【メモ】 Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency

フランス語原典：　Meillassoux, Quentin (2006) Après la finitude : Essai sur la nécessité de la contingence. Paris: Seuil.

英訳：　Meillassoux, Quentin (2009) After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency. Trans. Ray Brassier. London: Continuum.

「正しい形而上学のやり方」というものがもしあるとすれば、本書はそれを体現している。大陸の哲学者には珍しく、メイヤスーの論の進め方はあたかも数学書のようである。その結論のすべてに同意できるわけではないものの、彼の強靭な思考には感銘を禁じ得ない。以下、各章のまとめ擬きと雑感。

【第一章　先祖性】

"Everything is inside because in order to think anything whatsoever, it is necessary to 'be able to be conscious of it', it is necessary to say it, and so we are locked up in language or in consciousness without being able to get out. In this sense, they have no outside. But in another sense, they are entirely turned towards the outside; they are the world's window: for to be conscious is always to be conscious of something, to speak is necessarily to speak about something. To be conscious of the tree is to be conscious of the tree itself, and not the idea of the tree; to speak about the tree is not just to utter a word but to speak about the thing. Consequently, consciousness and language enclose the world within themselves only insofar as, conversely, they are entirely contained by it. We are in consciousness or language as in a transparent cage. Everything is outside, yet it is impossible to get out." (Francis Wolff, Dire le monde, pp.11-12)

The question that interests us here is then the following: what is it exactly that astrophysicists, geologists, or paleontologists are talking about when they discuss the age of the universe, the date of the accretion of the earth, the date of the appearance of prehuman species, or the date of the emergence of humanity itself? How are we to grasp the meaning of scientific statements bearing explicitly upon a manifestation of the world that is posited as anterior to the emergence of thought and even of life - posited, that is, as anterior to every form of human relation to the world? Or, to put it more precisely: how are we to think the meaning of a discourse which construes the relation to the world - that of thinking and/or living as a fact inscribed in a temporality within which this relation is just one event among others, inscribed in an order of succession in which it is merely a stage, rather than an origin? How is science able to think such statements, and in what sense can we eventually ascribe truth to them? (pp.9-10)

We could even wager, without taking too much of a risk, that where the theory of qualities is concerned, scientists are much more likely to side with Cartesianism than with Kantianism: they would have little difficulty in conceding that secondary qualities only exist as aspects of the living creature's relation to its world - but they would be much less willing to concede that (mathematizable) primary qualities only exist so long as we ourselves exist, rather than as properties of things themselves. And the truth is that their unwillingness to do so becomes all too understandable once one begins to seriously examine how the correlationist proposes to account for ancestrality. (p.13)

What then would be a literal interpretation of the ancestral statement? The belief that the realist meaning of the ancestral statement is its ultimate meaning - that there is no other regime of meaning capable of deepening our understanding of it, and that consequently the philosopher's codicil is irrelevant when it comes to analysing the signification of the statement. (p.14)

One does not validate a measure just to demonstrate that this measure is valid for all scientists; one validates it in order to determine what is measured. It is because certain radioactive isotopes are capable of informing us about a past event that we try to extract from them a measure of their age: turn this age into something unthinkable and the objectivity of the measure becomes devoid of sense and interest, indicating nothing beyond itself. Science does not experiment with a view to validating the universality of its experiments; it carries out repeatable experiments with a view to external referents which endow these experiments with meaning. (p.17)

（ancestralityの議論に対するcorrelationistの反論1の検討）：
The objection against idealism based on the distal occurrence is in fact identical with the one based on the ancient occurrence, and both are equivalent versions (temporal or spatial) of what could be called 'the objection from the un-witnessed', or from the 'un-perceived'. And the correlationist is certainly right about one thing - that the argument from the un-perceived is in fact trivial and poses no threat to correlationism. But the argument from the arche-fossil is in no way equivalent to such an objection, because the ancestral does not designate an ancient event - it designates an event anterior to terrestrial life and hence anterior to givenness itself. Though ancestrality is a temporal notion, its definition does not invoke distance in time, but rather anteriority in time. This is why the arche-fossil does not merely refer to an un-witnessed occurrence, but to a non-given occurrence - ancestral reality does not refer to occurrences which a lacunary givenness cannot apprehend, but to occurrences which are not contemporaneous with any givenness, whether lacunary or not. Therein lies its singularity and its critical potency with regard to correlationism. (p.20)

[T]he problem of the arche-fossil is not the empirical problem of the birth of living organisms, but the ontological problem of the coming into being of givenness as such. More acutely, the problem consists in understanding how science is able to think - without any particular difficulty - the coming into being of consciousness and its spatio-temporal forms of givenness in the midst of a space and time which are supposed to pre-exist the latter. More particularly, one thereby begins to grasp that science thinks a time in which the passage from the non-being of givenness to its being has effectively occurred - hence a time which, by definition, cannot be reduced to any givenness which preceded it and whose emergence it allows. In other words, at issue here is not the time of consciousness but the time of science - the time which, in order to be apprehended, must be understood as harbouring the capacity to engender not only physical things, but also correlations between given things and the giving of those things. Is this not precisely what science thinks? A time that is not only anterior to givenness, but essentially indifferent to the latter because givenness could just as well never have emerged if life had not arisen? Science reveals a time that not only does not need conscious time but that allows the latter to arise at a determinate point in its own flux. To think science is to think the status of a becoming which cannot be correlational because the correlate is in it, rather than it being in the correlate. So the challenge is therefore the following: to understand how science can think a world wherein spatio-temporal givenness itself came into being within a time and a space which preceded every variety of givenness. (pp.21-22)

（ancestralityの議論に対するcorrelationistの反論2）
'The empirical question is that of knowing how bodies that were organic prior to becoming conscious appeared in an environment which is itself physical. The transcendental question consists in determining how the science of this physical emergence of life and consciousness is possible. Now, these two levels of thought - the empirical and the transcendental - are like the two faces of a flat sheet of paper: they are absolutely inseparable but they never intersect. But your mistake consists precisely in allowing them to intersect - you have turned a structure which should have remained flat into a Mobius strip. You proceed as though the transcendental subject - which is ultimately the subject of science - was of the same nature as the physical organ which supports it - you collapse the distinction between the conscious organ which arose within nature and the subject of science which constructs the knowledge of nature. But the difference between these two is that the conscious organ exists; it is an entity in the same sense as any other physical organ; whereas the transcendental subject simply cannot be said to exist; which is to say that the subject is not an entity, but rather a set of conditions rendering objective scientific knowledge of entities possible. But a condition for objective cognition cannot be treated as an object, and since only objects can be said to exist, it is necessary to insist that a condition does not exist - precisely because it conditions. ... [T]hese conditions cannot be said to be born or to die - not because they are eternal, in the manner of a divine substance (which would be to think of them as an object once again, albeit a supersensible one), but simply because they cannot be situated at the same level of reflection [as objects] - to do so would engender a paradox which, like that of the liar, results from a confusion between discourse and its object. ... Every attempt to subordinate them [the transcendental conditions of cognition] to the science whose exercise they allow is inherently doomed to elide the very meaning of the transcendental.' (pp.22-23)
（相対主義がメタレベルのディスコースであることとパラレル。相対主義のこのような性質を浮き彫りにするのは相対化の運動ではなく独在化の運動。一旦独在化された相対主義を再び世界を眺める一視点に引き戻すのが相対化の運動に対応する）

