Abstract
The relationship between F. A. Hayek and Michael Oakeshott presents a puzzle to those interested in classical liberalism and the concept of spontaneous order. Hayek and Oakeshott were arguably two of the most influential postwar critics of state planning and defenders of liberty in the Anglo-American world. They were at least good acquaintances from years in London, exchanging comments on one another’s work into the late 1960s.1 After decades of writing on questions of liberty, the rule of law, and a free society both produced synoptic books in the 1970s—Hayek’s Law, Legislation and Liberty trilogy, published between 1973 and 1979, and Oakeshott’s On Human Conduct, published in 1975. These works are not only the culmination of their individual philosophical projects, but they represent a convergence of their ideas after decades of apparent disagreement. For despite their considerable affinities, Hayek and Oakeshott gave every impression of being intellectually at odds with one another throughout their long and distinguished careers.
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Notes
Michael Oakeshott, “Rationalism in Politics,” in Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), p. 26.
Friedrich A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 400 (hereafter cited as CL).
Friedrich A. Hayek, Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 1, Rules and Order. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), p. 20 (hereafter cited as LLL).
Hayek borrows this formulation from Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, ed. Fania Oz-Salzberger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 119.
Two of the clearest statements of Oakeshott’s philosophical pluralism are his early work, Experience and Its Modes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933) and the essay, “The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind,” in Rationalism and Politics, pp. 488–541. For a thoughtful consideration of the nature and implications of Oakeshott’s philosophical pluralism, see Richard Flathman, Pluralism and Liberal Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).
Friedrich A. Hayek, The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1952) (hereafter cited as CRS).
Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), especially pp. 57–60, 63, 70–78, 112–122 (hereafter cited as OHC).
Friedrich A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, ed. W. W. Bartley III (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 154.
Oakeshott, OHC, pp. 114–119, 157–158. For a full account of this distinction between civil association and enterprise association, see Richard Boyd, “Michael Oakeshott on Civility, Civil Society, and Civil Association,” Political Studies 52 (October 2004): 603–622.
While many continue to characterize Oakeshott as a “conservative,” there is a growing recognition among political theorists that Oakeshott is better understood as a conservative liberal pluralist. Oakeshott’s commitment to liberal neutrality, moral individuality, and classical liberal freedoms have been emphasized by Lee Auspitz, “Individuality, Civility, and Theory: The Philosophical Imagination of Michael Oakeshott,” Political Theory 4 (August 1976): 261–294;
Terry Nardin, The Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2001);
and Richard Flathman, Reflections of a Would-be Anarchist: Ideals and Institutions of Liberalism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).
Both Hayek and Oakeshott acknowledge the influence of Michael Polanyi and his pathbreaking work on personal or tacit knowledge. See especially, Michael Polanyi, The Logic of Liberty: Reflections and Rejoinders (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951) and The Tacit Dimension (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).
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© 2007 Louis Hunt and Peter McNamara
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Boyd, R., Morrison, J.A. (2007). F. A. Hayek, Michael Oakeshott, and the Concept of Spontaneous Order. In: Hunt, L., McNamara, P. (eds) Liberalism, Conservatism, and Hayek’s Idea of Spontaneous Order. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609228_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230609228_5
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