Gus, one question. Is Hayek using the term "self organizing" in the Adam
Smith sense or in the "Autopoesis" sense. The first I'm sort of dubious
about, the second I tend to reject outright.

Steven

But the proper response to this hypothesis
is that there are always people willing to
believe anything, however implausible, merely
in order to be contrary.
                             Vikram Seth
                             A Suitable Boy

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion forum for environmental ethics.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Gus diZerega
Sent: Sunday, January 13, 2002 2:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Hayek


Most of the Hayek discussion took place while I was away.  I want to add a
couple of brief thoughts that may help show his relevance for environmental
ethics.

First, Hayek makes a distinction between the ethical principles that apply
to concrete relationships, such as face to face interactions, and those that
apply to self-organizing systems.  he uses this distinction to question the
applicability of a face to face ethics to "social justice" for society as a
whole.  The basic distinction is that at the face to face level we can
reasonably anticipate the effects of our actions, but the greater complexity
of a self-organmizing order means that no actor can anticipate the systemic
impact of their actions.  This is why ethics for the first can be quite
personal and  concrete whereas for the second, purely procedural and
impersonal.

One need not agree with all of Hayek's analysis to see the truth of this
insight.

Since ecological systems are self-organizing our ethical obligations within
such systems may well be quite different from other fields of action, and
not be inconsistent.

Second, and this takes us beyond what Hayek himself wrote, we are actors in
more than a single self-organizing system.  The ethical rules for each may
be formally similar (i.e. both science and market contract rely on formally
voluntary interactions) but the procedural rules that generate a scientific
order are different from those that generate a market one.  Hence we get the
possibility (I would say certainty) of tensions and contradictions between
different self-organizing systems, both within human society (the gift
economy of science vs. the commodity economy of the market) and between the
human order and the encompassing natural order (the commodity economy of the
market and a salmon ecosystem).  Any ethical analysis that does not take
these complications into account is likely to be overly simple.

Hayek had another insight of potential value to environmental ethics (though
here he had more company) - that customs evolve over time.  That custom in
fact is a kind of self-organizing system as exemplified in the evolution of
common law.  His evolutionary model of custom (rooted in the Scottish
Enlightenment) suggests new ways of interpreting the impact of modern ways
of life on the natural world.  Worrisome ways, at that, though Hayek himself
didn't really explore this issue very much.

This is very sketchy, I admit.  But I hope suggestive enough to encourage
others to take a look at his thought.

I am working on two related papers which may interest people intrigued with
this outline.  One, Border Wars, explores the contardictions between the
self-organizing systems of society and of nature.  I am happy to send a copy
to anyone who asks - so long as they promise to send me their comments after
they read it.  The paper is fairly long, however.

I am working on another paper to be given at two conferences this March
looking at similarities in the Hayekian critique of socialist central
planning as an attempt to substitute for the self-organizing order of the
market with the attempt of corporate and government organizations to
substitute an industrial model of production as  a replacement for working
in harmony with natural ecosystems, using salmon as my case study.  This
paper is not yet ready to be sent out, but will at the end of March (because
I HAVE to have it ready by then!  ;-)

I am happy to send the first as a Word attachment now, the second to any who
ask at the end of March.

Gus diZerega
Dept. of Politics
Whitman College
Walla Walla, WA 99362