Political theory

F. A. Hayek’s 1960 discussion of “Why I Am Not a Conservative” is a useful statement of the arguments in favor of classical liberalism over conservatism. Naturally, I think there are serious problems with them, mostly having to do with Hayek’s agnosticism, which I don’t think works to ground a free social order:

• Hayek describes

In my last entry I suggested that the problems of modern thought have to do with a defective understanding of knowledge. We refuse to believe anything without explicit proof, and since it turns out we can’t function without believing things explicit proof can’t justify people claim to have it when they don’t. Results have included … More ...

Tradition and the Good

But if liberalism is inadequate as a basis for social and political life, what is the rational alternative?

The question comes down to the problem of the social and political good. To say something is good is to say it is a reasonable goal, one worth choosing after consideration of what … More ...

Liberalism, Tradition and Faith

We live in odd times. Rationalized insanity like political correctness (“PC”) and “zero tolerance” show a growing conflict between public standards and normal human understandings that makes common-sense judgments impossible. The same conflict has disordered activities that rely on formal standards, like education and scholarship, practices that express public ideals, like … More ...

My exchange with my Finnish correspondent continues (previous installments are here, here, and here). This time he’s pressing the issue of the value of tradition:

Finnish Correspondent: Your reliance on tradition seems misplaced. Isn’t it just functionalism? Some social arrangements may work, although they are not right. For instance, abortion has

The idea that change as such is good, and resistance to change ignorant, weak, fearful, self-centered, and at least mildly pathological, goes with the view that the past is a mass of bigotry and oppression redeemed only by its foreshadowing of the here-and-now. There are obvious problems with such views:

• If our past is good

A wholesale objection to conservatism is that things have always changed, conservatives have always objected to changes, and the way things are now is obviously better—as even conservatives agree.

An obvious rejoinder is that there’s always a lot more stability than change, and a lot of radical initiatives have ended in catastrophe. There’s no conservatism … More ...