Hayek's family left Europe, specifically Austria, before Hitler annexed
it. Why? Because they were Jews. So since "Christian" Germans were at
work slaughtering Jews, he didn't really think much about religion.
David
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas
which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas
which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.*--Thomas
**Jeff**erson*
On 12/25/2013 1:36 PM, [email protected] wrote:
*STANDPOINT*
*God, Hayek and the Conceit of Reason*
JONATHAN NEUMANN
<http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/writers/?showid=Jonathan%20Neumann>
January/February 2014
A quarter of a century ago, Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), winner of the
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, published his final
contribution to his considerable corpus, an eloquent exposition of his
enduring concerns. But /The Fatal Conceit/ (1988) sought not to
recapitulate the intricacies of his economic thought (despite its
subtitle,"The Errors of Socialism"), or to revisit his postulated and
widely celebrated connection of economic collectivism and political
tyranny. Rather, he was now, four years from his death, occupied in
this short and forgotten volume with one of the most fundamental
questions of humankind: the basis and preservation of our civilisation.
By civilisation, Hayek meant the "extended order of human
cooperation", also known ("misleadingly") as capitalism. This order,
and, more specifically, the traditional morality upon which it rested,
Hayek claimed, has been enabled by something other than human instinct
and other than reason. The fatal conceit itself, he explained, is
excessive faith in reason, based on an erroneous and dangerous notion
that we can construct what in fact we must inherit or learn. This
conceit is fatal because it results in the collapse of society and the
return to savage instinct. Rather, morality lies between instinct and
reason, and "learning how to behave is more the source than the result
of insight, reason, and understanding".
Unlike his economic and political philosophies, Hayek's moral
philosophy is less known, and yet it formed the culmination of his
life's work. His critique of reason is profound, but his own
understanding of traditional morality is found lacking, and he appears
to have agreed.
Hayek sees the centralising impulse of contemporary Western political
economy as stemming from a "presumptive rationalism" which he calls
"scientism" or "constructivism", and which expresses the "spirit of
the age". This presumption is the product of a "litany of errors",
which he seeks to disentangle and expose. Specifically, he cites four
basic philosophical concepts which, during the past several hundred
years, have formed the basis of this way of thinking: rationalism,
which denies the acceptability of beliefs founded on anything but
experience and reasoning; empiricism, which maintains that all
statements claiming to express knowledge are limited to those
depending for their justification on experience; positivism, which is
defined as the view that all true knowledge is scientific, in the
sense of describing the coexistence and succession of observable
phenomena; and utilitarianism, which "takes the pleasure and pain of
everyone affected by it to be the criterion of the action's rightness".
Hayek asserts that "in such definitions, one finds quite
explicitly...the declarations of faith of modern science and
philosophy of science, and their declarations of war against moral
traditions", because "the leading moral traditions that have created
and are creating our culture...cannot be justified in such ways".
To clarify, Hayek induces from these definitions several related
presuppositions on the part of the critics of traditional morality:
that it is unreasonable to follow what one cannot justify
scientifically or prove observationally; that it is unreasonable to
follow what one does not understand; that it is unreasonable to follow
a particular course unless its purpose is fully specified in advance;
and that it is unreasonable to do anything unless its effects are not
only fully known in advance, but also fully observable and --- as far
as utilitarianism is concerned --- seen to be beneficial. When
morality is founded on reason, moreover, it follows that what is
unreasonable also becomes morally dubious.
The problems with these approaches, Hayek explains, are that they show
no awareness that there might be limitations to our knowledge or
reason in certain areas; they do not consider that part of science's
task is to discover those limits; and they show no curiosity about how
the extended order actually came into being, how it is maintained, and
what might be the consequences of undermining or destroying those
traditions which did create and do maintain it.
The connection between constructivist rationalism (the construction of
morality from scratch) and socialist thought, Hayek argues, is that
they both flow from conceiving order as arrangement and control on the
basis of accumulation of all the facts. But, as Hayek earlier showed
in his landmark 1945 essay, "The Use of Knowledge in Society", the
extended order could not be such an order, for accumulation of all the
requisite facts is simply impossible. Now he asserts that, similarly,
the practices of traditional morality not only do not, but cannot,
meet the requirements or criteria demanded by scientism. Hence they
are necessarily "unreasonable" and "unscientific". Hayek insists,
though, that this is not "news", for David Hume (1711-76)
observed centuries ago that "the rules of morality are not the
conclusions of our reason".
