【長文】Friedrich Hayek - The Case for Freedom

金句相關文章

www.libertarianism.o...

Our ignorance of the things that affect our well-​being demonstrates the importance of freedom in enabling us to achieve our goals.

我們對影響我們福祉的許多事物的無知，說明了自由的重要性，因為它使我們能夠實現我們的目標。

The case for individual freedom rests chiefly on the recognition of the inevitable ignorance of all of us concerning a great many of the factors on which the achievement of our ends and welfare depends.

If there were omniscient men, if we could know not only all that affects the attainment of our pres­ent wishes but also our future wants and desires, there would be little case for liberty. And, in turn, liberty of the individual would, of course, make complete foresight impossible. Liberty is essential in order to leave room for the un­foreseeable and unpredictable; we want it because we have learned to expect from it the opportunity of realizing many of our aims. It is because every individual knows so little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it.

個人自由的理由主要基於我們必須承認自己對許多因素都難免無知，而這些因素正是我們實現目標和福祉所依賴的。

如果有全知全能的人，如果我們不僅能知道影響我們目前願望實現的所有事情，還能預知我們未來的需求和渴望，那麼自由的理由就會很少。而反過來，個人的自由當然會讓完全的預見變得不可能。自由是為了給不可預見和不可預測的事物留出空間；我們渴望自由，因為我們已經學會期待自由能給我們實現許多目標的機會。正因為每個人都知道得很少，尤其是因為我們很少知道誰知道得最好，所以我們相信許多獨立和競爭的個體所做的努力會促成我們想要的東西的出現。

Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preserva­tion of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. These ac­cidents occur in the combination of knowledge and attitudes, skills and habits, acquired by individual men and also when qualified men are confronted with the particular circumstances which they are equipped to deal with. Our neces­sary ignorance of so much means that we have to deal largely with probabilities and chances.

Of course, it is true of social as of individual life that favorable accidents usually do not just hap­pen. We must prepare for them. But they still remain chances and do not become certainties. They in­volve risks deliberately taken, the possible misfortune of individuals and groups who are as meritorious as others who prosper, the possi­bility of serious failure or relapse even for the majority, and merely a high probability of a net gain on balance. All we can do is to in­crease the chance that some special constellation of individual endow­ment and circumstance will result in the shaping of some new tool or the improvement of an old one, and to improve the prospect that such innovations will become rapidly known to those who can take ad­vantage of them.

這可能有損於人類的自尊，但我們必須承認，文明的進步甚至保存都依賴於發生意外的最大機會。這些意外發生在知識和態度、技能和習慣的結合上，也發生在有資格的人面對他們有能力處理的特定情況時。我們對許多事情的必要無知意味著我們必須主要處理概率和機會。

當然，社會生活和個人生活一樣，有利的意外通常不會隨便發生。我們必須為它們做準備。但它們仍然只是機會，不會變成確定性。它們涉及到故意承擔的風險，對個體和群體的可能發生的不幸（他們與其他成功的人一樣有功績），對多數人出現嚴重失敗或重新墮落的可能，以及僅僅是總體上淨收益的高概率（Pika: 僅僅是高概率即是前面說的非確定性）。我們所能做的一切就是增加某些特殊個人天賦和環境結合會導致新工具的形成或舊工具改進的機會，並改善這種創新快速為那些能利用它們的人所知的可能性。

Imperfect Beings

All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dy­namic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that which the most ig­norant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignif­icant.

The classical argument for tol­erance formulated by John Milton and John Locke and restated by John Stuart Mill and Walter Bagehot rests, of course, on the recog­nition of this ignorance of ours. It is a special application of general considerations to which a nonrationalist insight into the working of our mind opens the doors. We shall find throughout this book that, though we are usually not aware of it, all institutions of free­dom are adaptations to this funda­mental fact of ignorance, adapted to deal with chances and probabili­ties, not certainty. Certainty we cannot achieve in human affairs, and it is for this reason that, to make the best use of what knowl­edge we have, we must adhere to rules which experience has shown to serve best on the whole, though we do not know what will be the consequences of obeying them in the particular instance.

