Posted on 02/04/2003 6:56:26 PM PST by KC Burke
As a result, we have had to the present day two different traditions in the theory of liberty: one empirical and unsystematic, the other speculative and rationalistic –the first based on an interpretation of traditions and institutions which had spontaneously grown up and were but imperfectly understood, the second aiming at the construction of a utopia, which has often been tried but never successfully. Nevertheless, it has been the rationalistic, plausible, and apparently logical argument of the French tradition, with its flattering assumptions about the unlimited powers of human reason, that has progressively gained influence, while the less articulate and less explicit tradition of English freedom has been on the decline.I see that Hayek has already been where I was going with my thoughts earlier today, KC. :-)
We really need a rebirth of the wisdom of these guys. Their thoughts and words and insights need amplifying echos.
They have certain ideological "rationality" that puts them at odds with all of Chapter Four.Spot on, except not quite at odds with all of Chapter Four. The adherence to the ideology above the empirical is similar to the divergence between the English and French constructs of liberty that Hayek delineates so well early in Chapter Four.
At the risk of opening a can of worms and causing a bit of a fight, I want to look at a specific case. Joe Sobran. His ideological rationality has taken him places to where his views are no longer supported by the empirical. I think this is what has driven him, and others of similar ideology, towards Historical Revisionism. Since reality spits in the eye of some of the ideology, the reality must be denied, revised, redefined away. The rise of fascism (and other totalitarian threats) in the age of modern warfare and weapons and the shrinking globe have really damaged the conservative arguments for isolationism. Whereas before, isolationists could point to history as being essentially a wellspring of examples in support of the isolationist mentality, World War II and the Holocaust became two prime examples of the risk of non-interventionism, and appeasement in the face of aggression. Those isolationists of a conservative mindset, who need by their very nature to have the empirical support their ideology, faced a choice- change the ideology or deny the empirical. Sadly, some have chosen the latter.
And we see the label neo-con being thrown around with abandon, and its definition being expanded to mean anyone who doesn't adhere to a strict paleoconservative ideology. It isn't the neoconservatives who have strayed from the conservative barn; the neoconservatives base their philosophy on what they have gleaned from experience. They believe that modern history has shown the threat from communism, from terrorism, from totalitarianism, and that it must be attacked head on. If they are right or wrong is another issue, but since it is based on rational views of reality and history it is a conservative view. The paleoconservatives who see the threat and acknowledge it but simply disagree on the risk of intervention as oppposed to nonintervention also hold a conservative view. The conservative mindset allows for both views.
Those on either side of the fight who adhere to an ideology regardless of the lessons of history, who are anti-war (or pro-war) regardless of circumstance, are not conservatives. They are ideologues of the left or right.
I enjoyed reading this thread, and your post in particular.
The fallibility of man leads to the rational conclusion that no man or human institution should be given much power. The founders of American government came from both the "irrational" and the "rational" schools of thought. In my opinion, they were able to work together because the "irrationalists" dervied conclusions (the fallibility of man) that matched the principles of the rationalists. That those shared conclusions and principles matched the revelation of God explains why the founder's joint efforts led to the most prosperous nation on earth to date.
I think it also needs saying that admitting that our society is founded on judeo-christian thought does not mean that government is to be the tool to force morality on others (apart from this idea of natural law, that is which is morality, from the Ten Commandments) - we may disagree here. It is not that I believe in moral relativism; quite the opposite is true. It is the overall effect that I am looking at.
Take the War on Drugs, for example...
You may find this "rationalist" thread of interest. That many "irrationalists" come to the same conclusion should be no surprise---when God's precepts are put into action, blessings follow.
