… is from page 299 of Hayek’s 1971 essay “Socialism and Science,” reprinted as chapter 20 in Hayek’s 1978 collection, New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas:
Moral tasks are individual tasks, and moral advance by some groups results from their members adopting rules which are more conducive to the preservation and welfare of the group. Moral progress demands the possibility of individual experimentation; in particular, that within a limited framework of compulsory abstract rules the individual is free to use his own knowledge for his own purposes. The growth of what we call civilisation is due to this principle of a person’s responsibility for his own actions and their consequences, and the freedom to pursue his own ends without having to obey the leader of the band to which he belongs.
