Liberty, Dignity, and Resposibility: The Moral Triad of a Good Society

Abstract

In The Constitution of Liberty, Friedrich Hayek wrote, the belief in individual responsibility...has always been strong when people firmly believed in individual freedom (1960, 71; see also 1967, 232). He also observed that during his time the belief in individual responsibility has markedly declined, together with the esteem for freedom. In surveying the twentieth century, noting the ascent of the philosophy of entitlement, the philosophy of command and control, and their institutional embodiments - the welfare state and the regulatory state - one can only respond, indeed. Lately, perhaps, a reversal has begun.