And this is not simply the case with traditional morals (including
God, sex, family, and --- particularly of interest to Hayek ---
private property, saving, exchange, honesty, truthfulness and
contract), but "is also true of any possible moral code, including any
that socialists might ever be able to come up with". Hence were we to
pursue this perilous path --- as "all versions of scientism have
advised" --- we would soon "be back at the level of the savage who
trusts only his instincts". No argument about morals, therefore, can
legitimately turn on the issue of scientific justification, because it
cannot be achieved, so nothing can be gained-but everything can be lost.
Having established the limits of reason in a construction of morality,
Hayek begins, however, to take a dubious turn. He asserts that "while
our moral traditions cannot be constructed, justified or demonstrated
in the way demanded, their processes of formation can be partially
reconstructed, and in doing so we can to some degree understand the
needs that they serve". He sees this as a historical or
natural-historical investigation, resembling what followers of Hume
called "conjectural history", and not as an attempt to construct,
justify, or demonstrate the system itself.
Why would we want to engage in such "rational reconstruction?" Because
doing so enables us "to improve and revise our moral traditions by
remedying recognisable defects by piecemeal improvement based on
immanent criticism, that is, by analysing the compatibility and
consistency of their parts, and tinkering with the system accordingly".
On the face of it, this may appear uncontroversial: after all, all
moral systems, whether utilitarian, Revealed, or other, are tinkered
in this way. Indeed, tradition itself is largely the accumulation over
the ages of the sort of gradual "adaptations to the unknown" that
Hayek is describing. On such a reading, Hayek's enterprise is modest,
and he is simply encouraging intellectual humility in the encounter
with traditional morality.
But there is a pivotal difference between traditional moral tinkering
and that which Hayek is suggesting: those traditional moral systems
usually had Revelatory foundations and an associated telos which made
the improvements philosophically coherent and intellectually rigorous.
One wonders, then, what Hayek understands to be the source of
traditional morality, the means by which morality can be tinkered
with, and the end to which morality aims. Put differently, what is it,
according to Hayek, that justifies traditional morality?
In trying to provide a "rational reconstruction" of morality, and
thereby understand its formation, Hayek recognises the dilemma,
finding himself "in the embarrassing position of wanting to claim that
it must be the...economists" who are most able to explain those moral
traditions that made the growth of civilisation possible. It is
embarrassing because these are the same specialists who are "infected
with constructivism". This recognition is instructive for two reasons.
First, because it is surely not coincidental that those best placed to
comment on the formation of morality (its source, development and,
based on its successes, purpose) are also those most inclined to
construct a new morality, a relation that calls into question Hayek's
insistence on the differentiation between construction and reconstruction.
Second, because Hayek betrays a tacit telos of morality as he
understands it. In speaking specifically of "those moral traditions
that made the growth of civilisation possible", he indicates why he
considers traditional morality to be important; it emerges that a
moral system is evaluated by its propensity to "nourish larger
numbers" of people and enable its adherents to "outstrip others whose
morals were better suited to the achievement of different aims".
Hayek anticipates this reaction, though, and notes that, "although
this morality is not 'justified' by the fact that it enables us to do
these things, and thereby to survive, /it does enable us to survive,
and there is something perhaps to be said for that/" (emphasis is
his). In a sense, Hayek is of course correct: there is a great deal to
be said for survival. But the insight is also deeply tautological, and
it sheds further light on his affinity to Hume and reliance on
"immanent criticism". In effect, the assumption underlying Hayek's
approach is that we should aspire only to maintain and improve our
material condition, without much thought as to whether such a goal is
morally desirable. The system becomes its own justification, and the
only rationale that we can advance is that it has enabled us to
survive. Morality thus becomes the means by which we live together and
prosper materially, rather than vice versa.