不完美的生物

所有的政治理論當然都假設大多數個體都非常無知。那些為自由辯護的人與其他人不同的地方在於，他們把自己也包括在無知的人群中，而不僅僅是最聰明的人。相對於不斷被利用來推動動態文明進化的總體知識，最聰明的人和最無知的人能有意識利用的知識之間的差異相對來說微不足道。

John Milton、John Locke提出的經典寬容論，以及John Stuart Mill和Walter Bagehot重申的論點，當然基於我們對自己無知的承認。這是對非理性主義洞察我們心智運作打開大門的一般考慮的特殊應用。我們會在這本書中發現，雖然我們通常沒有意識到，所有的自由制度都是對這個基本無知事實的適應，適應來處理機會和概率，而不是確定性。在人類事務中，我們無法達到確定性，因此，為了最好地利用我們擁有的知識，我們必須堅持經驗證明最有效的規則，雖然我們不知道在特定情況下遵守這些規則會產生什麼後果。

Man learns by the disappoint­ment of expectations. Needless to say, we ought not to increase the unpredictability of events by fool­ish human institutions. So far as possible, our aim should be to im­prove human institutions so as to increase the chances of correct foresight. Above all, however, we should provide the maximum of opportunity for unknown individu­als to learn of facts that we our­selves are yet unaware of and to make use of this knowledge in their actions.

It is through the mutually ad­justed efforts of many people that more knowledge is utilized than any one individual possesses or than it is possible to synthesize intellectually; and it is through such utilization of dispersed knowledge that achievements are made possible, greater than any single mind can foresee. It is be­cause freedom means the renun­ciation of direct control of in­dividual efforts that a free society can make use of so much more knowledge than the mind of the wisest ruler could comprehend.

人類是通過對期望的失望來學習的。不必說，我們不應該通過愚蠢的人類制度來增加事件的不可預測性。盡可能地，我們的目標應該是改善人類制度，以增加正確預見的機會。但在此之上，我們應該為未知的個體提供最大機會，讓他們了解我們自己還不知道的事實，並在他們的行動中利用這類知識。

更多的知識是通過許多人的相互調整的努力被利用的，比任何一個人擁有或能夠在智力上綜合的知識要多；正是通過這種對分散知識的利用，才使得比任何一個人能預見的更偉大的成就成為可能。正因為自由意味著放棄對個人努力的直接控制，所以自由社會能夠利用的知識比最聰明統治者的頭腦所能理解的要多得多。

The Chance of Error

From this foundation of the argument for liberty it follows that we shall not achieve its ends if we confine liberty to the particular instances where we know it will do good. Freedom granted only when it is known beforehand that its effects will be beneficial is not freedom. If we knew how freedom would be used, the case for it would largely disappear. We shall never get the benefits of freedom, never obtain those unforeseeable new developments for which it pro­vides the opportunity, if it is not also granted where the uses made of it by some do not seem desir­able. It is therefore no argument against individual freedom that it is frequently abused. Freedom necessarily means that many things will be done which we do not like. Our faith in freedom does not rest on the foreseeable results in particular circumstances but on the belief that it will, on balance, release more forces for the good than for the bad.

It also follows that the import­ance of our being free to do a par­ticular thing has nothing to do with the question of whether we or the majority are ever likely to make use of that particular possibility. To grant no more freedom than all can exercise would be to mis­conceive its function completely. The freedom that will be used by only one man in a million may be more important to society and more beneficial to the majority than any freedom that we all use. It might even be said that the less likely the opportunity to make use of freedom to do a particular thing, the more precious it will be for society as a whole. The less likely the opportunity, the more serious will it be to miss it when it arises, for the experience that it offers will be nearly unique.

It is also probably true that the ma­jority are not directly interested in most of the important things that any one person should be free to do. It is because we do not know how individuals will use their free­dom that it is so important. If it were otherwise, the results of free­dom could also be achieved by the majority’s deciding what should be done by the individuals. But ma­jority action is, of necessity, con­fined to the already tried and as­certained, to issues on which agreement has already been reached in that process of discus­sion that must be preceded by dif­ferent experiences and actions on the part of different individuals.