上に対する反論
[N]othing prevents us from reflecting in turn on the conditions under which there is a transcendental subject. And among these conditions we find that there can only be a transcendental subject on condition that such a subject takes place. What do we mean by 'taking place'? We mean that the transcendental, insofar as it refuses all metaphysical dogmatism, remains indissociable from the notion of a point of view. (p.24)

The subject is transcendental only insofar as it is positioned in the world, of which it can only ever discover a finite aspect, and which it can never recollect in its totality. But if the transcendental subject is localized among the finite objects of its world in this way, this means that it remains indissociable from its incarnation in a body; in other words, it is indissociable from a determinate object in the world. Granted, the transcendental is the condition for knowledge of bodies, but it is necessary to add that the body is also the condition for the taking place of the transcendental. (p.25)

Our question was the following: what are the conditions under which an ancestral statement remains meaningful? But as we have seen, this question harbours another one, which is more originary, and which delivers its veritable import, to wit: how are we to conceive of the empirical sciences' capacity to yield knowledge of the ancestral realm? For what is at stake here, under the cover of ancestrality, is the nature of scientific discourse, and more particularly of what characterizes this discourse, i.e. its mathematical form. (p.26)

Ultimately then, we must understand that what distinguishes the philosopher from the non-philosopher in this matter is that only the former is capable of being astonished (in the strong sense) by the straightforwardly literal meaning of the ancestral statement. The virtue of transcendentalism does not lie in rendering realism illusory, but in rendering it astonishing, i.e. apparently unthinkable, yet true, and hence eminently problematic. (p.27)

雑感：
メイヤスーの、ancestralityの議論によるcorrelationismへの批判には、二つの再批判が想定されうるように思う。

まず一つ目は、汎心論の可能性。 メイヤスーは、世界を眺める視点は身体を必要とし、身体は歴史上のある時点で出現したという前提で論を進めているが、もし汎心論が正しければ、世界と主体とのcorrelationを絶対化するspeculative idealismの道を取らずに、ancestralityの議論に反駁できるように思う（あるいは、メイヤスーはライプニッツのモナドなどもspeculative idealismの陣営に括っているので、汎心論もここに入れて考えて入れているのかもしれない。しかし、汎心論が必ずしも世界と観察主体とのcorrelationを絶対化どころか想定しているとすら言えないだろう）。

二点目は、世界を眺める視点の内在性が、知識の可謬性をもたらすということを、メイヤスーは考慮していない点。ancestralityの議論を認めた上で、なお視点の内在性による知識の可謬性を主張することができる。つまり、absoluteをそれ自体として（「我々」の相関としてではなく）思惟することができることと、correlationismが成立することは必ずしも排他的とは言えないのではないか、両者は一種のパラドクシカルな循環構造を形成していると考えられるのではないか、ということである。

【第二章　形而上学・信仰主義・思弁】

[T]o think ancestrality requires that we take up once more the thought of the absolute; yet through ancestrality, it is the discourse of empirical science as such that we are attempting to understand and to legitimate. Consequently, it becomes necessary to insist that, far from encouraging us to renounce the kind of philosophy that claims to be able to discover absolute truth solely through its own resources, and far from commanding us - as the various forms of positivism would wish - to renounce the quest for the absolute, it is science itself that enjoins us to discover the source of its own absoluteness. For if I cannot think anything that is absolute, I cannot make sense of ancestrality, and consequently I cannot make sense of the science that allows me to know ancestrality. (p.28)

But we also begin to understand how this proof [Descartes' ontological proof of the existence of God] is intrinsically tied to the culmination of a principle first formulated by Leibniz, although already at work in Descartes, viz., the principle of sufficient reason, according to which for every thing, every fact, and every occurrence, there must be a reason why it is thus and so rather than otherwise. For not only does such a principle require that there be a possible explanation for every worldly fact; it also requires that thought account for the unconditioned totality of beings, as well as for their being thus and so. Consequently, although thought may well be able to account for the facts of the world by invoking this or that global law - nevertheless, it must also, according to the principle of reason, account for why these laws are thus and not otherwise, and therefore account for why the world is thus and not otherwise. And even were such a 'reason for the world' to be furnished, it would yet be necessary to account for this reason, and so on ad infinitum. If thought is to avoid an infinite regress while submitting to the principle of reason, it is incumbent upon it to uncover a reason that would prove capable of accounting for everything, including itself - a reason not conditioned by any other reason, and which only the ontological argument is capable of uncovering, since the latter secures the existence of an X through the determination of this X alone, rather than through the determination of some entity other than X - X must be because it is perfect, and hence causa sui, or sole cause of itself.
If every variant of dogmatic metaphysics is characterized by the thesis that at least one entity is absolutely necessary (the thesis of real necessity), it becomes clear how metaphysics culminates in the thesis according to which every entity is absolutely necessary (the principle of sufficient reason). Conversely, to reject dogmatic metaphysics means to reject all real necessity, and a fortiori to reject the principle of sufficient reason, as well as the ontological argument, which is the keystone that allows the system of real necessity to close in upon itself. Such a refusal enjoins us to maintain that there is no legitimate demonstration that a determinate entity should exist unconditionally. (p.33)

We thereby grasp that what is at stake in a critique of the deabsolutizing implication (viz., that if metaphysics is obsolete, so is every form of absolute) goes beyond that of the legitimation of ancestral statements. What is urgently required, in effect, is that we re-think what could be called 'the prejudices of critical-sense'; viz., critical potency is not necessarily on the side of those who would undermine the validity of absolute truths, but rather on the side of those would succeed in criticizing both ideological dogmatism and sceptical fanaticism. Against dogmatism, it is important that we uphold the refusal of every metaphysical absolute, but against the reasoned violence of various fanaticisms, it is important that we re-discover in thought a modicum of absoluteness - enough of it, in any case, to counter the pretensions of those who would present themselves as its privileged trustees, solely by virtue of some revelation. (p.49)

