- 22 Jun 2011 15:01
#13738595
Following are two segments in Hayek's essay which clarify the essence of individualism. The essay in general is about distinguishing individualism from religion as well as continental mythology, and these principles are vital for any understanding of what individualism really means beyond a hedonist, selfish, narcissistic, libertine neglect of others:
Individualism is a perspective, not a judgment.
- Far more important than this moral attitude, which might be
regarded as changeable, is an indisputable intellectual fact which nobody
can hope to alter and which by itself is a sufficient basis for the
conclusions which the individualist philosophers drew. This is the
constitutional limitation of man's knowledge and interests, the fact
that he cannot know more than a tiny part of the whole of society and
that therefore all that can enter into his motives are the immediate
effects which his actions will have in the sphere he knows. All the
possible differences in men's moral attitudes amount to little, so far
as their significance for social organization is concerned, compared
with the fact that all man's mind can effectively comprehend are the
facts of the narrow circle of which he is the center; that, whether he is
completely selfish or the most perfect altruist, the human needs for
which he can effectively care are an almost negligible fraction of the
needs, of all members of society. The real question, therefore, is not
whether man is, or ought to be, guided by selfish motives but whether
we can allow him to be guided in his actions by those immediate consequences
which he can know and care for or whether he ought to be
made to do what seems appropriate to somebody else who is supposed
to possess a fuller comprehension of the significance of these actions
to society as a whole...
...Another misleading phrase, used to stress an important point, is the
famous presumption that each man knows his interests best. In this
form the contention is neither plausible nor necessary for the individualist's
conclusions. The true basis of his argument is that nobody
can know who knows best and that the only way by which we can
find out is through a social process in which everybody is allowed to
try and see what he can do. The fundamental assumption, here as
elsewhere, is the unlimited variety of human gifts and skills and the
consequent ignorance of any single individual of most of what is
known to all the other members of society taken together. Or, to put
this fundamental contention differently, human Reason, with a capital
R does not exist in the singular, as given or available to any particular
person, as the rationalist approach seems to assume, but must be
conceived as an interpersonal process in which anyone's contribution
is tested and corrected by others. This argument does not assume
that all men are equal in their natural endowments and capacities
but only that no man is qualified to pass final judgment on the capacities
which another possesses or is to be allowed to exercise.
Individualism is a perspective, not a judgment.
______________
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream.