The Whig Roots of Burkean and Hayekian Philosophy

The Liberalism/Conservatism Of 

Edmund Burke and F. A. Hayek:

A Critical Comparison

by Linda C. Raeder

[From HUMANITAS, Volume X, No. 1, 1997. © National Humanities Institute]

Edmund Burke, the passionate defender of the "ancient principles"1 of his forebears, might be surprised to discover that he originated a new school of political thought. By all accounts, however, he is the "modern founder of political conservatism,"2 and generations of ‘conservative’ thinkers have found his life and work a rich source of philosophical and practical wisdom. Burke, of course, was a statesman and not a political philosopher, and he never produced anything that may be regarded as a systematic political treatise. Nevertheless, he embraced a consistent political creed that governed his actions throughout his life. The thesis of this essay is that Burke’s implicit political creed is, in all essential respects, the doctrine articulated by the twentieth-century social philosopher F. A. Hayek. Hayek’s aim, he said, was to "restate" 3 or systematize those basic principles whose observance generated and sustain Western constitutional government and the free society. The "classical liberal" principles articulated by Hayek were also those that inspired and guided Burke.

Burke and Hayek, in short, represent the same political tradition. Not only do they subscribe to the same substantive political philosophy, but they hold similar views regarding the nature of society, the role of reason in human affairs, the proper tasks of government, and, to a certain extent, the nature of moral and legal rules. Although there are differences between their views as well, differences that stem from Burke’s orthodox Christianity on the one hand and Hayek’s religious agnosticism on the other, the area of substantive agreement between their respective views is far greater than that of their disagreement. The heart of the matter is that both Burke and Hayek remained, as Hayek put it, "unrepentant Old Whig[s]"4 to the end.


The Whig Roots of Burkean and Hayekian Philosophy


The political creed to which Burke and Hayek subscribe—the doctrine of the "ancient, constitutional" 5 or "Old" Whigs—was an offshoot of the conflict that culminated in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Whigs were united by a common passion—the hatred of arbitrary power—and the prevention of arbitrary action by government ever remained the guiding aim of their political practice. The basic issue around which Whig opinion formed had been identified as early as 1610: "There is no[thing] which [we] account . . . more dear and precious than this, to be guided and governed by the certain rule of law, . . . and not by any uncertain and arbitrary form of government . . ." 6 —that is, government ". . . not in accordance with received general laws." 7 According to John Locke’s account, what the Whigs fought for was

[f]reedom . . . to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, . . . a liberty to follow [one’s] own will in all things, where that rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man. . . . [W]hoever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth is bound to govern by established standing laws promulgated and known to the people and not by extemporary decrees. . . . [Even the legislature has no] absolute arbitrary power, . . . but is bound to dispense justice, . . . [while the] supreme executor of the law . . . has no will, no power, but that of the law. . . . [The] ultimate aim is to . . . limit the power and moderate the dominion of every part and member of that society.8

Although the translation of Whig ideals into law and public policy was inevitably a slow and imperfect process, by the time Burke appeared on the scene "the principles themselves ceased to be a matter of dispute."9 Moreover, Burke himself lent considerable energy to institutionalizing Whig ideals; he spent much of his political life endeavoring to reform British law in their spirit.10

The modern interpreter, then, cannot understand Burke’s political philosophy unless he is acquainted with the Whig conceptions of liberty and law. Liberty, to the Whig mind, had a precise and definite meaning: freedom from arbitrary (that is, "ruleless") coercion, whether emanating from the crown, the parliament, or the people. On the Whig view, such freedom was gained by strict adherence to the rule of law, that is to say, to ". . . something permanent, uniform, and universal [and] . . . not a transient sudden order from a superior or concerning a particular person. . . ."11 We note that the conception of liberty-under-law to which Burke and Hayek subscribed has nothing to do with what they both regarded as the "French" 12 conception of liberty—‘political freedom’ in the sense of participation in the determination of law or policy.13 Nor, we might add, has it anything to do with ‘inner freedom’ or the conception of freedom as power or ability to act. For Whigs such as Burke and Hayek, the only kind of freedom that can be secured by a political order is freedom-under-law in the sense of freedom from arbitrary coercion.


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• On The Nature of Society
• On the Role of Reason in Human Affairs
• On Economics
• On Religion and Politics
• On Rights
• On Law and Morals 

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