Again, though, one might retort that Hayek's enterprise is more modest
than the foregoing has implied. All he is doing, perhaps, is
inoffensively presuming that suffering is generally bad; that
alleviating suffering is generally good; that largely sticking with
what we know, along with occasional marginal improvements, is the
recommended course, for it has delivered the greatest prosperity known
to man; and that this agenda is threatened by scientism and rationalism.
However, even this limited reading encounters problems of its own.
Aside from its exposure to the criticisms outlined above, one might
additionally observe that the greatest increases in Western prosperity
have occurred during the last couple of centuries, coinciding with
some of the greatest challenges to traditional morality. It is very
possible that capitalism's economic creative destruction might not be
as independent of scientism's moral creative destruction as Hayek
might wish to imagine. With this possibility in mind, a staunch moral
guide is surely needed to navigate the socio-economic upheavals of our
day, and this modest interpretation of Hayek's project, though surely
on the right lines, does not quite deliver it.
Thus, the merits of his critique of reason notwithstanding, Hayek's
approach toward traditional morality is lacking. Interestingly, Hayek,
troubled by the inadequacies of his inquiry, appears to have agreed
with this assessment.
In his final reflections, Hayek concedes that his moral philosophy is
deficient. After all, is it truly satisfying to live as though man's,
or at least society's, moral purpose in this world is mainly to
survive? In the final chapter, entitled "Religion and the Guardians of
Tradition", Hayek tries to answer how practices that people dislike,
whose effects they cannot have anticipated, could have been passed
down the generations. He notes that "part of the answer" is the
evolution of moral orders through group selection (morality has
survived because it has enabled its adherents to survive). "But," he
adds, "this cannot be the whole story." Yet, he asks, if the
beneficial effects of morality were not known in advance, whence did
morality originate? And how has morality endured despite the
opposition of instinct and, more recently, the assaults of reason?
"Here we come to religion."
Like it or not, Hayek writes, "we owe the persistence of certain
practices and the civilisation that resulted from them, in part to
support from beliefs which are not true --- or verifiable or testable
--- in the same sense as are scientific statements". Like others, he
is "not prepared to accept the anthropomorphic conception of a
personal divinity", yet "the premature loss of what we regard as
nonfactual beliefs would have deprived mankind of a powerful support
in the long development of the extended order that we now enjoy." The
loss of these beliefs now would still create "great difficulties",
hence "even an agnostic ought to concede that we owe our morals,
and...not only our civilisation but our very lives, to the acceptance
of such scientifically unacceptable factual claims."
These admissions, however, pose a further difficulty. Hayek
appreciates the role of the monotheistic religions (and those which
endorse private property) in sustaining our civilisation, and he
recognises that, just as today's specialists cannot construct a
morality with knowledge of its effects, so these religions could not
have been established by a conspiratorial elite serving some noble lie
or opiate to the masses. But he is unwilling to take the faithful step
and thereby understand these religions (and the moral systems they
profess) on their own terms. He seems to share Napoleon's sentiment
that "I do not see in religion the mystery of the Incarnation, so much
as the mystery of the social order."
This hesitation leaves Hayek advising contemporary society to
appreciate the limits of its knowledge but calling upon man to follow
laws of morality largely based on religious ideas in which man need
not believe. Why, though, should man do so? To this, Hayek can only
offer the familiar answer that traditional morality is the only way of
which we know that civilisation can endure. But the implication is
that man should suppress instinct (and the prospect of immediate
pleasure) or disregard reason simply in order to bequeath civilisation
to the next generation. Hayek is aware of the deficiencies of this
uninspiring rationale and appears to remain dissatisfied.
"I long hesitated whether to insert this personal note here," Hayek
wrote, referring to these remarks on religion. He decided to do so, he
explained, because hearing these arguments from a "professed agnostic"
might encourage religious people "to pursue those conclusions that we
do share".
Hayek spent his life arguing for man's freedom. /The Fatal Conceit
/was his last contribution to that effort. The question, though, is
how man should then use that freedom. And that is the question Hayek
was unable to answer because he could not cross the faithful
threshold. Nevertheless, he recognised, in his final published words,
that "on that question may rest the survival of our civilisation".
--
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