"dogmatic metaphysics"に対するメイヤスーの批判は成功しているようには思えない。充足理由律は必ずしも絶対者の存在論的証明を必要とせず、したがって存在論的証明が論駁されたからといって充足理由律が論駁されたことにはならないのではないか。例えば、絶対者をある概念として明示化せず、単に「何か」があると言えばいいのである。そもそも、充足理由律を何らかの哲学の「原理」と考える必要すらない。何かの「理由」を問うことは、概念を分節化して初めて可能になるのだから、それは人間の営為と密接に関わっている。とすれば、充足理由律は、現象それ自体に関わる何らかの哲学的な原理ではなく、人間の科学的探究を導くための方法論上の指針と考えた方がよさそうだ。メイヤスーは、人間による概念の分節化に関して少々無頓着であるように思う。だから経験的内容を排除したかのように見える純論理的分析は、知らず知らずのうちに経験的な概念を忍び込ませているのだ。

【第三章　事実性の原理】

It [the correlationist cogito] is not strictly speaking a solipsistic cogito, but rather a 'cogitamus', since it founds science's objective truth upon an intersubjective consensus among consciousnesses. Yet the correlationist cogito also institutes a certain kind of solipsism, which could be called a 'species solipsism', or a 'solipsism of the community', since it ratifies the impossibility of thinking any reality that would be anterior or posterior to the community of thinking beings. This community only has dealings with itself, and with the world with which it is contemporaneous. (p.50)

the distinction between the in-itself and the for-us - is only conceivable insofar as it already presupposes an implicit admission of the absoluteness of contingency. (p.53)

The very idea of the difference between the in-itself and the for-us would never have arisen within you, had you not experienced what is perhaps human thought's most remarkable power - its capacity to access the possibility of its own non-being, and thus to know itself to be mortal. What you experience in your thought draws its redoubtable power from the profound truth which is implicated within it - you have "touched upon" nothing less than an absolute, the only veritable one, and with its help you have destroyed all the false absolutes of metaphysics, those of idealism as well as those of realism. ... In other words, one cannot think unreason - which is the equal and indifferent possibility of every eventuality - as merely relative to thought, since only by thinking it as an absolute can one de-absolutize every dogmatic thesis. (p.59)

[I]t then becomes apparent that one of the defining characteristics of such an entity [a contradictory entity] would be to continue to be even were it not to be. Consequently, if this entity existed, it would be impossible for it simply to cease to exist - unperturbed, it would incorporate the fact of not existing into its being. Thus, as an instance of a really contradictory being, this entity would be perfectly eternal.　(p.69)

ここでも疑問が一つ。メイヤスーはstrong correlationismを論駁するためにfacticityを絶対化するが、物自体は認識不可能だが思惟可能だとするweak correlationismを論駁していない。strong correlationismさえ論駁すればweak correlationsimは考える必要はないと考えたのだろうか。しかし、strong correlationismはweak correlationsimに対する論駁を含んでいるわけではないのではないか。

【第四章　ヒュームの問題】

In any case, it is astonishing to note how in this matter [causation] , philosophers, who are generally the partisans of thought rather than of the senses, have opted overwhelmingly to trust their habitual perceptions, rather than the luminous clarity of intellection. (p.91)

[B]y what right then do we conclude from this difference between the a priori and the experiential that it is the a priori that is deceptive, and not experience that is illusory? What is it that allows us claim that the constancy of experience opens onto a genuine necessity, whereas the a priori does not open onto a veritable contingency? (p.96)

Since we cannot decide a priori (i.e. through the use of logical-mathematical procedures alone) whether or not a totality of the possible exists, then we should restrict the claims of aleatory reasoning solely to objects of experience, rather than extending it - as Kant implicitly does in his objective deduction - to the very laws that govern our universe, as if we knew that the latter necessarily belongs to some greater Whole. Since both theses (viz., that the possible is numerically totalizable, and that it is not) are a priori conceivable, only experience can provide us with an assurance as to the validity of aleatory reasoning, by acting as guarantor for the actual existence of the totality which is required in order for that reasoning to work - whether in the form of a direct experience of a supposedly homogeneous object (e.g. the dice or the rope), or in the form of a statistical analysis (determination of average values and of appropriate frequencies for an identifiable phenomenon). Accordingly, the only totalities available to us that are capable of legitimating this type of aleatory reasoning must be given to us within our universe - which is to say, experientially. Kant's belief in the necessity of laws is thereby revoked as an instance of aleatory reason's unwarranted pretension to reach beyond the limits of experience.

宇宙内部の事象に関する場合と、宇宙自身の発展に関する場合とで、本当に本質的な違いはあるのだろうか。ここはもう少し考える必要がある。

【第五章　プトレマイオスの復讐】

[T]he very fact that an observer can influence the law is itself a property of the law which is not supposed to depend upon the existence of an observer. (p.114)

It is this capacity whereby mathematized science is able to deploy a world that is separable from man - a capacity that. Descartes theorized in all its power - that rendered possible the essential alliance between the Galilean and Copernican revolutions. In speaking of 'the Copernican revolution', what we have in mind is not so much the astronomical discovery of the decentring of the terrestrial observer within the solar system, but rather the much more fundamental decentring which presided over the mathematization of nature, viz., the decentring of thought relative to the world within the process of knowledge. (p.115)

The sense of desolation and abandonment which modern science instils in humanity's conception of itself and of the cosmos has no more fundamental cause than this: it consists in the thought of thought's contingency for the world, and the recognition that thought has become able to think a world that can dispense with thought, a world that is essentially unaffected by whether or not anyone thinks it. (p.116)

[O]nce one has conceded that it makes no sense to claim that what is can be thought independently of the forms through which it is given to a thinking being, then it is no longer possible to accord to science that what it says is indeed the last word about what it says. (p.122)

総評：
メイヤスーが取り組もうとしている問題は、私と同じ問題である。しかし、メイヤスーは私には合理主義成分が強すぎる。私は、論理や数学の知識も含めて、我々の知識の源泉は全て経験（個体発生だけでなく系統発生に亘る）だと考えているので、経験を軽んじる傾向の強いメイヤスーには同意できない部分は多い。メイヤスーとは違った方法、観測の形式に対する内容の先行性（優位）を論証するような方法で、彼のancestralityの問題を考えてみたい。結論に同意できるか否かに関わらず、本書は全力で考えさせてくれる哲学書である。

