Naturalistic Fallacy

To distinguish between “spontaneous order” regarded as “Great Society” and “spontaneous order” as “any blind self-generated mechanism evolving in accordance with the changes in the environment” becomes essential when it is necessary to avoid the naturalistic fallacy. The “Great Society” is a spontaneous order provided with several sub-systems which behave as spontaneous orders in themselves, such as the law, morals, language, monetary systems and so on. The present legal system of a given society, although spontaneously evolved, is not necessarily the only possible spontaneous legal system to rule that society.

The Law and the Social Order

That the law follows the evolution pattern of a spontaneous order –like the language or the monetary system also do- does not imply that the rules prevailing in any society -meant as a spontaneous order as well- have to be regarded as norms worth of being obeyed just because they emerge from the spontaneous social order. As we had already said, whether a norm acts as a negative or a positive feedback system, giving society a stabilization devise or not, is subject to being empirically proved. Once that problem is solved, we have to face with the question of if the stable order that that norm contribute to is also in accordance with our values, such as the importance of the individual liberty or of the equality before the law.

Stability

Since rational agents are not fully aware of the rules which govern human action, no social institution can provide the spontaneous order with a complete stability. Moreover, the aptitude for providing stability for any social order is not a necessary attribute for every set of rules that compound an institution. Whether a particular social institution plays a role of a negative feedback system in the social order or not is a statement subject to empirical investigation.