Abstract
Although the work of F. A. Hayek (1899-1992) has attracted a good deal of attention in recent years, many important questions about the nature and origin of his thought remain unanswered. This is particularly true regarding his so-called “transformation,” during which he all but abandoned technical economics and instead decided to pursue broader questions in political and social philosophy. In this dissertation I examine the system of beliefs that guided his thought, and argue that a number of important questions can be usefully addressed by seeing Hayek in the light of the Natural Law tradition. I argue that there are important reasons to consider Hayek part of this tradition. Many of the central ideas of Natural Law doctrine (especially as they appear in the classical liberal philosophers of the 18th century) are clearly present in Hayek’s work, and he was, as a matter of fact, under the governing influence of the Natural Law tradition for most of his life. The Natural Law connection helps account for a number of otherwise mysterious features of Hayek’s work, for instance, why he adopted a theory of natural selection at the level of the group as the centerpiece of his mature theory. Moreover, the link with Natural Law doctrine goes a long way toward accounting for the immense rhetorical power of his theory. Meanwhile, I claim, Hayek’s reliance on central tenets of Natural Law doctrine had important unintended, unanticipated and unwelcome consequences.
|
