I highly recommend this essay at TCS Daily on the issue of fusionism ? the philosophy combining conservative and libertarian strands that has undergone significant criticism of late, and that I continue to embrace. The author, Edward Feser, has written a companion to the work of Friedrich Hayek and has a forthcoming work on John Locke.
Here are some excerpts from the piece. On Hayek’s importance as a potential source of support for fusionism:
The concepts of natural law and individual rights thus seem a dubious foundation on which to construct a fusionist political philosophy; for libertarians and conservatives often simply differ too radically over the grounds and content of rights and natural law. They differ also over what would count as a society that promotes the free choice of virtue. But there is another and more hopeful basis on which the fusionist might make his case, namely the social and political philosophy of a thinker very widely admired by conservatives and libertarians alike: F. A. Hayek.
As it happens, Hayek rejected both the “conservative” and “libertarian” labels; he preferred to call himself a “Burkean Whig.” But then, Burke was the father of modern conservatism, and the Whigs were the classical liberal ancestors of contemporary libertarians. So while there are certainly versions of conservatism and libertarianism Hayek would not have endorsed, his own self-description seems to indicate a commitment to fusionism of a sort.
And on the problems with using Hayek as a unifier:
Neither conservatives nor libertarians generally agree completely with Hayek’s austere conception of human knowledge, then. But that is the foundation of his entire system; more to the point, it underlies the fusionist element in his thought. Nor is it only Hayek’s premises which many conservatives and libertarians would reject. They are bound to find his ultimate conclusions troubling as well. For the moral and social vision Hayek seems to have reached by the end of his life is roughly this: Capitalist society frustrates our deepest longings, but we are stuck with it because it best supports large populations. Traditional moral rules concerning property and the family also frustrate individual desires, but should be rigidly enforced anyway because they keep capitalist society stable. Traditional religious beliefs are probably false, but they too should be supported because they are a bulwark of traditional morality. Ultimately, life has no purpose but to produce more life. That capitalism and traditional moral and religious beliefs together fulfill this end better than any alternative is the main consideration in their favor.
