December, 2009

Why Doesn’t Hayek Answer the Questions That I Feel Are Important?

by Bruce Caldwell
The Conversation
December 31st, 2009

I have attended a lot of Liberty Fund meetings on Hayek and have noticed that as a rule economists tend to like Hayek’s ideas much more than political philosophers (whether housed in philosophy or political science departments) do. The fascinating and instructive exchange between Sandefur and Hasnas has helped me to understand why. Hayek doesn’t [...]

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1 1/2 Cheers for Tim’s Impetus

by Daniel B. Klein
The Conversation
December 30th, 2009

Tim’s recent declarations for rationalism and idealism succinctly express his impetus against Hayek. I think it’s misguided to think that there is Ethics, which tell us what is Right, and then there are “positive” understandings, to which we may then apply our ethical conclusions. I more see it as one big conversation, with ises and [...]

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Reflections on Dead Horses, Semantic Confusion, and Straw Men

by John Hasnas
The Conversation
December 29th, 2009

I read Timothy Sandefur’s latest contribution to our on-line conversation with interest. I do not believe, however, that I am able to respond in an interesting way. It appears to me that Mr. Sandefur and I are talking past each other. We are using the essential terms of the debate in different ways, and apparently [...]

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Is “Know It When I See It” Enough?

by Timothy Sandefur
The Conversation
December 22nd, 2009

There’s an old joke about libertarians that goes, “How many libertarians does it take to change a lightbulb?” The answer: “None: if the lightbulb needed changing, the market would have taken care of it.” This joke highlights the problem I have with arguments based on spontaneous order. There’s no doubt that there are such things [...]

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The Mind-Society Spiral

by Daniel B. Klein
The Conversation
December 22nd, 2009

I believe I have made honest use of what I know about the world in which we live. The reader will have to decide whether he wants to accept the values in the service of which I have used that knowledge. — Friedrich Hayek, Preface, The Constitution of Liberty [1] In his response to me, [...]

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Once More unto the Breach: A Reply to Timothy Sandefur’s Response

by John Hasnas
The Conversation
December 17th, 2009

It appears that Timothy Sandefur disagrees with me. There is certainly a lot of evidence for this in his response to my first posting. However, it is not clear to me how much Mr. Sandefur is disagreeing with me, how much he is disagreeing with Hayek, and how much the disagreement with either of us [...]

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The Light “Between the Lines” Is Doing All the Work: A Response to Prof. Klein

by Timothy Sandefur
The Conversation
December 16th, 2009

I hope my critique of Hayek’s notion of spontaneous order and of his attempts to draw normative conclusions from it are not taken as a complete rejection of Hayek’s work, or of the important insights he had. I don’t think any argument for economic liberty is complete without “The Use of Knowledge in Society.” And [...]

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Unmade, Amoral Orders Composed of Made, Moral Orders? A Response to John Hasnas

by Timothy Sandefur
The Conversation
December 15th, 2009

1. I want to thank Professor Hasnas for so eloquently describing my crucial point: Hayek’s critique of economic or political planning falls short because he “den[ies] any independent grounding for ethics outside of the process of social evolution and… attempt[s] to make purely formal and essentially vacuous values such as generality and consistency do substantive [...]

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