One of Hayek’s biggest faults is that he is nearly impossible to read sometimes. Sometimes to the point that you have to read the same paragraph multiple times, only to get more confused each time. In the second volume of Law, Legislation, and Liberty entitled The Mirage of Social Justice, Hayek associates multiple principles with what he calls rules of Just Conduct. Among these are impersonality, universalizability, generality, and end-independency. The cohesion between these principles was not apparent to me at first until I experienced them directly.
As I was walking home from the Mercatus office this afternoon, I took my usual route through the Johnson Center. I like to take the Northeastern door as it has
In this case, the rule was end-independent as it didn’t take into account how much either of us needed the extra 2 seconds of time. It was impersonal as it did not I.D. either of us to make sure we were of the right class to participate in such a rule. It was general as it could apply to any situation in which two people try to use a door, but only one must be chosen. It was universalizable as I (and I presume the other gentleman) would have applied the same rule regardless of the gender, race, or otherwise distinguishing feature of the other person. We would treat all humans equal according to such a rule.
I lost two seconds not because it is more just for him to have those seconds and me to lose them, but because such rules are blind to circumstance, and can have no comment on