【メモ】 F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty

ページ番号はDefinitive Edition (2011)のもの。

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【序論】

We must show that liberty is not merely one particular value but that it is the source and condition of most moral values. (p.52)

【第二章　自由文明の創造力】

We know little of the particular facts to which the whole of social activity continuously adjusts itself in order to provide what we have learned to expect. We know even less of the forces which bring about this adjustment by appropriately co-ordinating individual activity. And our attitude, when we discover how little we know of what makes us- co-operate, is, on the whole, one of resentment rather than of wonder or curiosity. Much of our occasional impetuous desire to smash the whole entangling machinery of civilization is due to this inability of man to understand what he is doing. (p.76)

The successful combination of knowledge and aptitude is not selected by common deliberation, by people seeking a solution to their problems through a joint effort; it is the product of individuals imitating those who have been more successful and from their being guided by signs or symbols, such as prices offered for their products or expressions of moral or aesthetic esteem for their having observed standards of conduct - in short, of their using the results of the experiences of others. (pp.79-80)

We have now reached the point at which the main contention of this chapter will be readily intelligible. It is that the case for individual freedom rests chiefly on the recognition of the inevitable ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievement of our ends and welfare depends. If there were omniscient men, if we could know not only all that affects the attainment of our present wishes but also our future wants and desires, there would be little case for liberty. And, in turn, liberty of the individual would, of course, make complete foresight impossible. Liberty is essential in order to leave room for the unforeseeable and unpredictable; we want it because we have learned to expect from it the opportunity of realizing many of our aims. It is because every individual knows so little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it. (p.80)

All we can do is to increase the chance that some special constellation of individual endowment and circumstance will result in the shaping of some new tool or the improvement of an old one, and to improve the prospect that such innovations will become rapidly known to those who can take advantage of them. (p.81)

Certainty we cannot achieve in human affairs, and it is for this reason that, to make the best use of what knowledge we have, we must adhere to rules which experience has shown to serve best on the whole, though we do not know what will be the consequences of obeying them in the particular instance. (p.82)

It is not because we like to be able to do particular things, not because we regard any particular freedom as essential to our happiness, that we have a claim to freedom. The instinct that makes us revolt against any physical restraint, though a helpful ally, is not always a safe guide for justifying or delimiting freedom. What is important is not what freedom I personally would like to exercise but what freedom some person may need in order to do things beneficial to society. This freedom we can assure to the unknown person only by giving it to all. (p.84)

Because we are more aware that our advances in the intellectual sphere often spring from the unforeseen and undesigned, we tend to overstress the importance of freedom in this field and to ignore the importance of the freedom of doing things. But the freedom of research and belief and the freedom of speech and discussion, the importance of which is widely understood, are significant only in the last stage of the process in which new truths are discovered. To extol the value of intellectual liberty at the expense of the value of the liberty of doing things would be like treating the crowning part of an edifice as the whole. (p.85)

It has become a common practice to disparage freedom of action by calling it "economic liberty." But the concept of freedom of action is much wider than that of economic liberty, which it includes; and, what is more important, it is very questionable whether there are any actions which can be called merely "economic" and whether any restrictions on liberty can be confined to what are called merely "economic" aspects. Economic considerations are merely those by which we reconcile and adjust our different purposes, none of which, in the last resort, are economic (excepting those of the miser or the man for whom making money has become an end in itself). (p.87)

All that we can know is that the ultimate decision about what is good or bad will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the decline of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs. (p.88)

【第三章　進歩のコモン・センス】

After abandoning hunting life, most of our direct ancestors, at the beginning of neolithic culture, took to agriculture and soon to urban life perhaps less than three thousand years or one hundred generations ago. It is not surprising that in some respects man's biological equipment has not kept pace with that rapid change, that the adaptation of his non-rational part has lagged somewhat, and that many of his instincts and emotions are still more adapted to the life of a hunter than to life in civilization. If many features of our civilization seem to us unnatural, artificial, or unhealthy, this must have been man's experience ever since he first took to town life, which is virtually since civilization began. All the familiar complaints against industrialism, capitalism, or overrefinement are largely protests against a new way of life that man took up a short while ago after more than half a million years' existence as a wandering hunter, and that created problems still unsolved by him. (pp.92-93)

If it were still possible to change an established usage, it would be desirable to confine the word "progress" to such deliberate advance toward a chosen goal and to speak only of the "evolution of civilization." (p.94 n4)

Even the poorest today owe their relative material well-being to the results of past inequality. (p.98)

【第四章　自由・理性・伝統】

We must always work inside a framework of both values and institutions which is not of our own making. In particular, we can never synthetically construct a new body of moral rules or make our obedience of the known rules dependent on our comprehension of the implications of this obedience in a given instance. (pp.124-125)

That we ought not to believe anything which has been shown to be false does not mean that we ought to believe only what has been demonstrated to be true. (p.125)

For in each particular instance it will be possible to promise concrete and tangible advantages as the result of a curtailment of freedom, while the benefits sacrificed will in their nature always be unknown and uncertain. If freedom were not treated as the supreme principle, the fact that the promises which a free society has to offer can always be only chances and not certainties, only opportunities and not definite gifts to particular individuals, would inevitably prove a fatal weakness and lead to its slow erosion. (p.130)

Reason undoubtedly is man's most precious possession. Our argument is intended to show merely that it is not all-powerful and that the belief that it can become its own master and control its own development may yet destroy it. What we have attempted is a defense of reason against its abuse by those who do not understand the conditions of its effective functioning and continuous growth. It is an appeal to men to see that we must use our reason intelligently and that, in order to do so, we must preserve that indispensable matrix of the uncontrolled and non-rational which is the only environment wherein reason can grow and operate effectively. (pp.130-131)

【第五章　責任と自由】

Though it [a free society] can offer to the individual only chances and though the outcome of his efforts will depend on innumerable accidents, it forcefully directs his attention to those circumstances that he can control as if they were the only ones that mattered. Since the individual is to be given the opportunity to make use of circumstances that may be known only to him and since, as a rule, nobody else can know whether he has made the best use of them or not, the presumption is that the outcome of his actions is determined by them, unless the contrary is quite obvious. (p.133)

We still call a man's decision "free," though by the conditions we have created he is led to do what we want him to do, because these conditions do not uniquely determine his actions but merely make it more likely that anyone in his position will do what we approve. We try to "influence" but do not determine what he will do. What we often mean in this connection, as in many others, when we call his action "free," is simply that we do not know what has determined it, and not that it has not been determined by something. (p.138 n8)

