Hayek grounded the morals of the market in evolutionary selection, not natural rights.

Evidence

Hayek, for instance, explicitly rejected the view that morals and rules are ‘permanently implanted in an unalterable nature of man’. His mentor Mises had put it in these blunt terms decades earlier: ‘The fact is that Nature grants no rights at all’. Rejecting the dichotomy between natural law and rationally constructed rules, Hayek argued that culture, institutions and morals are ‘neither natural nor artificial, neither genetically transmitted nor rationally designed’. Morals develop, he argued, through the unconscious selection of the values and institutions that provide those who submit to them with the greatest benefits. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 28

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s long-standing threads on social capital and reputational/evolutionary accounts of cooperation (Milgrom, Coleman). — connects to: Hayek grounded negative rights in utilitarian market efficiency, not natural law. — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 411; Hayek justified private property as instrumental, not as a natural right. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 174; Hayek’s market-morals argument drew on explicitly ethical justifications of capitalism. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 491 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies that Hayek’s account of market morals is neither natural-law nor rational-construction but evolutionary — a precise conceptual position.

Broader Connections

• Hayek grounded negative rights in utilitarian market efficiency, not natural law. #corroborates (0.92) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 411
• Hayek justified private property as instrumental, not as a natural right. #corroborates (0.85) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 174
• Hayek roots markets and morals in one ontology of spontaneously evolved tradition #expands (0.85) — Wendy Brown, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, 158
• Neoliberal thinkers rejected natural-rights foundations, deriving morality from market evolution #expands (0.85) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 28
• Hayek’s market-morals argument drew on explicitly ethical justifications of capitalism. #complicates (0.75) — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 491