# The Evolution of Order and the Role of the Individual **URL:** **By** Ulrich Witt **Published:** January 1, 1989 --- “As a plea for intellectual modesty and for acknowledgement of the wisdom that cultural evolution has accumulated in existing morals, traditions, and institutions, Hayek’s argument is convincing.” In _The Fatal Conceit_ Hayek summarizes important parts of what might be called his legacy. Although the main message is not unfamiliar to readers of the monumental series of works Hayek has published over the past half century, the new volume presents in its first chapters a comprehensive theoretical underpinning of the central notions of cultural evolution and group selection. In the later parts, it investigates some instructive applications to present day phenomena and problems. The following remarks focus on the suggested theoretical underpinnings. that under the pressure of group selection human society has adapted to the demands of an extended order by an efficient, but also highly sophisticated and complex system of rules of conduct. In fact, Hayek holds that the rules from which law, trade, and civilization originate are too complex a system to be able to be reproduced by some single brain. Rational reconstruction and human design of social and economic interaction are far from reaching the level of complexity and efficiency of mankind’s collective trial-and-error process from which morals, traditions, and habits have grown. It seems thus only logical to warn against the overestimation of the power of human intelligence and calculating reason that is found in what Hayek calls “constructivism,” a particular variant of rationalism. He rightly states that this attitude is still characteristic of the “progressive” intellectual who may often have been inclined to assume it because of the extraordinary success of human intelligence in natural science and technology. In fact, many of my colleagues are prone to sympathize with constructivist attitudes in advocating certain political measures and institutional reforms. Some even justify their very existence as social scientists by the Man’s inherited instincts, Hayek explains, imply an innate morality that conforms to the conditions of the primitive, small group prevailing in human phylogenesis. In more recent times, rules of human conduct, morals, and traditions have gradually emerged in the extended order of higher cultures. People have learnt to follow these rules without necessarily understanding their meaning. As a result of learning, the evolution of such rules is a matter of nurture rather than of nature. Indeed, Hayek suggests a theory of cultural evolution in which “group selection” plays a key-role. > As a plea for intellectual modesty and for acknowledgement of the wisdom that cultural evolution has accumulated in existing morals, traditions, and institutions, I would therefore strongly recommend _The Fatal Conceit_ as a required reading. After it has been read I would have to admit, however, that the book is not very helpful in giving clear advice as to how to act, in particular if one subscribes to an individualistic position, in view of the ongoing cultural evolution. Groups, however they come to adopt rules that allow for superior forms of social and economic interactions (provided that they are able to maintain those rules by some kind of social learning mechanism), are capable of growing due to more successful procreation and integration of outsiders. A growing population fosters specialization and division of labor which favor, in turn, groups with superior rules. By the same token, groups not adopting appropriate rules by being inventive or simply imitative, or groups unable to suppress the propagation of inferior rules of conduct, will decline. Natural selection is seen here to operate not only on competing species but also on competing groups of the human species. Being based on cultural rather than genetic transmission, the process of group selection is comparatively fast. In view of its long history it may therefore be argued, as Hayek does, guidance in improving institutions they believe they are able to provide. As a plea for intellectual modesty and for acknowledgement of the wisdom that cultural evolution has accumulated in existing morals, traditions, and institutions, I would therefore strongly recommend _The Fatal Conceit_ as a required reading. After it has been read I would have to admit, however, that the book is not very helpful in giving clear advice as to how to act, in particular if one subscribes to an individualistic position, in view of the ongoing cultural evolution. The reason, in my view, is that the notion of cultural evolution in general, and the possible role of the reasoning individual in it in particular (including even the role of the author himself), are still somewhat vague. Hayek correctly points out that cultural evolution is Lamarckian rather than Darwinian. This means that the evolving entity—in the present context the group or (better) the set of rules practiced within a group—is able to change under the influence of experience. People are capable of modifying rules or inventing new ones. This may be a result of reasoning and deliberate experimentation or merely of blind chance. Following the idea of group selection, what matters is only whether or not the modification leads to superior adaptation to the prevailing conditions. Hence, deliberate, possibly scientifically founded reflection that aims at modifying established rules and institutions cannot be rejected _per se_. On closer examination it appears that Hayek indeed relies on an additional criterion: whether or not a proposed modification presupposes availability of knowledge and coordinating power that is not actually feasible. This argument appertains to the conjectured outcome of natural group selection. Inconsistent proposals, it would claim, which do not even promise to achieve what has been reached by the rules they are supposed to replace, cannot survive. I agree with Hayek that this is a sound criterion that, had it been applied, would have helped to prevent disastrous constructivist experiments. But as an empirical conjecture the argument is simply not true. In an environment in which competing groups are equally weak or weakened, rule changes can be enforced and survive for hundreds and thousands of years even though they entail strong deteriorations for some or even most of the group members. History has seen many such incidents and Hayek himself refers to several of them in his book. Thus, reasoning and rational evaluation of changes in rules and institutions, suggested for whatever motives, seem most important in order to save society from the potentially very harmful hard test of group selection. > A certain tension seems to exist between the impersonal forces of group selection and the collective nature of the resulting morals, traditions, and rules, on the one hand (as the later Hayek emphasizes), and the individualistic creed that he formulated earlier, following the tradition of the Austrian School on the other. This assessment highlights a significant role that the social scientist as well as the individual can play in cultural evolution. Unfortunately, the criterion (of consistency with decentralized information processing requirements) that constrains this critical role is only one and, moreover, a very general one. It is presumably not of much help in evaluating many of the small scale changes that are nowadays proposed _en masse_ by a political process that has become professionalized. I would contend, however, that further criteria can be arrived at from careful historical and empirical investigations into the factors that have been decisive for success in group selection and competition between cultures and economic systems. Presumably, this is quite in the Hayekian spirit. We should not be surprised, however, if we also gain insights into rather paradoxical, anti-intuitive peculiarities of cultural evolution that are due to what are known in biology as occupancy and status quo effects of selection, effects that might explain many of the puzzling seemingly unsystematic features in human history. Furthermore, by extending our interest to the creative side of the process of cultural evolution—to the root reasons of variety in morals, tradition, and rules—we may be able to understand better the other important role played by the aims and desires of the individual in cultural evolution. On further examination, a certain tension seems to exist between the impersonal forces of group selection and the collective nature of the resulting morals, traditions, and rules, on the one hand (as the later Hayek emphasizes), and the individualistic creed that he formulated earlier, following the tradition of the Austrian School (see, e.g. his 1948 book _Individualism and Economic Order_), on the other. Hayek offers little to help us resolve this tension. As far as compliance to morals, traditions, and group rules are concerned, our theoretical knowledge may not suffice at present to understand fully the phenomena from the point of view of methodological individualism. But the ongoing discussion of various social dilemmas at least indicates where the problems lie. With respect to the more philosophical questions of free will, liberty, and the primacy of subjective values and longings, things are less clear. Man is certainly constrained by principles of group selection. But his imaginative mind gives him the freedom to pursue his own ends, if not under established morals, traditions, and rules, then by inventing possibilities for change and by attempting to realize them In my view, there is a very close relationship, indeed, between free will and inventiveness, a relationship that is central to many of the forces of cultural evolution, both constructive and destructive. Thus, we are referred back to the other important (critical) role played by the individual; it seems that the two roles may be in rivalry. We may face a kind of meta-dilemma here. In any case, it appears to me that this issue deserves deeper reflection by anyone advancing an evolutionary theory of society and economy.