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6. We have already considered the various institutions and habits, tools and methods of doing things, which have emerged from this process and constitute our inherited civilization. But we have yet to look at those rules of conduct which have grown as part of it, which are both a product and a condition of freedom. Of these conventions and customs of human intercourse, the moral rules are the most important but by no means the only significant ones. We understand one another and get along with one another, are able to act successfully on our plans, because, most of the time, members of our civilization conform to unconscious patterns of conduct, show a regularity in their actions that is not the result of commands or coercion, often not even of any conscious adherence to known rules, but of firmly established habits and traditions. The general observance of these conventions is a necessary condition of the orderliness of the world in which we live, of our being able to find our way in it, though we do not know their significance and may not even be consciously aware of their existence. In some instances it would be necessary, for the smooth running of society, to secure a similar uniformity by coercion, if such conventions or rules were not observed often enough. Coercion, then, may sometimes be avoidable only because a high degree of voluntary conformity exists, which means that voluntary conformity may be a condition of a beneficial working of freedom. It is indeed a truth, which all the great apostles of freedom outside the rationalistic school have never tired of emphasizing, that freedom has never worked without deeply ingrained moral beliefs and that coercion can be reduced to a minimum only where individuals can be expected as a rule to conform voluntarily to certain principles.
There is an advantage in obedience to such rules not being coerced, not only because coercion as such is bad, but because it is, in fact, often desirable that rules should be observed only in most instances and that the individual should be able to transgress them when it seems to him worthwhile to incur the odium which this will cause. It is also important that the strength of the social pressure and of the force of habit which insures their observance is variable. It is this flexibility of voluntary rules which in the field of morals makes gradual evolution and spontaneous growth possible, which allows further experience to lead to modifications and improvements. Such an evolution is possible only with rules which are neither coercive nor deliberately imposed-rules which, though observing them is regarded as merit and though they will be observed by the majority, can be broken by individuals who feel that they have strong enough reasons to brave the censure of their fellows. Unlike any deliberately imposed coercive rules, which can be changed only discontinuously and for all at the same time, rules of this kind allow for gradual and experimental change. The existence of individuals and groups simultaneously observing partially different rules provides the opportunity for the selection of the more effective ones.
It is this submission to undesigned rules and conventions whose significance and importance we largely do not understand, this reverence for the traditional, that the rationalistic type of mind finds so uncongenial, though it is indispensable for the working of a free society. It has its foundation in the insight which David Hume stressed and which is of decisive importance for the antirationalist, evolutionary tradition -- namely, that "the rules of morality are not the conclusions of our reason." Like all other values, our morals are not a product but a presupposition of reason, part of the ends which the instrument of our intellect has been developed to serve. At any one stage of our evolution, the system of values into which we are born supplies the ends which our reason must serve. This givenness of the value frame-work implies that, although we must always strive to improve our institutions, we can never aim to remake them as a whole and that, in our efforts to improve them, we must take for granted much that we do not understand. We must always work inside a framework of both values and institutions which is not of our own making. In particular, we can never synthetically construct a new body of moral rules or make our obedience of the known rules dependent on our comprehension of the implications of this obedience in a given instance.
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7. The rationalistic attitude to these problems is best seen in its views on what it calls "superstition."" I do not wish to underestimate the merit of the persistent and relentless fight of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries against beliefs which are demonstrably false." But we must remember that the extension of the concept of superstition to all beliefs which are not demon-strably true lacks the same justification and may often be harmful. That we ought not to believe anything which has been shown to be false does not mean that we ought to believe only what has been demonstrated to be true. There are good reasons why any person who wants to live and act successfully in society must accept many common beliefs, though the value of these reasons may have little to do with their demonstrable truth." Such beliefs will also be based on some past experience but not on experience for which anyone can produce the evidence. The scientist, when asked to accept a generalization in his field, is of course entitled to ask for the evidence on which it is based. Many of the beliefs which in the past expressed the accumulated experience of the race have been disproved in this manner. This does not mean, however, that we can reach the stage where we can dispense with all beliefs for which such scientific evidence is lacking. Experience comes to man in many more forms than are commonly recognized by the professional experimenter or the seeker after explicit knowledge. We would destroy the foundations of much successful action if we disdained to rely on ways of doing things evolved by the process of trial and error simply because the reason for their adoption has not been handed down to us. The appropriateness of our conduct is not necessarily dependent on our knowing why it is so. Such understanding is one way of making our conduct appropriate, but not the only one. A sterilized world of beliefs, purged of all elements whose value could not be positively demonstrated, would probably be not less lethal than would an equivalent state in the biological sphere.
