Chicago. Hayek’s Seminar “Equality and Justice”, 1950-51

 

When Friedrich Hayek came to the University of Chicago in 1950, he organized a faculty seminar to run for two consecutive quarters on the subject “Equality and Justice”. A draft of his letter announcing the seminar as well as its schedule and suggested bibliography are transcribed below. I have added in brackets any handwritten additions found in this material that otherwise was typed.

_____________________

Hayek’s Seminar Announcement to Colleagues

To

Walter J. Blum ✓ Ronald S. Crane ✓ Aaron Director ✓ Milton Friedman ✓ Robert M. Hutchins ✓ Harry Kalven Jr. ✓ Wilber C. Katz ✓ Frank H. Knight ✓ Edward H. Levi ✓ Hans J. Morgenthau ✓ Charner M. Perry ✓ Max Rheinstein ✓ Leo Strauss ✓ W. Allen Wallis ✓

[handwritten additions] Peter H. von Blanckenhagen [sp?] ✓ Daniel J. Boorstin ✓ John U. Nef ✓ Robert Redfield ✓ Edw. Shils Yves R. Simon ✓ James R. Smith ✓ Abram L. Harris

 

October 23, 1950

            The first meeting of the seminar on “Equality and Justice”, which I shall be conducting for the Committee on Social Thought, will be held on Wednesday, October 25, at S.S.302. For the following few weeks the seminar will be held on alternate Wednesdays at the same time and place (alternating with Mr. T.S. Elliot’s seminar) and from November 22 on each Wednesday during the Fall, Winter, and Spring quarters.

A provisional program for the discussions of the seminar is enclosed.

It is my hope that the seminar can be conducted with the participation of members of all the various departments concerned, particularly a number of lawyers, economists, and philosophers, and that the discussion will be to some extent a iscussion among faculty members in front of the students, though of course without excluding the students from active participation. My belated arrival in Chicago has unfortunately made it impossible for me to discuss this plan with all those I had hoped personally to invite, and I can thus only at this very late moment inform you of the plan and say that I very much hope that you will be sufficiently interested to take part and that I shall be greatly honored by your presence.

(F.A.Hayek)

_____________________

COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL THOUGHT
Seminar
on
Equality and Justice

Provisional Outline of Program (Oct. 18, 1950)

1) Oct. 25	Introduction: The problems and outline of program [Hayek]
A. Historical
2) Nov. 8	The Classical and Scholastic Tradition: Commutative and Distributive Justice [Simons]
3) Nov. 22 [3a) Nov. 29]	The Egalitarianism of the American and French Revolutions [Boorstin & Simon] [Rousseau, Kant & the Utilitarians (Bentham & J. S. Mill)]
B. Systemic
	(a) Ethical (The Morals of Equality)
4)	The Meanings of Equality [Hayek]
5)	Value Judgments and the Analysis of Conflicts of Value Tests of Moral Rules [What is the Test of a desirable Society? Shils]
6)	Does Justice Presuppose Abstract Principles? The “feeling of right” and the Logic of the Law
	(b) Legal (The practice of equality)
7)	Equality before the law, the Rule of Law (Government of Laws not of Men), Certainty of the Law
8)	Safeguards: Rights of Men, Division of Powers, Due Process
9)	The Continental Tradition of the “Rechtsstaat” [, “Verwaltungsrecht”, Common Law, Case Law, (illegible phrase)     Rheinstein]
10)	Natural Justice and Positive Law [Strauss]
	(c) Economic (The Effects of Equality)
11)	“Equality of Opportunity,” “Equal Starting Point” [Equality & Education]
12) [12a]	Equality and Incentives, “Equal Pay for Equal Work” [Equal Bargaining Power] “Equalising Wages” [(I.L.O.) F.E.P.C., “Parity”, Whole Produce of Labour, Equality and Progress, Technological Change, Capital Formation]
13)	“Just Price” [Knight]
14)	Equality and the Family, Inheritance, Effects of Property on Inequality, “Unearned Income”
15)	Progressive Taxation
16)	Equality and Trade Unionism (Corporativism) [Director]
17)	The Contribution of Welfare Economics [Friedman]
18)	International Aspects of Equality, esp. Migration.

[Property and Inheritance]

[1) Reward & Merit]

_____________________

COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL THOUGHT
SEMINAR ON “EQUALITY AND JUSTICE”
(1950-51)