錯誤的可能性

從為自由辯護的基礎上，我們可以推斷，如果我們把自由局限在我們知道它會帶來好處的特殊情況下，我們就無法實現自由的目標。只有在事先知道其影響會是有利的情況下才授予的自由，那不是自由。如果我們知道自由會被如何使用，那麼為自由辯護的理由就會大大消失。我們永遠得不到自由的好處，永遠得不到它所提供的不斷出現的新發展的機會，如果它不被授予那些以不可取的方式使用自由的人。因此，個人自由經常被濫用並不是反對個人自由的論點。自由意味著必然會有很多我們不喜歡的事情被做出來。我們對自由的信仰不依賴於特定情況的可預見結果，而是依賴於我們相信它會總體上釋放更多的有利於好事而不是壞事的力量。

這也意味著我們自由做某件事的重要性與我們或大多數人是否可能利用那個特定可能性無關。只授予所有人都能行使的自由會完全誤解自由的功能。只有百萬分之一的人會使用的自由可能對社會更重要，對大多數人，及比我們所有人都會使用的任何自由更有益處。甚至可以說，利用自由做某件事的可能性越小，它對整個社會越寶貴。機會越小，當機會出現時，錯過它的嚴重性越大，因為它提供的經驗將近乎獨一無二。

事實上很可能大多數人對任何一個人應該自由去做的大多數重要事情都不直接感興趣。正因為我們不知道個人會如何利用他們的自由，所以自由才如此重要。如果不是這樣，自由的結果也可以通過大多數人決定各個個人應該做什麼來實現。但大多數人的行動必然局限在已經嘗試過和確定的事情上，而對問題及解決方案要達成共識必須先由各獨特個體得到自己的獨特經驗和作出自己的獨特行動。

Freedom for the Unknown

The benefits I derive from free­dom are thus largely the result of the uses of freedom by others, and mostly of those uses of freedom that I could never avail myself of. It is therefore not necessarily free­dom that I can exercise myself that is most important for me. It is cer­tainly more important that any­thing can be tried by somebody than that all can do the same things. It is not because we like to be able to do particular things, not because we regard any particular freedom as essential to our hap­piness, that we have a claim to freedom. The instinct that makes us revolt against any physical re­straint, though a helpful ally, is not always a safe guide for justifying or delimiting freedom. What is im­portant is not what freedom I per­sonally would like to exercise but what freedom some person may need in order to do things bene­ficial to society. This freedom we can assure to the unknown person only by giving it to all.

The benefits of freedom are therefore not confined to the free—or, at least, a man does not benefit mainly from those aspects of free­dom which he himself takes advan­tage of. There can be no doubt that in history unfree majorities have benefited from the existence of free minorities and that today unfree societies benefit from what they obtain and learn from free societies. Of course, the bene­fits we derive from the freedom of others become greater as the num­ber of those who can exercise freedom increases. The argument for the freedom of some therefore applies to the freedom of all.

But it is still better for all that some should be free than none and also that many enjoy full freedom than that all have a restricted freedom. The significant point is that the importance of freedom to do a particular thing has nothing to do with the number of people who want to do it: it might almost be in inverse proportion. One con­sequence of this is that a society may be hamstrung by controls, al­though the great majority may not be aware that their freedom has been significantly curtailed. If we proceeded on the assumption that only the exercises of freedom that the majority will practice are important, we would be certain to create a stagnant society with all the characteristic of unfreedom.

為未知者提供自由

我從自由中獲得的好處在很大程度上是其他人利用自由的結果，主要是那些我永遠無法利用的自由使用方式。因此，對我來說最重要的不是我能行使的自由。當然，有人能嘗試任何事情比所有人都能做同樣的事情更重要。我們要求自由並不是因為我們喜歡做某些特定事情，也不是因為我們認為任何特定的自由對我們的幸福至關重要。我們要求自由的直覺是對任何身體束縛的反抗，雖然這是一個有幫助的盟友，但它並不是總能安全地指導我們如何證明或劃定自由的界限。重要的是我個人想要行使的自由，而是某人可能需要的自由，以便做對社會有益的事情。我們只能通過把自由給予所有人，才能確保未知的人擁有這種自由。

因此，自由的好處並不僅僅局限在自由的人身上——或者至少，一個人從他自己利用的自由方面獲得的好處並不是主要來源。沒有任何疑問，歷史上不自由的大多數人從自由少數人的存在中受益，而今天的不自由社會從自由社會獲得的東西和學到的東西中受益。當然，我們從他人自由中獲得的好處會隨著能夠行使自由的人數增加而變得更大。因此，對某些人自由的辯護適用於所有人的自由。