Of the effect in the particular instance we may never be sure, but we believe that, in general, the knowledge that he [a man] will be held responsible will influence a person's conduct in a desirable direction. In this sense the assigning of responsibility does not involve the assertion of a fact. It is rather of the nature of a convention intended to make people observe certain rules. (p.138)

Though we leave people to decide for .themselves because they are, as a rule, in the best position to know the circumstances surrounding their action, we are also concerned that conditions should permit them to use their knowledge to the best effect. If we allow men freedom because we presume them to be reasonable beings, we also must make it worth their while to act as reasonable beings by letting them bear the consequences of their decisions. (p.139)

The assigning of responsibility thus presupposes the capacity on men's part for rational action, and it aims at making them act more rationally than they would otherwise. It presupposes a certain minimum capacity in them for learning and foresight, for being guided by a knowledge of the consequences of their action. It is no objection to argue that reason in fact plays only a small part in determining human action, since the aim is to make that little go as far as possible. Rationality, in this connection, can mean no more than some degree of coherence and consistency in a person's action, some lasting influence of knowledge or insight which, once acquired, will affect his action at a later date and in different circumstances. (p.139)

The assigning of responsibility is based, not on what we know to be true in the particular case, but on what we believe will be the probable effects of encouraging people to behave rationally and considerately. It is a device that society has developed to cope with our inability to look into other people's minds and, without resorting to coercion, to introduce order into our lives. (p.140)

As everybody's property in effect is nobody's property, so everybody's responsibility is nobody's responsibility. (p.146)

Much as we may regret the disappearance of those close communities of interest and their replacement by a wide-flung net of limited, impersonal, and temporary ties, we cannot expect the sense of responsibility for the known and familiar to be replaced by a similar feeling about the remote and the theoretically known. While we can feel genuine concern for the fate of our familiar neighbors and usually will know how to help when help is needed, we cannot feel in the same way about the thousands or millions of unfortunates whom we know to exist in the world but whose individual circumstances we do not know. However moved we may be by accounts of their misery, we cannot make the abstract knowledge of the numbers of suffering people guide our everyday action. If what we do is to be useful and effective, our objectives must be limited, adapted to the capacities of our mind and our compassions. To be constantly reminded of our "social" responsibilities to all the needy or unfortunate in our community, in our country, or in the world, must have the effect of attenuating our feelings until the distinctions between those responsibilities which call for our action and those which do not disappear. In order to be effective, then, responsibility must be so confined as to enable the individual to rely on his own concrete knowledge in deciding on the importance of the different tasks, to apply his moral principles to circumstances he knows, and to help to mitigate evils voluntarily. (p.147)

【第六章　平等・価値・メリット】

Wherever there is a legitimate need for government action and we have to choose between different methods of satisfying such a need, those that incidentally also reduce inequality may well be preferable. If, for example, in the law of intestate succession one kind of provision will be more conducive to equality than another, this may be a strong argument in its favor. It is a different matter, however, if it is demanded that, in order to produce substantive equality, we should abandon the basic postulate of a free society, namely, the limitation of all coercion by equal law. Against this we shall hold that economic inequality is not one of the evils which justify our resorting to discriminatory coercion or privilege as a remedy. (p.151)

When we inquire into the justification of these demands, we find that they rest on the discontent that the success of some people often produces in those that are less successful, or, to put it bluntly, on envy. The modern tendency to gratify this passion and to disguise it in the respectable garment of social justice is developing into a serious threat to freedom. Recently an attempt was made to base these demands on the argument that it ought to be the aim of politics to remove all sources of discontent. This would, of course, necessarily mean that it is the responsibility of government to see that nobody is healthier or possesses a happier temperament, a better-suited spouse or more prospering children, than anybody else. If really all unfulfilled desires have a claim on the community, individual responsibility is at an end. However human, envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as "the most anti-social and evil of all passions." (pp.155-156)

If the remuneration did not correspond to the value that the product of a man's efforts has for his fellows, he would have no basis for deciding whether the pursuit of a given object is worth the effort and risk. He would necessarily have to be told what to do, and some other person's estimate of what was the best use of his capacities would have to determine both his duties and his remuneration. (pp.159-160)

The prizes that a free society offers for the result serve to tell those who strive for them how much effort they are worth. However, the same prizes will go to all those who produce the same result, regardless of effort. (p.160)

【第七章　多数決】

Liberalism is a doctrine about what the law ought to be, democracy a doctrine about the manner of determining what will be the law. Liberalism regards it as desirable that only what the majority accepts should in fact be law, but it does not believe that this is therefore necessarily good law. Its aim, indeed, is to persuade the majority to observe certain principles. It accepts majority rule as a method of deciding, but not as an authority for what the decision ought to be. To the doctrinaire democrat the fact that the majority wants something is sufficient ground for regarding it as good; for him the will of the majority determines not only what is law but what is good law. (p.167)

There are three chief arguments by which democracy can be justified, each of which may be regarded as conclusive. The first is that, whenever it is necessary that one of several conflicting opinions should prevail and when one would have to be made to prevail by force if need be, it is less wasteful to determine which has the stronger support by counting numbers than by fighting. Democracy is the only method of peaceful change that man has yet discovered. The second argument, which historically has been the most important and which is still very important, though we can no longer be sure that it is always valid, is that democracy is an important safeguard of individual liberty. ... The third argument rests on the effect which the existence of democratic institutions will have on the general level of understanding of public affairs. This seems to me the most powerful. (pp.172-174)

There is some truth in the view that democracy is government by discussion, but this refers only to the last stage of the process by which the merits of alternative views and desires are tested. Though discussion is essential, it is not the main process by which people learn. Their views and desires are formed by individuals acting according to their own designs; and they profit from what others have learned in their individual experience. Unless some people know more than the rest and are in a better position to convince the rest, there would be little progress in opinion. It is because we normally do not know who knows best that we leave the decision to a process which we do not control. But it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better. (p.176)

They [the resolutions of a majority] are bound, if anything, to be inferior to the decisions that the most intelligent members of the group will make after listening to all opinions: they will be the result of less careful thought and will generally represent a compromise that will not fully satisfy anybody. This will be even more true of the cumulative result emanating from the successive decisions of shifting majorities variously composed: the result will be the expression not of a coherent conception but of different and often conflicting motives and aims. (p.176)

Moreover, majority decisions are peculiarly liable, if not guided by accepted common principles, to produce over-all results that nobody wanted. It often happens that a majority is forced by its own decisions to further actions that were neither contemplated nor desired. (p.177)