While this applies to all our values, it is most important in the case of moral rules of conduct. Next to language, they are perhaps the most important instance of an undesigned growth, of a set of rules which govern our lives but of which we can say neither why they are what they are nor what they do to us: we do not know what the consequences of observing them are for us as individuals and as a group. And it is against the demand for submission to such rules that the rationalistic spirit is in Constant revolt. It insists on applying to them Descartes's principle which was "to reject as absolutely false all opinions in regard to which I could suppose the least ground for doubt."" The desire of the rationalist has always been for the deliberately con-structed, synthetic system of morals, for the system in which, as Edmund Burke has described it, "the practice of all moral duties, and the foundations of society, rested upon their reasons made clear and demonstrative to every individual. The rationalists of the eighteenth century, indeed, explicitly argued that, since they knew human nature, they "could easily find the morals which suited it." They did not understand that what they called "human nature" is very largely the result of those moral conceptions which every individual learns with language and thinking.
To All:
I will try to add the last subchapters as I am able....should take one more update, thanks.
To All:
I will try to add the last subchapters as I am able....should take one more update, thanks.
It has struck me originally that many that are counted in the Libertarian ranks, or who even call themselves libertairian (such as Sowell), do so instead of the more obscure term of Old Whig. That was what prompted me to urge those calling Hayek a liberterian, as opposed to a conservative, to read the fourth chapter of this book.
It supports what I have often pointed out. If you take the great minds of our side of the political spectrum: Weaver, Kirk, Hayek, Buckley, Meyer, the elder Kristol, Sowell, Nisbet and others, they agree on 95% of their principles and the differences here are minor scirmishes on the 5% and of little import.
Kirk insists that the difference arose out of the English respect for tradition and order, while the French are blinded by ideological zeal. Conservation of order and a reverence for tradition kept the American Revolution from decaying into the murderous revolt of the Jacobins, and marked a departure from the mythical Divine Right of Kings but an acknowledgement of Man's inherent unworthiness to rule himself. In denying those caveats, the French rushed headlong into an orgy of self-destruction that many argue continues to this day.
It would seem Hayek is in agreement with the premise that tradition and custom bind rights more than any inherent sense of liberty.
Are you aware that Hayek, in one of his books, actually inlcuded an essay named "Why I Am Not a Conservative"?
Kirk like the terms "custom, convention and continuity" claiming that: "Order and justice and freedom, they believe , are the artifical products of a long social experience, the result of centuries of trial and reflection and sacrifice."
I think, the thing I have noted and studied about the French Revolution was the dieifing of Individual Will -- with the State then meant to be the extension of that Will. This false road leads forever onward, even to Marx and others.
I have some links at the first of the thread to a couple of old threads where various thinkers we are mentioning are discussed on a thoughtful level. As I recall, Burke and Hayek are compared on one fine one that was posted by Cornelis.
In my post at 85, we get the sense that Hayek, in Chapter Four is moving on from just simple tradition versus rationality and on into the roots of ethics and morals themselves and the uses of rationality in general. He is as we shall see in the next sub-chapters.
But here, in 6 and 7 he is suggesting the role of "individual intelligence" is a poor substitute for rules "evolved by (a right functioning) society". It is really interesting to see a non-religous thinker begin to illustrate that fixed moral virtues, by-and-large religiously based, is the true modifier and source the storehouse of knowledge that must be used instead of individual rationality.
This Chapter, as I hope is evident by the time I have added the last three subchapters, is a masterwork of explaining the basis of general conservative principles.
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