但對所有人來說，有些人比沒有人自由要好，而且許多人享受完全自由比所有人都有有限的自由要好。重要的是，做某件事的自由的重要性與想要做這件事的人數無關：它可能成反比。這的一個後果是，一個社會可能被控制所束縛，儘管大多數人可能並不知道他們的自由已經被顯著縮減。如果我們假設只有大多數人會實踐的自由才重要，我們一定會創造一個停滯不前的社會，具有所有不自由特徵。

The Nature of Change

The undesigned novelties that constantly emerge in the process of adaptation will consist, first, of new arrangements or patterns in which the efforts of different in­dividuals are coordinated and of new constellations in the use of resources, which will be in their nature as temporary as the par­ticular conditions that have evoked them. There will be, second, modi­fications of tools and institutions adapted to the new circumstances. Some of these will also be merely temporary adaptations to the con­ditions of the moment, while others will be improvements that increase the versatility of the existing tools and usages and will therefore be retained. These latter will consti­tute a better adaptation not merely to the particular circumstances of time and place but to some per­manent feature of our environ­ment. In such spontaneous “forma­tions” is embodied a perception of the general laws that govern na­ture. With this cumulative embod­iment of experience in tools and forms of action will emerge a growth of explicit knowledge, of formulated generic rules that can be communicated by language from person to person.

This process by which the new emerges is best understood in the intellectual sphere when the re­sults are new ideas. It is the field in which most of us are aware at least of some of the individual steps of the process, where we necessarily know what is happen­ing and thus generally recognize the necessity of freedom. Most sci­entists realize that we cannot plan the advance of knowledge, that in the voyage into the unknown—which is what research is—we are in great measure dependent on the vagaries of individual genius and of circumstance, and that scientific advance, like a new idea that will spring up in a single mind, will be the result of a combination of con­ceptions, habits, and circumstances brought to one person by society, the result as much of lucky acci­dents as of systematic effort.

Because we are more aware that our advances in the intellectual sphere often spring from the un­foreseen and undesigned, we tend to overstress the importance of freedom in this field and to ignore the importance of the freedom of doing things. But the freedom of research and belief and the free­dom of speech and discussion, the importance of which is widely un­derstood, are significant only in the last stage of the process in which new truths are discovered. To extol the value of intellectual liberty at the expense of the value of the liberty of doing things would be like treating the crown­ing part of an edifice as the whole. We have new ideas to discuss, dif­ferent views to adjust, because those ideas and views arise from the efforts of individuals in ever new circumstances, who avail themselves in their concrete tasks of the new tools and forms of ac­tion they have learned.

變化的本質

適應過程中不斷出現的未經設計的新事物將包括：首先，不同個體努力協調的新安排或模式，以及資源使用的新組合，這些在性質上與引起它們的特定條件一樣暫時。其次，適應新情況的工具和制度的修改。其中一些將只是對當前條件的暫時適應，而另一些將是增加現有工具和使用多樣性的改進，因此會被保留。這些改進將構成對特定時間和地點條件以及我們環境的某些永久特徵的更好適應。在這種自發的「形成」中，體現了對支配自然的一般法律的感知。隨著在工具和行動形式中累積體現的經驗的增長，將出現明確的知識，可以通過語言從一個人傳遞到另一個人的公式化通用規則。

這個新事物出現的過程在智力領域（intellectual sphere，有可能譯錯）最容易理解，當結果是新的想法時。這是大多數人至少對過程的一些步驟有所意識的領域，我們必然知道正在發生什麼，因此普遍承認自由的必要性。大多數科學家都意識到，我們不能規劃知識的進步，在進入未知的旅程（即研究）中，我們在很大程度上依賴於個體天才和環境的變幻無常，科學進步就像一個新想法在一個人腦海中閃現，將是各種概念、習慣和環境結合在一個人身上的結果，是幸運意外和系統性努力的結果。

因為我們更意識到我們在智力領域的進步往往來自於不可預見和未經設計的事情，所以我們傾向於過度強調這個領域自由的重要性，而忽視了做事自由的重要性。但研究和信仰的自由，言論和討論的自由，其重要性被廣泛理解，只在發現新真理的過程的最後階段才有意義。以犧牲做事自由的價值來讚揚思想自由的價值，就像把建築的頂部部分當作整個建築一樣。我們有新的想法可以討論，不同的觀點可以調整，因為這些想法和觀點來自於個體在不斷變化的環境中做出的努力，他們在具體任務中利用了他們所學到的新的工具和行動形式。

The Complexity of Progress

The nonintellectual part of this process—the formation of the changed material environment in which the new emerges—requires for its understanding and appre­ciation a much greater effort of imagination than the factors stressed by the intellectualist view. While we are sometimes able to trace the intellectual processes that have led to a new idea, we can scarcely ever reconstruct the se­quence and combination of those contributions that have not led to the acquisition of explicit knowl­edge; we can scarcely ever recon­struct the favorable habits and skills employed, the facilities and opportunities used, and the par­ticular environment of the main actors that has favored the result.