"The lesson given to mankind by every age, and always disregarded - that speculative philosophy, which to the superficial appears a thing so remote from the business of life and the outward interest of men, is in reality the thing on earth which most influences them, and in the long run overbears any influences save those it must itself obey." (John Stuart Mill, "Bentham" in Collected Works, vol. 10, p.77)

If politics is the art of the possible, political philosophy is the art of making politically possible the seemingly impossible. (pp.180-181)

Only a complete misapprehension of the process by which opinion progresses would lead one to argue that in the sphere of opinion he ought to submit to majority views. To treat existing majority opinion as the standard for what majority opinion ought to be would make the whole process circular and stationary. There is, in fact, never so much reason for the political philosopher to suspect himself of failing in his task as when he finds that his opinions are very popular. (p.181)

"Students of social science must fear popular approval: evil is with them when all men speak well of them. If there is any set of opinions by the advocacy of which a newspaper can increase its sale, then the student, who wishes to leave the world in general and his country in particular better than it would be if he had not been born, is bound to dwell on the limitations and defects and errors, if any, in that set of opinions: and never to advocate them unconditionally even in an ad hoc discussion. It is almost impossible for a student to be a true patriot and to have the reputation of being one in his own time." (Alfred Marshall, "In Memoriam: Alfred Marshall" in Memorials of Alfred Marshall p.89)

The old liberal is in fact a much better friend of democracy than the dogmatic democrat, for he is concerned with preserving the conditions that make democracy workable. It is not "antidemocratic" to try to persuade the majority that there are limits beyond which its action ceases to be beneficial and that it should observe principles which are not of its own deliberate making. If it is to survive, democracy must recognize that it is not the fountainhead of justice and that it needs to acknowledge a conception of justice which does not necessarily manifest itself in the popular view on every particular issue. The danger is that we mistake a means of securing justice for justice itself. (p.183)

【第八章　雇用と独立】

The selection through inheritance from parents (...) has at least the advantage (even if we do not take into account the probability of inherited ability) that those who are given the special opportunity will usually have been educated for it and will have grown up in an environment in which the material benefits of wealth have become familiar and, because they are taken for granted, have ceased to be the main source of satisfaction. The grosser pleasures in which the newly rich often indulge have usually no attraction for those who have inherited wealth. If there is any validity in the contention that the process of social ascent should sometimes extend through several generations, and if we admit that some people should not have to devote most of their energies to earning a living but should have the time and means to devote themselves to whatever purpose they choose, then we cannot deny that inheritance is probably the best means of selection known to us. (p.192)

It is only natural that the development of the art of living and of the non-materialistic values should have profited most from the activities of those who had no material worries. (p.196)

【第九章　強制と国家】

Coercion thus is bad because it prevents a person from using his mental powers to the full and consequently from making the greatest contribution that he is capable of to the community. Though the coerced will still do the best he can do for himself at any given moment, the only comprehensive design that his actions fit into is that of another mind. (pp.200-201)

Even if the threat of starvation to me and perhaps to my family impels me to accept a distasteful job at a very low wage, even if I am "at the mercy" of the only man willing to employ me, I am not coerced by him or anybody else. So long as the act that has placed me in my predicament is not aimed at making me do or not do specific things, so long as the intent of the act that harms me is not to make me serve another person's ends, its effect on my freedom is not different from that of any natural calamity - a fire or a flood that destroys my house or an accident that harms my health. (p.204)

Provided that I know beforehand that if I place myself in a particular position, I shall be coerced and provided that I can avoid putting myself in such a position, I need never be coerced. At least insofar as the rules providing for coercion are not aimed at me personally but are so framed as to apply equally to all people in similar circumstances, they are no different from any of the natural obstacles that affect my plans. In that they tell me what will happen if I do this or that, the laws of the state have the same significance for me as the laws of nature; and I can use my knowledge of the laws of the state to achieve my own aims as I use my knowledge of the laws of nature. (p.210)

In particular, the pleasure or pain that may be caused by the knowledge of other people's actions should never be regarded as a legitimate cause for coercion. The enforcement of religious conformity, for instance, was a legitimate object of government when people believed in the collective responsibility of the community toward some deity and it was thought that the sins of any member would be visited upon all. But where private practices cannot affect anybody but the voluntary adult actors, the mere dislike of what is being done by others, or even the knowledge that others harm themselves by what they do, provides no legitimate ground for coercion. (p.212)

Generally speaking, this means that the morality of action within the private sphere is not a proper object for coercive control by the state. Perhaps one of the most important characteristics that distinguish a free from an unfree society is indeed that, in matters of conduct that do not directly affect the protected sphere of others, the rules which are in fact observed by most are of a voluntary character and not enforced by coercion. Recent experience with totalitarian regimes has emphasized the importance of the principle "never [to] identi fy the cause of moral values with that of the State." It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil. (p.213)

【第十章　法・命令・秩序】

"The law serves morality, not in that it fulfills her commands, but rather in that it secures the free development of the moral power as it resides in each individual will. The existence of law, however, is independent of that of morality inasmuch as it is not a contradiction when, in any specific case, the immoral implementations of an existing law is claimed." (Friedrich Carl von Savigny, System des heutigen römischen Rechts, vol.1, pp.331-332)

Though he [the African Bantu who is required to follow the rigorously prescribed lines when he moves between the fourteen huts of his village, depending on his age, sex, and status] is not obeying another man's will but impersonal custom, having to observe a ritual to reach a certain point restricts his choice of method more than is necessary to secure equal freedom to others. (pp.219-220)

The "compulsion of custom" becomes an obstacle only when the customary way of doing things is no longer the only way that the individual knows and when he can think of other ways of achieving a desirable object. It was largely with the growth of individual intelligence and the tendency to break away from the habitual manner of action that it became necessary to state explicitly or reformulate the rules and gradually to reduce the positive prescriptions to the essentially negative confinement to a range of actions that will not interfere with the similarly recognized spheres of others. (p.220)

In most instances, therefore, nobody knows or has ever known all the reasons and considerations that have led to a rule being given a particular form. We must thus often endeavor to discover the functions that a rule actually serves. If we do not know the rationale of a particular rule, as is often the case, we must try to understand what its general function or purpose is to be if we are to improve upon it by deliberate legislation. (pp.225-226)

It is true enough that the justification of any particular rule of law must be its usefulness - even though this usefulness may not be demonstrable by rational argument but known only because the rule has in practice proved itself more convenient than any other. But, generally speaking, only the rule as a whole must be so justified, not its every application. The idea that each conflict, in law or in morals, should be so decided as would seem most expedient to somebody who could comprehend all the consequences of that decision involves the denial of the necessity of any rules. (p.228)

