Babcock 2014 Hayek and Rationalist Ethics

What's a libertarian? This essay explores some attempts at delineating the borders of libertarianism, especially attempts using beliefs about morality and the law.

How much should we trust our moral intuitions? Is the task of ethics to describe those intuitions, or to change them?

It's often thought that Hayek disproved the possibility of a rationalist ethics. Babcock argues he didn't.

Babcock offers advice on how to best apply Hayekian ideas to debates about social reform.

Hayek's insights are important for building a sucessful rationalist ethics.

Babcock examines a concrete case of the conflict between Hayek and rationalism: feminism.

Babcock examines how Hayekian insights can guide feminist reform efforts.