Our efforts toward understand­ing this part of the process can go little further than to show on sim­plified models the kind of forces at work and to point to the general principle rather than the specific character of the influences that op­erate. Men are always concerned only with what they know. There­fore, those features which, while the process is under way, are not consciously known to anybody are commonly disregarded and can perhaps never be traced in detail.

進步的複雜性

這個過程的非智力部分——改變的物質環境的形成，新事物出現的環境——需要比知識分子觀點強調的因素更多的想象力來理解和欣賞。雖然我們有時能夠追蹤導致新想法的智力過程，但我們幾乎無法重建那些沒有導致獲得明確知識的貢獻的序列和組合；我們幾乎無法重建有利習慣和技能的應用，設施和機會的使用，以及主要演員的特定環境，這些都促進了結果。

我們理解這個過程部分努力的結果只能是展示在簡化模型中起作用的力量的類型，並指出一般原則，而不是具體特徵的運作影響。人們只關心他們知道的東西。因此，在過程進行時，沒有人意識到的那些特徵通常被忽視，也許永遠無法被詳細地追蹤。

In fact, these unconscious fea­tures not only are commonly dis­regarded but are often treated as if they were a hindrance rather than a help or an essential condi­tion. Because they are not “ra­tional” in the sense of explicitly entering into our reasoning, they are often treated as irrational in the sense of being contrary to in­telligent action. Yet, though much of the nonrational that affects our action may be irrational in this sense, many of the “mere habits” and “meaningless institutions” that we use and presuppose in our actions are essential conditions for what we achieve; they are success­ful adaptations of society that are constantly improved and on which depends the range of what we can achieve. While it is important to discover their defects, we could not for a moment go on without con­stantly relying on them.

The manner in which we have learned to order our day, to dress, to eat, to arrange our houses, to speak and write, and to use the countless other tools and imple­ments of civilization, no less than the “know-​how” of production and trade, furnishes us constantly with the foundations on which our own contributions to the process of civilization must be based. And it is in the new use and improvement of whatever the facilities of civili­zation offer us that the new ideas arise that are ultimately handled in the intellectual sphere.

事實上，這些無意識特徵不僅通常被忽視，而且常常被當作阻礙而不是幫助或必要條件來對待。因為它們不是「理性」的，沒有明確地進入我們的推理，所以它們常常被當作不理性的，與智能行動相反。然而，雖然影響我們行動的非理性因素中有很多可能是不理性的，但我們使用和假設在行動中的許多「僅僅是習慣」和「無意義的制度」是我們取得成就的必要條件；它們是社會的成功適應，不斷得到改進，取決於它們我們能實現的範圍。雖然發現它們的缺陷很重要，但我們不能在任何時候不持續依賴它們。

我們學習如何安排我們的一天，穿衣，吃飯，安排我們的房子，說話和寫作，以及使用文明提供的無數其他工具和器具，以及生產和貿易的「如何做」知識，為我們自己的文明進程貢獻提供了不斷的基礎。而新想法的出現正是從對文明設施的任何新使用和改進中產生的，最終在智力領域得到處理。

Though the conscious manipula­tion of abstract thought, once it has been set in train, has in some measure a life of its own, it would not long continue and develop without the constant challenges that arise from the ability of peo­ple to act in a new manner, to try new ways of doing things, and to alter the whole structure of civili­zation in adaptation to change. The intellectual process is in effect only a process of elaboration, selec­tion, and elimination of ideas al­ready formed. And the flow of new ideas, to a great extent, springs from the sphere in which action, often nonrational action, and ma­terial events impinge upon each other. It would dry up if freedom were confined to the intellectual sphere.

