Jerry Gaus on the Egalitarian Species
LOCATION: College Hall 200 (Class of 1954 Lecture Hall), Penn campus (http://www.facilities.upenn.edu/maps?...)
ABSTRACT: In this essay I address "Hayek's Worry" -- that our biologically-evolved egalitarian moral sentiments are in deep conflict with the socially-evolved impersonal order that he calls "the Great Society." I analyze what I take to be the "egalitarian ethos" characteristic of our species, relying a number of recent studies, from formal modeling, primatology, archeology, ethnography, as well as experimental and evolutionary psychology. The core claim of the essay is that rule-based market orders are not opposed to evolved egalitarian sentiments: our fundamental egalitarianism quintessentially expresses itself in norms of fair treatment that oppose being bossed and dominated, norms on which markets depend. However, Hayek's Worry cannot be entirely assuaged; human sentiments have some inclination towards equal shares but, more importantly, human egalitarianism rebels at being bossed. It is not markets, but the hierarchical firm, that should be the focus of Hayekians's Worry about the clash between biologically-evolved sentiments and modern economic orders.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This lecture is part of the PPE Freedom Lectures series, hosted by the Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program of the University of Pennsylvania and funded by the Charles Koch Foundation. The Personal Freedom Project is funded by the John Templeton Foundation.