Bibliography

Lord Acton, The History of Liberty, 1904.
C. Bouglé, Les idées égalitaires, 1899.
E. F. Carrit, “Liberty and Equality,” Law Quarterly Review, 56, 1940.
F. S. Cohen, Ethical Systems and Legal Ideals, 1933.
A. V. Dicey, Relation between Law and Public Opinion, 1904.
F. D. Graham, Social Goals and Economic Institutions, 1945.
J. B. S. Haldane, The Inequality of Man.
F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 1944 (esp. Chapt. VI).
“          Individualism and Economic Order, 1948 (First Essay)
“          “Scientism and the Study of Society,” Economica, 1942-44.
A. Huxley, Proper Studies, (Essay on Equality).
F. H. Knight, The Ethics of Competition, 1936.
“          Freedom and Reform, 1948.
J. S. Mill, Liberty, 1859.
“          Utilitarianism. 1863. (Chapt. on Justice).
Roscoe Pound, Spirit of the Common Law, 1921.
H. Sidgwick, Elements of Politics.
H. C. Simons, Economic Policy for a Free Society, 1948.
T. V. Smith, The American Philosophy of Equality, 1927.
J. F. Stephen, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, 1874.
J. Stone, The Province and Function of Law, 1950.
R. H. Tawney, Equality, 1931.
A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835.
“          Ancient Regime and the Revolution, 1856.
A. T. Williams, The Concept of Equality in the Writings of Rousseau, Bentham and Kant, 1907.
D. M. Wright, Democracy and Progress, 1948.

_____________________

COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL THOUGHT
Seminar on “Equality and Justice”
(Wednesday 8-10 p.m., SS 302)

PART II: Winter Quarter 1951

Provisional Date
Jan. 3	1. THE MEANINGS OF EQUALITY
	D. Thompson, Equality, Cambridge University Press, 1949 R. H. Tawney, Equality, 3rd ed. London (Allen & Unwin) 1938 H. Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, Oxford 1907, vol. I, ch. VIII E. Brunner, Justice and the Social Order, New York (Harper) 1945 C. Bouglé, Les idées égalitaires, Paris 1899 G. Roffenstein, “Das soziologische Problem der Gleichheit”, Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, XLV, 1921
Jan. 17	2. VALUE JUDGMENTS AND SCIENCE. ANALYSIS OF CONFLICTS OF VALUE. TESTS OF DESIRABILITY OF SOCIAL SYSTEMS.
	Max Weber, On the Methodology of the Social Sciences, ed. E. Shils, 1949.
Jan. 24	3. PRINCIPLES AND MORAL JUDGMENT. MORAL SENSE AND THE “FEELING OF JUSTICE”
	J. H. Muirhead, Rule and End in Morals, Oxford 1932 J. Bonar, Moral Sense, London (Allen & Unwin) 1930 E. Riezler, Das Rechtsgefühl, Berlin (Walter de Gruyter) 1921 G. Ryle, “Knowing how and knowing that”, Proceed. Aristot. Soc., N.S. 46, 1945
Jan. 31	4. THE ETHICS OF SOCIALISM AND OF LIBERALISM
	J. A. Hobson, Economics and Ethics (D. C. Heath) 1929 W. B. Gallie, “Liberal Morality and Socialist Morality”, Philosophy, XXIV, 1949 F. Tönnies, “Ethik und Sozialismus”, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft, 1905 K. Pearson, The Moral Basis of Socialism. London 1885
Feb. 7	5. NATURAL JUSTICE AND POSITIVE LAW. CONCEPTS OF LAW AND JUSTICE
	M. R. Cohen, Law and Social Order, 1933 J. Maritain, The Rights of Man and Natural Law, New York 1943 F. R. Bienenfeld, Rediscovery of Justice 1947 L. Duguit, Manuel de Droit Constitutionel, 1923 G. del Vecchio, La Guistizia, 1924 (trsl. Die Gerechtigkeit, Basel 1940) F. S. Cohen, Ethical Systems and Legal Ideas, 1933
Feb. 21	6. THE “RULE OF LAW” (“RECHTSSTAAT”, “ETAT DU DROIT”, “STATO DI DIRITTO”) EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW. GENERALITY OF THE LAW (“RELEVANT DISTINCTIONS”). CERTAINTY OF THE LAW
	J. Stone, The Province and Function of Law, Harvard Univ. Press 1950 W. I. Jennings, The Law and the Constitution, 3rd ed. 1943 W. Friedman, Legal Theory, 2nd ed. London 1949 F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 1944 A. V. Dicey, Law of the Constitution, 7th ed. 1908 R. Gneist, Der Rechsstaat, Berlin 1872 F. Darmstaedter, Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Rechtsstaates, 1930 F. Battaglia, “Stato Etico e Stato di Diritto”, Rivista Internationale di Filosofia di Diritto, XVII G. Leibholz, Die Gleichheit vor dem Gesetz, Berlin 1925 C. A. Emge, “Sicherheit und Gerechtigkeit”, Abh. d. preuss. Akad. d. Wissenschaften, Phil.-Hist. Klasse, 1940, No. 9 H. W. R. Wadem, “The Concept of Legal Certainty”, Modern Law Review, IV, 1941
Feb. 28	LAW AND THE COURTS: DIVISION OF POWERS, APPLICATION AND CREATION OF THE LAW. DUE PROCESS
	Literature as under 5 and 6
Mar. 7	8. ADMINISTRATION AND DISCRETION
	J. Dickinson, Administrative Justice and the Supremacy of the Law, Harvard University Press, 1927 W. Robson, Justice and Administrative Law J. Roland Pennock, Administration and the Rule of Law, New York, Farrar & Rinehart 1941

 

Source:  Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Friedrich A. von Hayek. Box 112, Folder 16.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-02719, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.