The importance of freedom, therefore, does not depend on the elevated character of the activities it makes possible. Freedom of ac­tion, even in humble things, is as important as freedom of thought. It has become a common practice to disparage freedom of action by calling it “economic liberty.” But the concept of freedom of action is much wider than that of economic liberty, which it includes; and, what is more important, it is very questionable whether there are any actions which can be called merely “economic” and whether any restrictions on liberty can be confined to what are called merely “economic” aspects. Economic con­siderations are merely those by which we reconcile and adjust our different purposes, none of which, in the last resort, are economic (excepting those of the miser or the man for whom making money has become an end in itself ).

雖然抽象思維能被有意識地操縱，一旦思維上軌道，在某種程度上有自己獨立的生命，但如果沒有人們行動能力帶來的不斷挑戰，它不會長久地繼續和發展，嘗試新的行動方式，並適應變化而改變整個文明結構。智力過程實際上只是一個已經形成的想法精煉、選擇和消除的過程。新想法的流在很大程度上來自於行動領域，往往是非理性的行動和物質事件相互影響。如果自由被局限在智力領域，它就會乾涸。

因此，自由的重要性並不取決於它所允許的活動的高尚程度。即使在平凡的事情上的行動自由與思想自由同樣重要。輕視行動自由，把它稱為「經濟自由」已經成為一種常見做法。但行動自由的概念比經濟自由更廣泛，它包括經濟自由；更重要的是，是否有任何行動可以簡單地被稱為「經濟」的，以及是否有任何自由限制可以局限於所謂的「經濟」方面都是非常值得懷疑的。經濟考慮只是我們調解和調整不同目的的方式，這些目的最終都不是經濟上的（除了吝嗇的人或為誰賺錢已成為目的本身的人）。

The Goals Are Open

Most of what we have said so far applies not only to man’s use of the means for the achievement of his ends but also to those ends themselves. It is one of the char­acteristics of a free society that men’s goals are open, that new ends of conscious effort can spring up, first with a few individuals, to become in time the ends of most. It is a fact which we must recog­nize that even what we regard as good or beautiful is changeable—if not in any recognizable manner that would entitle us to take a rela­tivistic position, then in the sense that in many respects we do not know what will appear as good or beautiful to another generation. Nor do we know why we regard this or that as good or who is right when people differ as to whether something is good or not. It is not only in his knowledge, but also in his aims and values, that man is the creature of civilization; in the last resort, it is the relevance of these individual wishes to the per­petuation of the group or the spe­cies that will determine whether they will persist or change.

It is, of course, a mistake to be­lieve that we can draw conclusions about what our values ought to be simply because we realize that they are a product of evolution. But we cannot reasonably doubt that these values are created and altered by the same evolutionary forces that have produced our in­telligence. All that we can know is that the ultimate decision about what is good or bad will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the decline of the groups that have adhered to the “wrong” beliefs.

目標是開放的

我們到目前為止說的大部分都不僅適用於人類使用實現目標的手段，也適用於這些目標本身。一個自由社會的特點是人們的目標是開放的，新的有意識努力的目標可以首先在少數個體中出現，然後隨著時間的推移成為大多數人的目標。我們必須承認一個事實，即我們認為的良好或美麗是會變的——如果不是以任何可以讓我們採取相對論立場的方式，那麼至少是在許多方面我們不知道下一代會把什麼視為良好或美麗。我們也不知道為什麼我們把這一個或那一個視為良好，當人們對某事是否良好產生分歧時，誰是對的。不僅我們的知識，我們的目標和價值觀也受到文明的影響；最終，這些個人願望與群體或物種延續的相關性將決定它們是否會持續或改變。

當然，相信我們可以簡單地得出我們的價值觀應該是什麼的結論，僅僅因為我們意識到它們是進化產物，這是錯誤的。但我們不能合理地懷疑這些價值觀是通過與產生我們智力的同一進化力量創造和改變的。我們所能知道的一切是，關於什麼是好或壞的最終決定將由個人人類智慧而不是由堅持「錯誤」信仰的群體的衰落來做出。

Measures of Success

It is in the pursuit of man’s aims of the moment that all the devices of civilization have to prove themselves; the ineffective will be discarded and the effective retained. But there is more to it than the fact that new ends con­stantly arise with the satisfaction of old needs and with the appear­ance of new opportunities. Which individuals and which groups suc­ceed and continue to exist depends as much on the goals that they pursue, the values that govern their action, as on the tools and capacities at their command. Whether a group will prosper or be extinguished depends as much on the ethical code it obeys, or the ideals of beauty or well-​being that guide it, as on the degree to which it has learned or not learned to satisfy its material needs. Within any given society, particular groups may rise or decline accord­ing to the ends they pursue and the standards of conduct that they observe. And the ends of the suc­cessful group will tend to become the ends of all members of the so­ciety.