【第十二章　アメリカの貢献 : 立憲制】

Because of the restricted capacity of our minds, our immediate purposes will always loom large, and we will tend to sacrifice long-term advantages to them. In individual as in social conduct we can therefore approach a measure of rationality or consistency in making particular decisions only by submitting to general principles, irrespective of momentary needs. Legislation can no more dispense with guidance by principles than any other human activity if it is to take account of effects in the aggregate. (pp.266-267)

Like the forces governing the individual mind, the forces making for social order are a multilevel affair; and even constitutions are based on, or presuppose, an underlying agreement on more fundamental principles - principles which may never have been explicitly expressed, yet which make possible and precede the consent and the written fundamental laws. We must not believe that, because we have learned to make laws deliberately, all laws must be deliberately made by some human agency. Rather, a group of men can form a society capable of making laws because
they already share common beliefs which make discussion and persuasion possible and to which the articulated rules must conform in order to be accepted as legitimate. (pp.268-269)

It is inevitable that, by accepting general principles, they [the people] will tie their hands as far as particular issues are concerned. For only by refraining from measures which they would not wish to be used on themselves can the members of a majority forestall the adoption of such measures when they are in a minority. A commitment to long-term principles, in fact, gives the people more control over the general nature of the political order than they would possess if its character were to be determined solely by successive decisions of particular issues. (p.269)

【第十三章　自由と行政府 : 法治国家】

The extent to which under an established system of case law the judge actually creates law may not be greater than under a system of codified law. But the explicit recognition that jurisdiction as well as legislation is the source of law, though in accord with the evolutionary theory underlying the British tradition, tends to obscure the distinction between the creation and the application of law. And it is a question whether the much praised flexibility of the common law, which has been favorable to the evolution of the rule of law so long as that was the accepted political ideal, may not also mean less resistance to the tendencies undermining it, once that vigilance which is needed to keep liberty alive disappears. (p.298)

【第十四章　個人的自由の保護】 

The rule of law is therefore not a rule of the law, but a rule concerning what the law ought to be, a meta-legal doctrine or a political ideal. It will be effective only in so far as the legislator feels bound by it. In a democracy this means that it will not prevail unless it forms part of the moral tradition of the community, a common ideal shared and unquestioningly accepted by the majority. (p.311)

【第十五章　経済政策と法の支配】

We shall see that the observation of the rule of law is a necessary, but not yet a sufficient, condition for the satisfactory working of a free economy. But the important point is that all coercive action of government must be unambiguously determined by a permanent legal framework which enables the individual to plan with a degree of confidence and which reduces human uncertainty as much as possible. (pp.331-332)

A free system can adapt itself to almost any set of data, almost any general prohibition or regulation, so long as the adjusting mechanism itself is kept functioning. And it is mainly changes in prices that bring about the necessary adjustments. This means that, for it to function properly, it is not sufficient that the rules of law under which it operates be general rules, but their content must be such that the market will work tolerably well. The case for a free system is not that any system will work satisfactorily where coercion is confined by general rules, but that under it such rules can be given a form that will enable it to work. If there is to be an efficient adjustment of the different activities in the market, certain minimum requirements must be met; the more important of these are, as we have seen, the prevention of violence and fraud, the protection of property and the enforcement of contracts, and the recognition of equal rights of all individuals to produce in whatever quantities and sell at whatever prices they choose. Even when these basic conditions have been satisfied, the efficiency of the system will still depend on the particular content of the rules. But if they are not satisfied, government will have to achieve by direct orders what individual decisions guided by price movements will. (pp.337-338) 

How well the market will function depends on the character of the particular rules. The decision to rely on voluntary contracts as the main instrument for organizing the relations between individuals does not determine what the specific content of the law of contract ought to be; and the recognition of the right of private property does not determine what exactly should be the content of this right in order that the market mechanism will work as effectively and beneficially as possible. Though the principle of private property raises comparatively few problems so far as movable things are concerned, it does raise exceedingly difficult ones where property in land is concerned. The effect which the use of any one piece of land often has on neighboring land clearly makes it undesirable to give the owner unlimited power to use or abuse his property as he likes. (p.338)

【第十七章　社会主義の衰退と福祉国家の台頭】

It is often those who are most anxious to use our existing knowledge and powers to the full that do most to impair the future growth of knowledge by the methods they use. The controlled single-channel development toward which impatience and administrative convenience have frequently inclined the reformer and which, especially in the field of social insurance, has become characteristic of the modern welfare state may well become the chief obstacle to future improvement. (p.377)


Satisfactory solutions to these problems [problems which arise from international relations] will probably not be found as long as we have to accept as the ultimate units of international order the historically given entities known as sovereign nations. (p.379)

[U]ntil the protection of individual freedom is much more firmly secured than it is now, the creation of a world state probably would be a greater danger to the future of civilization than even war. (p.380)

I have become increasingly skeptical, however, about the beneficial character of any discretionary action of government against particular monopolies, and I am seriously alarmed at the arbitrary nature of all policy aimed at limiting the size of individual enterprises. And when policy creates a state of affairs in which, as is true of some enterprises in the United States, large firms are afraid to compete by lowering prices because this may expose them to antitrust action, it becomes an absurdity. (p.382)

It has been the experience of all countries that discretionary powers in the treatment of monopoly are soon used to distinguish between "good" and "bad" monopolies and that authority soon becomes more concerned with protecting the supposedly good than with preventing the bad. I doubt whether there arc any "good" monopolies that deserve protection. But there will always be inevitable monopolies whose transitory and temporary character is often turned into a permanent one by the solicitude of government. (p.383)

【第十八章　労働組合と雇用】

[W]orkers can raise real wages above the level that would prevail on a free market only by limiting the supply, that is, by withholding part of labor. The interest of those who will get employment at the higher wage will therefore always be opposed to the interest of those who, in consequence, will find employment only in the less highly paid jobs or who will not be employed at all. (p.389)

As a general rule, wage fixing (whether by unions or by authority) will make wages higher than they would otherwise be only if they are also higher than the wage at which all willing workers can be employed. (p.389)

[S]trictly voluntary unions, because their wage policy would not be in the interest of all workers, could not long receive the support of all. Unions that had no power to coerce outsiders would thus not be strong enough to force up wages above the level at which all seeking work could be employed, that is, the level that would establish itself in a truly free market for labor in general. (p.389)

