Hayekian political epistemology as a science of the limits of deliberate political action

We can use Hayek’s epistemology to gain an empirical understanding of policymakers’ epistemic burdens. The constitutional approach to the problem of policymaker ignorance investigates the epistemic requirements of particular policy objectives and the epistemic capacities of policymakers. The goal is to divide planning responsibilities between policymakers and individuals in the way most conducive to the effective use of the knowledge possessed by members of each group. More exactly, the goal is to prevent policymakers from pursuing policy objectives that they cannot contribute to realizing on the basis of their limited epistemic capacities. Such a constitution would permit us to pursue our (collective and individual) goals in the way(s) most conducive to their realization.