law, Legislation and Liberty [1979]).
Hayek employs this framework to explain the modern discontent
with civilisation and to criticise socialism. Instinctive values,
which emphasised sharing, care for one’s neighbours, and sacrifice
for the common good, were suited for sustaining very small
communities. With the advent of urban life and civilisation,
traditions and rules evolved that favoured a large and impersonal
extended order, or commercial society. The problem is that ‘in
some respects man’s biological equipment has not kept pace with
that rapid change, that the adaptation of his non-rational part has
lagged somewhat, and that many of his instincts and emotions are
still more adapted to the life of a hunter than to life in civilization.’
This maladaptation has given rise to an instinctive dissatisfaction
with civilised life – the sense that it is ‘unnatural’ – and to all ‘the
familiar complaints against industrialism, capitalism, or overrefinement’
(40).
Hayek wants to underscore the indispensability of habitual
or customary rules for the kind of civilisation that we now enjoy.
Strictly speaking, the term ‘tradition’ refers to rules of this kind.
Hayek acknowledges, of course, that deliberately articulated rules
are indispensable to the progress of modern civilisation – the
Rule of Law attests to that – but these are not to be understood as
novel constructions. Their continuity with rules that have evolved
through trial and error over a long period of time is crucial to their
effectiveness.
Hayek’s distinction between three kinds of values (instinct ive,
traditional, articulated) ties in closely with his critique of
socialism. A free society rests on tradition-based values, but
these are jeopardised both by our instinctual promptings and
by rationalist ambitions. Socialism, in Hayek’s view, exemplifies
both dangers. On the one hand, socialists cast tradition aside and
prefer constructed rules to ones that have evolved. On the other
hand, socialism is ‘an atavism,’ i.e. it wants to re-establish society
on instinct-based values such as solidarity and social justice.
Socialism is a form of primitivism. It is fundamentally at odds
with those values that make possible large societies, civilisation
and human freedom (1976: 143–50; 1978a: 57–68; 1979: 165–76;
1988: 11–37). It is an enemy of the extended, rule-governed, open
society, or what Hayek, in Law, Legislation and Liberty, calls ‘the
Great Society’ (1973: 2; 1976: 107–13; 1988: 19–21, 104).
Moral rules
The most important values, for Hayek, are the general rules
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