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Hayek on Justice and the Market: A Rejoinder to Cragg and Mack

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

A.M. MacLeod*
Affiliation:
Queen's University

Extract

(1) Professor Cragg objects to my contention that when judgments about the justice of actions can be paired with judgments about the justice of the states of affairs in which they eventuate it is the latter and not the former which are logically fundamental. He concedes that the justice of actions cannot, in these circumstances, be determined wholly independently of the justice of the states of affairs they help bring about — ‘ … how could an action be evaluated as Just or unjust in the absence of an evaluation of the situation which it was designed to bring about?’ — yet he takes issue with my claim that judgments about the justice of states of affairs can be made ‘without any detour’ through questions about the justice of the actions which bring them about. According to the intermediate position he prefers, judgments about the justice of actions and judgments about the justice of situations are ‘inextricably intertwined.’

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1983

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References

1 ‘Justice and the Market,’ this issue, 557

2 A.W. Cragg, ‘Hayek, Justice and the Market,’ this issue, 565

3 ‘Strictly speaking only human conduct can be called Just or unjust. … To apply the term “just” to circumstances other than human actions … is a category mistake’ (Hayek, The Mirage of Social Justice, 31Google Scholar)

4 ‘Justice and the Market,’ 558-9

5 Ibid., 560

6 Cragg, 566

7 Hayek, The Mirage of Social Justice, xiiGoogle Scholar

8 Ibid., 69-70

9 E. Mack, ‘Hayek on Justice and the Market: A Reply to MacLeod,’ this issue, 569-74

10 Ibid., 573. The concession does, however, suggest the question why Mack should have thought it useful to devote the greater part of his reply to re-casting Hayek's position in the light of the distinction between ‘spontaneous orders’ and 'organisations.'

11 Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice, 87Google Scholar