Hayek's Theory of Mind and Individualism

0:00My speech is about Hayek and the French sociologist Raymond Boudon. Boudon is one of today's most important champions of methodological individualism. I would like to compare Hayek's theory of action with Boudon's one. Boudon criticized Hayek. Hayek. Like other authors, it's stated that Hayek's methodological individualism deals with assumptions that are partially wrong. Boudon correctly maintains that methodological individualism Action is based on two ideas. The first idea is the indeterminist nature of action. This means that action is not determined by social or economic context, as Hollis supposes.

1:06Its cause has not to be thought in the context, but inside the individual, in his motivations, in his intentional choice. The second idea, the second pillar of methodological individualism is the analysis of the unintended effects of human action. Boudin thinks that Hayek is wrong because he only concentrated on this second pillar. He believes that Hayek neglected or denied the crucial importance of the indeterminism of action, as well as that of the intentionality of choice.

1:58In particular, Boudon states that Hayek did not understand the importance of explaining human ideas in terms of methodological individualism. One of the most interesting contributions of Boudon is his sociological analysis of human beliefs. is analysis of the actions that lead to the endorsement or rejection of a belief. Boudin did not study purely personal beliefs, like I believe that red wine is better than white wine.

2:52The first kind, this is purely subjective, Boudin considers collective beliefs, the beliefs that are largely shared inside a certain society. According to Boudin there are two kinds of collective beliefs. The first kind is represented by positive beliefs. Beliefs that something is true or false. For instance, the idea that earth is spheric or that earth is flat, as our ancestors believed.

3:42The second kind is represented by normative beliefs, beliefs which concern ethical points of view, the ideas about what is fair or unfair, about what is right or not, which, as you know, change in the different societies. In a cannibal tribe, it is ethically acceptable to eat human meat. It is not the same in our society. Boudin stresses that both these two Several kinds of beliefs are very often explained by using a holistic approach.

4:34Let's consider first positive beliefs. Let's consider namely positive beliefs that are very strange and obviously false and that that individuals keep using in spite of empirical refutations of their validity. According to a holist anthropologist, the fact that a member of a primitive tribe believes, for instance, that rain dance is a useful instrument to force rain to come, is determined by the culture he has absorbed.

5:25The cause of this false belief and of this action has to be sought outside the individual, in the cultural context. The meaning the action carries out for the individual is not important. The individual is not aware of the fact that he is actually directed by cultural factors. Following the methodological individualist approach, Boudon offers a different explanation of the belief in the efficiency of the rain dance. He assumes that the cause of action is always inside the individual, in his intentions. The cause of reindence depends on the meaning the primitive person gives to his action.

6:21It depends on an evaluation this person holds. His evaluation is perfectly rational, even if it looks completely irrational from the outside. The action of such a person is not a mysterious and irrational phenomenon which can be explained only by saying that there is a cultural determinism. For Boudon, the primitive individual's action is rational and perfectly understandable in the light of his background knowledge.

7:10This background knowledge is very different from ours. That's why primitive actions seem so strange to us. The primitive person does not master the principles of biology, physics or meteorology. The best instrument this person has to explain nature is a set of religious theories. So his rationality is situated, is linked to those theories. Moreover, this individual has good reasons to continue to believe in the utility of the rain dance, in spite of empirical refutations.

8:03It's necessary to consider, for instance, that the rain dance is usually practiced in the time of the year when rain is useful for cultivation. This is the period when rain usually falls, so it seems to the primitive that rain dance actually works. Boudin states that positive beliefs have to be explained thus trying to reconstruct what he calls the good reasons individuals have to endorse them.

8:48Those good reasons are based on a bounded or subjective rationality, which is linked to a limited and fallible knowledge. So, for Boudon, even the actions which are based on wrong beliefs are irrational. Like Mises, Boudon denies the necessity to make a distinction between rational action and irrational action. Let's consider now the second kind of collective beliefs. For Boudon, not only the choice of means, but even the choice of aims can often be studied as the product of good reasons.

9:37In other words, we can also explain the ethical beliefs in terms of good reasons. When Boudon says ethical beliefs, it does not mean every kind of value or aim. As I said, Boudon considers only the moral views which are largely shared inside a specific human group. Those collective beliefs on what is right and what is not right can be explained by methodological individualism. This is an original point because usually methodological individualists don't care much to analyze ethical views.

10:25According to Boudon, this has been a mistake which encouraged the development of holistic approaches in sociology and anthropology. Indeed, some holistic scholars admit that methodological individualism is useful to explain the choice of means, the positive beliefs, But it's useless to explain the choice of aims, the normative beliefs. Those holists suppose that we can explain the individual aims only by using a social or cultural determinism.

11:12In order to illustrate the necessity of enlarging the field of application of methodological individualism, Boudin considers a very interesting historical case, the part played by religion in political and social life in the United States and France. While Americans usually have a positive attitude towards religion, the French don't. Atheism and anti-religious tendencies are very common in France, but not in America. Why is there such a difference between these two countries?

