The Epistemological Foundation of Hayek’s Anti-rationalist Concept of Morality

Abstract

The moral and political philosophy of Hayek is based on his epistemological achievements. As many thinkers acknowledge,1 his entire research effort is concerned with an investigation of the nature of human knowledge and its relation to society. In the preceding chapter it has been shown that, in his early years at the University of Vienna, Hayek was influenced by the philosophies of Mach, Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle, Windelband, Rickert and the Austrian School of Economics. As a result, his epistemic view is a combination of positivism and Southwestern neo-Kantianism. This chapter has the difficult task of reconstructing Hayek’s theory of knowledge and examining its philosophical consequences. In doing so, it reveals the anti-rationalist character of Hayek’s concept of morality and its epistemological foundation.