The Fatal Conceit, 06/15/09

The is from Appendix D, Alienation, Dropouts, and the Claims of Parasites:

2. Mere existence cannot confer a right or moral claim on anyone against any other. Persons or groups may incur duties to particular individuals; but as part of the system of common rules that assist humankind to grow and multiply not even all existing lives have a moral claim to preservation. A practice that seems to harsh to us wherein some Eskimo tribes leave senile members to die at the beginning of their seasonal migration may well be necessary for them to bring their offspring to the next season. And it is at least an open question whether it is a moral duty to prolong the lives of suffering incurables as long as modern medicine can. Such questions arise even before we ask to whom such claims can be validly addressed.

Rights derive from systems of relations of which the claimant has becoime a part through helping to maintain them. If he ceases to do so, or has never done so (or nobody has done so for him) there exists no ground on which such claims could be founded. Ralations between individuals can exist only as products of their wills, but the mere wiash of a claimant can hardly create a duty for others. Only expectations prioduced by long practice can create duties for themembers of the community in which they prevail, which is one reason why prudence must be exercised in the creation of expectations, lest one incur a duty that one cannot fulfill.

FA Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
University of Chicago Press, 1988
pages 152-153

It amazes me that this stuff came out of Chicago*. Does His Imperial Majesty know about this?

One more quote and then the book goes back to the library, and on my list at Books-a-Million. (Hey, Amazon is local, which means I automatically get charged taxes, but I can order from BAM through the PX, which means I don't. Plus, BAM obviously supports the military, selling through the PX means they donate to Morale Welfare, Recreation and stuff...)


*Then again, so did John Lott. Is Chicago the US home of Austrian economics? I mean, Hitler came from Austria, so maybe there's some sort of opposites thing going there...