PREMIUM FEATURE
Advanced Search Filters
Filter search results by source, date, and more with our premium search tools.
Critics argue that Hayek mixed a number of ethical and political philosophies in constructing his system, positions that do not necessarily cohere on… - Bruce Caldwell
" "Critics argue that Hayek mixed a number of ethical and political philosophies in constructing his system, positions that do not necessarily cohere one with another and all of which have been independently criticized. … There are evident tensions as well between his earlier advocacy of planning a framework of law and his later enthusiasm for the gradual evolution of judge-made common law. Finally, Hayek's opinion that judges operating under the common law tradition are bound to draw "conclusions that follow from the existing body of rules and the particular facts of the case" has struck more than one observer as naive. If one is judging his work against the standard of whether he provided a finished political philosophy, Hayek clearly did not succeed.
English
Collect this quote
About Bruce Caldwell
Bruce J. Caldwell (born 1952) is an American historian of economics, Research Professor of Economics at Duke University, and Director of the Center for the History of Political Economy.
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Bruce Caldwell
It seems evident from his unpublished piece that his reading of the Mill-Taylor letters gave Hayek a bit of a shock. He knew, of course, from the Autobiography that Mill had an elevated opinion of Mrs. Taylor. The letters seem to have convinced Hayek that she dominated him. Hayek would doubtless have seen this as a weakness, and he might well have lost some respect for Mill as a result. It may also have provided a convenient explanation for Hayek for why a great mind like Mill might nonetheless “desert” the liberal camp. (Hayek’s hope to lead others to the same conclusion might have helped motivate him to write the book on the correspondence between Mill and Taylor.) Given what has sometimes been said about the dominating personality of Hayek’s second wife, one wonders whether Hayek would later in his life have felt even more commonalities with Mill.
Limited Time Offer
Premium members can get their quote collection automatically imported into their Quotewise collections.
It is probably best to start off by noting that Hayek knew a lot about Mill, probably for a time more than any other contemporary scholar. So we should not underestimate him.
Next, what he had to say about Mill, what portion of Mill’s work he drew upon, was very much dictated by the sort of project he was working on. When he was making an argument about how the British liberal tradition lost its bearings, or about how Comtean positivism came to be known and gained influence across Europe, Mill was classed among the perpetrators. When he was writing about what made the British liberal tradition great, Mill could be one of the heroes. There is, I think, no inconsistency in the fact that Hayek could hold both views simultaneously.
Loading...