At most, we understand only partially why the values we hold or the ethical rules we observe are conducive to the continued exist­ence of our society. Nor can we be sure that under constantly chang­ing conditions all the rules that have proved to be conducive to the attainment of a certain end will remain so. Though there is a pre­sumption that any established so­cial standard contributes in some manner to the preservation of civ­ilization, our only way of confirming this is to ascertain whether it continues to prove itself in com­petition with other standards ob­served by other individuals or groups.

成功的衡量標準

在追求人類當下的目標時，文明的所有裝置都必須證明自己；無效的會被拋棄，有效的會被保留。但不僅僅是這樣的事實，即隨著舊需求的滿足和新機會的出現，不斷出現新的目標。哪些個體和群體會成功並繼續存在，取決於他們追求的目標和指導他們行動的價值觀，與他們掌握的工具和能力同等重要。一個群體是否會繁榮或滅絕，取決於它遵守的道德準則，或引導它的美學或福祉理想，與它學習滿足物質需求的程度同等重要。在任何給定的社會中，特定的群體可能會根據他們追求的目標和他們遵守的行為標準而興起或衰落。成功的群體的目標傾向於成為社會所有成員的目標。

至多，我們只能部分地理解我們擁有的價值觀或我們遵守的道德規則為什麼會促進我們社會的持續存在。我們也不能確定，在不斷變化的條件下，所有被證明有利於實現某個目標的規則是否會保持有利。雖然有假設，任何既定的社會標準都以某種方式有助於文明的保存，但我們確認這一點的唯一途徑是確定它是否在與其他標準競爭時繼續證明自己，這些標準由其他個人或群體遵守。

Competition Affords Alternatives

The competition in which the process of selection rests must be understood in the widest sense. It involves competition between or­ganized and unorganized groups no less than competition between in­dividuals. To think of it in con­trast to cooperation or organization would be to misconceive its nature. The endeavor to achieve certain results by cooperation and or­ganization is as much a part of competition as individual efforts. Successful group relations also prove their effectiveness in com­petition among groups organized in different ways. The relevant dis­tinction is not between individual and group action but between con­ditions, on the one hand, in which alternative ways based on differ­ent views or practices may be tried and conditions, on the other, in which one agency has the exclu­sive right and the power to pre­vent others from trying. It is only when such exclusive rights are conferred on the presumption of superior knowledge of particular individuals or groups that the process ceases to be experimental and beliefs that happen to be prevalent at a given time may be­come an obstacle to the advance­ment of knowledge.

The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful means that human reason can em­ploy, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from trying to do better. Every organi­zation is based on given knowl­edge; organization means commit­ment to a particular aim and to particular methods, but even or­ganization designed to increase knowledge will be effective only in­sofar as the knowledge and beliefs on which its design rests are true. And if any facts contradict the beliefs on which the structure of the organization is based, this will become evident only in its failure and supersession by a different type of organization.

競爭提供替代方案

選擇過程所基於的競爭必須被理解為最廣泛的意義。它涉及到組織和非組織群體之間的競爭，與個人之間的競爭一樣。把它與合作或組織相對地來思考，就會誤解它的本質。通過合作和組織來實現特定結果的努力是競爭的一部分，與個人努力一樣。成功的群體關係也證明了它們在不同組織方式的群體之間的競爭中的有效性。確切的區別不是個人和群體行動之間的區別，而是在於（一）可以嘗試不同觀點或實踐的替代方案的狀況，以及（二）一個機構擁有專屬權利和權力，阻止他人嘗試的狀況之間。只有當這種專屬權利被授予被假設具有優越知識的特定個人或群體時，這過程才會停止成為實驗性，而適逢其時的主流信仰可能會成為知識進步的障礙。