It is important to note that such policies [of violence that some unions find expedient to use] can be employed successfully only in relatively prosperous and highly paid occupations and that they will therefore result in the exploitation of the relatively poor by the better-off. Even though within the scope of any one union its actions may tend to reduce differences in remuneration, there can be little doubt that, so far as relative wages in major industries and trades are concerned, unions today are largely responsible for an inequality which has no function and is entirely the result of privilege. (p.390)

It is, in fact, more than likely that, in countries where unions are very strong, the general level of real wages is lower than it would otherwise be ... If many still accept as an obvious and undeniable fact that the general wage level has risen as fast as it has done because of the efforts of the unions, they do so in spite of these unambiguous conclusions of theoretical analysis - and in spite of empirical evidence to the contrary. (p.390)
 
"The world we now live in is one in which the monetary system has become relatively elastic, so that it can accommodate itself to changes in wages, rather than the other way about. Instead of actual wages having to adjust themselves to an equilibrium level, monetary policy adjusts the equilibrium level of money wages so as to make it conform to the actual level. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that instead of being on a Gold Standard, we are on a Labour Standard." (John Hicks, "Economic Foundations of Wage Policy")

【第十九章　社会保障】

Though all insurance involves a pooling of risks, private competitive insurance can never effect a deliberate transfer of income from one previously designated group of people to another. (p.408)

It may seem harsh, but it is probably in the interest of all that under a free system those with full earning capacity should often be rapidly cured of a temporary and not dangerous disablement at the expense of some neglect of the aged and mortally ill. Where systems of state medicine operate, we generally find that those who could be promptly restored to full activity have to wait for long periods because all the hospital facilities are taken up by people who will never again contribute to the needs of the rest. (p.423)

【第二十章　課税と再分配】

This effect on incentive, in the usual sense of the term, though important and frequently stressed, is by no means the most harmful effect of progressive taxation. Even here the objection is not so much that people may, as a result, not work as hard as they otherwise would, as it is that the change in the net remunerations for different activities will often divert their energies to activities where they are less useful than they might be. The fact that with progressive taxation the net remuneration for any service will vary with the time rate at which the earning accrues thus becomes a source not only of injustice but also of a misdirection of resources. (p.444)

The most serious consequence, however, of the discouragement of individual capital formation where there are temporary opportunities for large profits is the restriction of competition. The system [progressive taxation] tends generally to favor corporate as against individual saving and particularly to strengthen the position of the established corporations against newcomers. It thus assists to create quasi-monopolistic situations. Because taxes today absorb the greater part of the newcomer's "excessive" profits, he cannot, as has been well said, "accumulate capital; he cannot expand his own business; he will never become big business and a match for the vested interests. The old firms do not need to fear his competition: they are sheltered by the tax collector. They may with impunity indulge in routine, they may defy the wishes of the public and become conservative. It is true, the income tax prevents them, too, from accumulating new capital. But what is more important for them is that it prevents the dangerous newcomer from accumulating any capital. They are virtually privileged by the tax system. In this sense progressive taxation checks economic progress and makes for rigidity." (p.447)

In the last resort, the problem of progressive taxation is, of course, an ethical problem, and in a democracy the real problem is whether the support that the principle now receives would continue if the people fully understood how it operates. It is probable that the practice is based on ideas which most people would not approve if they were stated abstractly. (p.449)

【第二十三章　農業と天然資源】

However strong a case there may exist in such countries [underdeveloped countries] for the government's taking the initiative in providing examples and spending freely on spreading knowledge and education, it seems to me that the case against over-all planning and direction of all economic activity is even stronger there than in more advanced countries. I say this on both economic and cultural grounds. Only free growth is likely to enable such countries to develop a viable civilization of their own, capable of making a distinct contribution to the needs of mankind. (p.491)

【第二十四章　教育と研究】

Though the specialized research institution may be the most efficient for all tasks that are of an "applied" character, such institutional research is always in some measure directed research, the aim of which is determined by the specialized equipment, the particular team assembled, and the concrete purpose to which the institution is dedicated. But in "fundamental" research on the outskirts of knowledge there are often no fixed subjects or fields, and the decisive advances will frequently be due to the disregard of the conventional division of disciplines. (p.511)

If in this book we have been concerned mainly with freedom in other fields [fields other than intellectual freedom], it is because we so often forget today that intellectual freedom rests on a much wider foundation of freedom and cannot exist without it. But the ultimate aim of freedom is the enlargement of those capacities in which man surpasses his ancestors and to which each generation must endeavor to add its share - its share in the growth of knowledge and the gradual advance of moral and aesthetic beliefs, where no superior must be allowed to enforce one set of views of what is righ t or good and where only further experience can decide what should prevail. (p.515)

【追論　なぜ私は保守主義者でないか】

Since it [conservatism] distrusts both abstract theories and general principles, it neither understands those spontaneous forces on which a policy of freedom relies nor possesses a basis for formulating principles of policy. ... A commitment to principles presupposes an understanding of the general forces by which the efforts of society are co-ordinated, but it is such a theory of society and especially of the economic mechanism that conservatism conspicuously lacks. (pp.522-523)

To live and work successfully with others requires more than faithfulness to one's concrete aims. It requires an intellectual commitment to a type of order in which, even on issues which to one are fundamental, others are allowed to pursue different ends. (p.524)

Personally, I find that the most objectionable feature of the conservative attitude is its propensity to reject well-substantiated new knowledge because it dislikes some of the consequences which seem to follow from it - or, to put it bluntly, its obscurantism. I will not deny that scientists as much as others are given to fads and fashions and that we have much reason to be cautious in accepting the conclusions that they draw from their latest theories. But the reasons for our reluctance must themselves be rational and must be kept separate from our regret that the new theories upset our cherished beliefs. I can have little-patience with those who oppose, for instance, the theory of evolution or what are called "mechanistic" explanations of the phenomena of life simply because of certain moral consequences which at first seem to follow from these theories, and still less with those who regard it as irreverent or impious to ask certain questions at all. By refusing to face the facts, the conservative only weakens his own position. Frequently the conclusions which rationalist presumption draws from new scientific insights do not at all follow from them. But only by actively taking part in the elaboration of the consequences of new discoveries do we learn whether or not they fit into our world picture and, if so, how. Should our moral beliefs really prove to be dependent on factual assumptions shown to be incorrect, it would be hardly moral to defend them by refusing to acknowledge facts. (p.526)

What distinguishes the liberal from the conservative here [concerning religious belief] is that, however profound his own spiritual beliefs, he will never regard himself as entitled to impose them on others and that for him the spiritual and the temporal are different spheres which ought not to be confused. (p.528)