An Interpretation Of Darwin 's Concept Of Evolution In The Perspective Of Hayek And Amartya Sen

In 1856, the first edition of Darwin’s theory of evolution was officially published,and the systematic theory of biological evolution was set up. Its birth has had a wide influence, especially on the deepening understanding of human’s common development concept. The content and extension of the idea of the theory of evolution are very rich. It was the first to put forward the systematic evolutionary theory in the biological field. By the twentieth century, the dual social evolution theory was put forward.The so-called dual evolution theory is that there are two different evolutions in social evolution. One kind is biological evolution. Another is cultural evolution. The biological evolution is the dual evolution of both the matter and the consciousness.The gene is the evolution in the body, while the cultural evolution is the evolution outside the body. In modern society, human evolution is not reflected in the biological evolution but cultural evolution. “Mutation, natural selection, and reproduction” is the process of “the selective retention of gradual evolution, and the generation of new variation”. It is a process of the exploration of the outside world’s regularity, and the gathering of information and obtaining of knowledge, which is the process to obtain knowledge in broad terms. The knowledge in broad terms is the incremental results of variation, selection and replication.The evolution is to obtain knowledge of the outside world. How to get the knowledge of the world? How to obtain the knowledge of the human society? These two problems belong to the category of epistemology. Our free will and reason are all the result of biological evolution and cultural evolution. They are the complex interactions between genes(biological evolution) and meme(cultural evolution). We ourselves are the result of Darwin’s gradual process—the result of the evolutionary mechanism variation, selection, and accumulation.To obtain the understanding of the world relies on the emotion and rationality.The perceptual ability is born with, belonging to the knowledge we are born with.Although this knowledge does not have the form of the concept, it has the action choreography and forms adapting the physiology enabling us to survive.Rationality is human’s cognitive ability of the society. It is gradually formed in thesocial interaction among people.Liberalism is the mainstream ideology of political philosophy. The wish to get the rational consensus in value concept has always supported the mainstream liberal philosophy. The diversity of human being’s way of living has always interfered the achievement of this ideal.These two topics of rationality and freedom are mutually both independent and dependent. Rationality is a necessary condition to achieve the freedom of the individual. It leads people to treat carefully the freedom, shedding off the laissez faire freedom. When we are exercising the free rights, we can also fully use the personal judgment, having the sense of morality and responsibility. In the process of the realization of the freedom, apart from rationality, the results of the cultural revolution such as tradition, customs, and morality are also playing an important role.Only by combining with the driving forces beyond the reach of these certain rationality, can rationality guides people’s words and deeds.Policy and suggestion are side confirmations to judge the rationality and freedom concept held by economists. Nevertheless, the opinion and attitude on the cognition and human being’s knowledge are also very important, and even more important. The conflicts of different rationality and freedom concepts are the conflicts of epistemology.This paper makes a contrastive analysis with the opinions on rationality and freedom of two economists under the perspective of the evolution theory, finding out their differences and exploring their roots.