對自由的辯護不是反對組織的辯護，組織是人類理性可以使用的最強大的手段之一，而是反對所有獨佔的、有特權、壟斷性組織的辯護，反對使用強制措施阻止他人嘗試做得更好。每個組織都基於現有的知識；組織意味著對特定目標和特定方法的承諾，但即使是旨在增加知識的組織，只有在其設計所基於的知識和信仰是真實的情況下才會有效。如果有任何事實與組織結構所基於的信仰相矛盾，這只有在組織失敗並被不同類型的組織取代時才會變得明顯。

Organization is therefore likely to be beneficial and effective so long as it is voluntary and is im­bedded in a free sphere and will either have to adjust itself to cir­cumstances not taken into account in its conception or fail. To turn the whole of society into a single organization built and directed ac­cording to a single plan would be to extinguish the very forces that shaped the individual human minds that planned it.

It is worth our while to consider for a moment what would happen if only what was agreed to be the best available knowledge were to be used in all action. If all at­tempts that seemed wasteful in the light of generally accepted knowl­edge were prohibited and only such questions asked, or such experi­ments tried, as seemed significant in the light of ruling opinion, man­kind might well reach a point where its knowledge enabled it to predict the consequences of all con­ventional actions and to avoid all disappointment or failure. Man would then seem to have subjected his surroundings to his reason, for he would attempt only those things which were totally predictable in their results. We might conceive of a civilization coming to a stand­still, not because the possibilities of further growth had been ex­hausted, but because man had suc­ceeded in so completely subjecting all his actions and his immediate surroundings to his existing state of knowledge that there would be no occasion for new knowledge to appear.

The rationalist who desires to subject everything to human rea­son is thus faced with a real di­lemma. The use of reason aims at control and predictability. But the process of the advance of reason rests on freedom and the unpre­dictability of human action. Those who extol the powers of human reason usually see only one side of that interaction of human thought and conduct in which reason is at the same time used and shaped. They do not see that, for advance to take place, the social process from which the growth of reason emerges must remain free from its control.

因此，組織很可能在自願且嵌入自由領域的情況下，在調整自己以適應在設計時沒有考慮到的環境或失敗的條件下，會是有利和有效的。把整個社會變成一個根據單一計劃建造和管理的單一組織，會消滅塑造了設計那單一組織的個人心智的那些力量。

我們值得花點時間考慮，如果只使用被同意是可用知識中的最佳知識來指導所有行動會發生什麼。如果禁止看起來浪費的嘗試，只問那些在統治意見下看起來有意義的問題，或進行那些看起來有意義的實驗，人類可能會達到一個知識的水平，能夠預測所有傳統行動的後果，避免所有失望或失敗。人似乎已經用他的理性征服了周圍的環境，因為他只會嘗試那些結果完全可預見的事情。我們可以想像一個文明會停滯不前，不是因為進一步成長的可能性已被用盡，而是因為人已經成功地把他的所有行動和他的直接環境完全控制在他的現有知識下，沒有出現新知識的必要。

希望把一切都提交給人類理性的理性主義者面臨著一個真正的兩難境地。理性的使用旨在控制和預測。但理性進步的過程依賴於自由和人類行動的不可預測性。那些讚美人類理性力量的人通常只看到這種人類思想和行為相互作用的其中一面，其中理性被使用和塑造。他們沒有看到，為了取得進步，產生理性增長的社會過程必須自由於其控制。

Freezing the Process

There can be little doubt that man owes some of his greatest suc­cesses in the past to the fact that he has not been able to control so­cial life. His continued advance may well depend on his deliber­ately refraining from exercising controls which are now in his power. In the past, the spontane­ous forces of growth, however much restricted, could usually still assert themselves against the or­ganized coercion of the state. With the technological means of control now at the disposal of government, it is not certain that such assertion is still possible; at any rate, it may soon become impossible. We are not far from the point where the deliberately organized forces of society may destroy those spon­taneous forces which have made advance possible.

凍結過程

幾乎可以確定，人類過去的一些最大成就歸功於他無法控制社會生活。他的持續進步可能取決於他有意識地避免使用他現在擁有的控制權。在過去，儘管受到限制，但成長的自發力量仍然能夠對抗國家的組織強制。隨著政府現在掌握的技術控制手段，這種主張可能不再可能；至少，它很快就會變得不可能。我們距離社會的有意組織力量可能摧毀使進步成為可能的那些自發力量不遠了。