Hayek's comprehensive scale of values

 

"My tenets are few and simple ... to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved." G. Washington

In Justice unity,
in all else Liberty,
in all things Charity.

AN Whitehead noted that "Philosophers can never hope finally to formulate the metaphysical first principles. ... [But] there is no first principle which is in itself unknowable, not to be captured by a flash of insight."

And so it is that we often glimpse the essence of things as a flash in a phrase from one of the great minds among us. In this post let's thoughtfully reflect on such a flash from FA Hayek to see if there is something we can learn about "the welfare and the happiness of [b]illions" ... even of everything?

Hayek's comprehensive scale of values

Negative Feedback

 

“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.” ― Herman Melville 

 

The importance of negative feedback

If you were designing a "system" to provide information about your performance, how would you handle negative feedback?

This question is important as we consider if, why and how economics has become divorced from philosophy and the wider generalities of non-market-based actual and potential feedback on planet earth.

 

However, the principles in this posting are applicable to EVERY area of modern thought, even if they are especially relevant to the myriad of questions surrounding market-based, homoscopic economics as it rapidly morphs before our eyes ... sweeping many of our present realities [including family and money] in its considerable wake.

My personal motivation for tackling it at this time was

• my recent completion of the historical novel Wolf Totem concerning the Chinese cultural revolution's effect on nature in the 1970's
  
• in light of recent ecological reports on Chinese state "top-down" efforts to recover natural vitality in the severely depleted Loess Plateau
• and an accompanying 2021 about-face in attitudes towards The Wolf in China.
  

However, there are many other reasons to do so ... and to remind ourselves of the stubborn limits of our systematic thought and the proven remedies to our immoral actions. To read

• first click here on Divorcing Economics from Philosophy
• then click on the heading "The Importance of Negative Feedback".

 ... and leave me your feedback ... positive or negative !!!

Bob Love