Catallaxy ® Institute - Classical Liberalism

An interesting symptom of the growing influence of this rationalist conception is the increasing substitution, in all languages known to me, of the word "social" for the word "moral" or simply "good". It is instructive to consider briefly the significance of this. When people speak of a "social conscience" as against mere "conscience" (...) they are in effect saying that our action should be guided by a full understanding of the functioning of the social process and that it should be our aim (…) to produce a foreseeable result which they describe as the "social good". The curious thing is that this appeal to the "social" really involves a demand that individual intelligence, rather than rules evolved by society, should guide individual action - that men should dispense with the use of what could truly be called "social" (in the sense of being a product of the impersonal process of society) and should rely on their individual judgement of the particular case. The preference for "social considerations" over the adherence to moral rules is, therefore, ultimately the result of a contempt for what really is a social phenomenon and of a belief in the superior powers of human reason.

Hayek, Friedrich A.

The Constitution of Liberty

1960 , p. 65