ABSTRACT
In the history of political thought, controversy about how liberty is to be conceived has typically been conflated with debate about the sources of the value of liberty and the principles of its just limitation. Although the classical theorists may have differed both as to the proper conceptual analysis of liberty and as to the role in political life of principles about its value and equitable distribution, it has been supposed that a comprehensive and systematic theory of liberty is in principle available, and that such a theory could have a universal application in which it might inform and guide political practice. One aspect of this traditional aspiration is displayed in Rawls's search for a moral geometry in which questions about the scope and distribution of liberty are susceptible of a single authoritative answer. But we find political sceptics such as Michael Oakeshott denying that anything very substantive follows from conceptual truths about liberty and repudiating the view that rational reflection can uncover universally applicable principles for the arbitration of conflicting claims about liberty. The main interest of Hayek's work in social and political philosophy lies in his attempt to marry these two approaches to political theory, the classical and modern, the rationalist and sceptical, so as to produce a framework of ideas whose role is at once explanatory and normative. His attempt is, as I shall try to show, foredoomed to failure and issues in a confusion of categories. It is an impressive failure, none the less, in that it teaches us much about the proper concerns of political theory and contains much of intrinsic interest as well. Hayek's writings compose one of the most ambitious efforts at a liberal ideology made this century, and a critical scrutiny of the reasons for its inevitable failure cannot fail to be instructive.
