The Methodological Formation of Hayek’s Moral Dimension: The Exclusion and Requirement of Substantive Politics

Abstract

The anti-rationalist concept of morality and its epistemological foundation is the basis on which the moral dimension of Hayek’s theory is developed. This dimension consists of the ideas of social spontaneity and cultural evolution. In the preceding chapter it has been argued that the positivist ‘demonstration’ of the natural limits of the human mind provides the ‘objective’ basis upon which the Hayekian ‘Moral Imperative’ is founded. That ‘Moral Imperative’ has certain praxeological and socio-theoretical implications. These are concerned with the nature of human action, the complexity of social phenomena and the way in which such phenomena can be scientifically approached.