Hayek on Justice and the Market: A Rejoinder to Cragg and Mack

Extract

(1) Professor Cragg objects to my contention that when judgments about the justice of actions can be paired with judgments about the justice of the states of affairs in which they eventuate it is the latter and not the former which are logically fundamental. He concedes that the justice of actions cannot, in these circumstances, be determined wholly independently of the justice of the states of affairs they help bring about — ‘ … how could an action be evaluated as Just or unjust in the absence of an evaluation of the situation which it was designed to bring about?’ — yet he takes issue with my claim that judgments about the justice of states of affairs can be made ‘without any detour’ through questions about the justice of the actions which bring them about. According to the intermediate position he prefers, judgments about the justice of actions and judgments about the justice of situations are ‘inextricably intertwined.’