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Individual: End in His/Herself

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RuleofLaw

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Hey all,

I'm currently doing research for an undergraduate philosophy paper. The paper is for an independent study course on Friedrich Hayek's Liberalism (he is considered to be a classical liberal philosopher). My paper centers on Hayek's argument for liberty as a value--an argument which has a dual-point on epistemological and practical grounds.

What I want to do is develop a meta-ethical justification for his treatment of individuals as ends in themselves i.e. I want to argue that, because individuals are metaphysically autonomous/ends in themselves, they OUGHT to be ends in themselves. This sort of characterization is an attempt to undo Hume's is-ought dichotomy as well as finding a meta-ethical justification for liberty. I know a lot about Rand's treatment of the subject, but I was hoping to get some outside-perspectives to help me focus on the issue.

It would also be helpful for people with particular experience with Aristotle's philosophy to lend their thoughts on this subject. I was looking into Aristotle's Categories wherein I found some glimpses of a metaphysical/ethical bridge...his treatment of primary substances as being neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject is in some ways a metaphysical statement...since 'an individual' would be a subject and a primary substance, I could argue that that is a metaphysical grounding for the ethical claim that individuals are ends in themselves.

Thoughts?

-CMH

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Hmm, maybe I don't quite understand the question. So Hayek was a skeptic basically and didn't think there could be a rational ethics, so I don't know what it would mean to develop a meta-ethical justification for his ideas on liberty that could bridge the is-ought gap, since he didn't believe anything could. His views on liberty seem to result, as you say, for an epistemological argument and the general idea that spontaneous evolution of society is more progressive than a controlled and directed society.

But if you mean like what is the basic issue involved with the Aristotelian and Randian traditions on the treatment of people as ends in themselves, it all revolves around their adherence to eudaimonism in ethics. This tradition holds to the meta-ethical idea of human flourishing and happiness as the ultimate end for man, so treating others as ends in themselves is necessary for one's own personal well-being along with the establishment of the political conditions necessary to allow everyone to act as autonomous moral agents. So the argument isn't really metaphysical or having to do with substances, but begins with human nature and the requirements for virtue (Rand as Aristotle sees freedom as necessary for virtue.) The main difference with Hayek being the obvious point that he didn't think reason could prescribe any such ultimate end.

As far as some outside sources go, maybe try looking into Philippa Foot, Henry Veach, Tara Smith, Allan Gotthelf, Roderick Long, Edward Younkins, Tibor Machan, Doug Rasmussen, and Doug den Uyl.

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You're touching on exactly what the problem is...you see, Hayek was skeptical in whether or not reason could formulate/maintain society deliberately...I'm not entirely sure if he was skeptical of a rational ethics.

Nonetheless, he held that individuals were ends in themselves as if that were a self-evident fact; he doesn't figure morality into his argument. I should say, rather, that the practical is his moral argument i.e. because liberty is beneficial to everyone it is good (a very utilitarian/pragmatist grounding). I want to provide a different justification for his conclusions, one that I think he assumes i.e. the meta-ethical justification that Rand/Aristotle give. If they both have a meta-ethical stance, then they must have a metaphysical premise(s) in order to get the ethical conclusions they draw. I see how Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia is assumed on the individual level since it is the good which individuals seek...but if that is grounded in 'human nature' then it has to be metaphysical since human nature is a metaphysical idea.

The reason that I am trying to find this meta-ethical grounding is to respond to a class of objections to Hayek's argument for liberty i.e. the moral objection (most notably advanced by Rawls). People object to Hayek on moral grounds; stating that it is 'just' and 'fair' to have redistributive justice. Hayek's only response to that kind of argument is that we cannot know the possible effects of such measures and that such measures ultimately go against the intended objectives...but do you see how vulnerable that leaves the argument for liberty?

It's also odd that Rand and Aristotle could hold true to the idea of eudaimonia as the human good, but that Aristotle tended more toward a more statist/communitarian politcs while Rand went toward liberty. Aristotle held that the basic element of society was the family...very anti-individualistic. He also held firm to the master-slave relationship. To a large extent, Aristotle did not hold individuals as ends in themselves when it came to politics because he did not think slaves were capable of morality...it's an odd conflict for me to grasp. In that sense, Aristotle held that some individuals were means to the ends of others so that those others could be ends in themselves. This is why I don't think his morality necessarily entails autonomous individuals; but I think his metaphysics/categories/logic does...

Anyway, thank you for your thoughts and the authors I could look into, I very much appreciate it!

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Okay yeah, I get you now. Yeah I'm pretty sure Hayek was skeptical about a rational ethic, but definitely was sort of inconsistent on that point since he seems to advance value-judgments in his political writings all the time. There's a great article from Hans-Hermann Hoppe from the Review of Austrian Economics critiquing a lot of Hayek's shortcomings from a libertarian perspective. For the general Misesian utilitarian view that practically everybody wants prosperity and peace, so they can advance arguments for capitalism based on that, Murray Rothbard wrote a good piece critiquing that view and advancing a few arguments in favor of objectivist ethics, like what if people value "social justice" higher than general prosperity, or what if people just want to get benefits from the state for themselves, etc. It's from a symposium on relativism which you can find in the book "Rothbard versus the Philosophers" online for free, but there's an excerpt from it here: http://mises.org/daily/2968

On Aristotle, yeah I definitely think he was just basically stuck in the paradigm of the time in which ethics were thought of as subordinated to politics, plus just accepting what were the general views of living well in his time, and so he has some statist tendencies in that regard. But as Roderick Long point out, it's not really the immediate compatibility of classical eudaimonism and libertarian politics that makes them fit together, but precisely because each one of them has compensates that which other other lacks: one provides a fully integrated ethical basis, and the other provides the component of freedom that is necessary for living the good life.

Also Ed Younkins has done some work on pointing out the shortcomings of Aristotle's politics, and some other guy (can't remember his name) did a paper on Libertarian Papers (which you can also read online for free) something to the effect of "A non-statist reconstruction of Aristotelian politics," and Rasmussen also commented on this part of Aristotle recently on the Rand symposium at Cato Unbound.

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