11:59Holistic sociologists would explain that stating this fact depends on the fact that Americans are Americans, while French are French. Americans have a certain culture and this culture, which they interiorize, determines their actions and their values. French have a different culture and they are determined by their different culture. As Boudon says, this kind of explanation is completely unsatisfactory. actually is not an explanation at all.

12:46In order to really explain this difference between Americans and French, it's necessary to reconstruct their different reasons, their different motivations. I don't have time to give you all of Boudin's arguments. Just an example of his individualistic approach. Boudin states that Americans, unlike the French, do not have reasons to limit the part played by religion to the spiritual sphere. This behavior relies on different historical occurrences. For instance, in Europe religion has historically been in competition with politics.

13:33The church has tried to play a part in politics. On the contrary, American churches, being so numerous and in competition with each other, have not given in to the temptations of politics. They immerse themselves in the social context, focusing on public health, social assistance, public education and so on. Neither public authorities nor intellectuals nor private citizens have reason to challenge these activities. American churches are part of everyday social life. Citizens do not have any reason to reject them.

14:26So for Boudon, even the cultural differences among nations have to be explained through the meaning they acquire in the minds of individuals by trying to understand the individual motivations. As I told you, Boudon criticizes Hayek's methodological individualism, stating that it is only concentrated on the part played by unintended consequences. According to Boudon, Hayek denied the importance of the indeterminism of human action and the importance of the demotivation of individuals.

15:12I think Boudon's criticism of Hayek is unfair. It's obviously true that Hayek gave more importance to the analysis of unintended consequences, but it's false that he denied the indeterminism of human action. To argue that this is false, it's necessary to consider Hayek's psychology. As other critics of Hayek's theory of action, Boudon did not care to carefully analyze the content of Hayek's book, The Sensory Order. I think that this book contains Hayek's most important contribution to the theory of action.

16:02It has been unfairly neglected. Although it is not a treatise of sociology, it deals with issues which are very important for every theory which aims at explaining collective beliefs. The sensory order is a claim for the indeterminism of human action and for the necessity of explaining beliefs in the terms of good reasons. It's a very complex book on psychology. I can't analyze its content in detail. I will only sketch its main point. According to Hayek, the mind doesn't have only logical and conscious skills. It's not endowed only with abilities of conscious reasoning and deduction.

16:55For Hayek, consciousness is the type of an iceberg, the mind's conscious skills, the skills of logical deduction, are based on tacit or meta-conscious abilities. Those meta-conscious abilities build the sensorial world. The sensual world is not the mirror of the external world. It's our interpretation of the external world. For instance, the color red is not an objective property of the external world. It's the way we interpret certain features of the external world. It's a mental construction. Hayek considers perceptions as interpretations, which depend partly on biological evolution and partly on the personal experience of the individual.

17:52Perceptions produce the necessary assumptions for intentional choice. They define the basic framework of the process of conscious decision. The metaconscious process which builds perceptions selects a basic set of meanings and possible alternatives for action which is the foundation of rational reasoning. A very important point is that this metaconscious process is not deterministic. It depends on a process of self-organization in a complex system of neuronal networks.

18:37It's impossible to forecast the functioning of the mind. It's impossible to conceive it in deterministic terms. Today, many studies on the processes of self-organization of mind and on its tacit skills confirm Hayek's insights. What Hayek points out is very important for the explanation of collective beliefs. Hayek's theory of the sensory order is a very interesting defense of methodological individualist theory of action, namely of the indeterminism of human action.

19:30Both methodological holists and Hayek maintain that consciousness is not the only important aspect of human nature. But while holists assume the action as determined at an unconscious level, Hayek states the contrary. An example of a holist approach is Marx's theory of false consciousness. This theory is linked to the idea that collective beliefs are unconsciously determined by the economic structure. For Marx, the individual is not aware of the fact that his actions are determined by the economic context.

20:22According to Hayek's theory of mind, Marx's approach is completely wrong. For Hayek, the meta-conscious dimension that is the basis of knowledge is characterized by processes of self-organization which are not deterministic. There indeterminism rules out the possibility to use the holistic methodology. It legitimates methodological individualism. It legitimates Boudin's explanations of beliefs. For Hayek, the cause of action has to be found in the individual. It cannot be sought outside him.

21:10Individual ideas cannot be determined by something which is outside the human mind. In the last pages of the sensory order, Hayek explicitly states that action has to be explained in terms of good reasons, in terms of individual motivations. So, Boudon's idea that Hayek denies the indeterminate of human action is wrong. Boudin's individualistic theory of collective beliefs is the natural implication of Hayek's psychology. Boudin's sociology and Hayek's psychology can be used fully combined in order to argue for an individualistic theory of action.