Limited liability laws were unpopular in earlier, Christian eras but have flourished in the Darwinian world. They rest on important religious presuppositions.
In a statement central to his account, C. S. Lewis described his preference, prior to his conversion, for a materialistic, atheistic universe. The advantages of such a world are the very limited demands it makes on a man.
To such a craven the materialist's universe has the enormous attraction that it offered you limited liabilities. No strictly infinite disaster could overtake you in it. Death ended all. And if ever finite disasters proved greater than one wished to bear, suicide would always be possible. The horror of the Christian universe was that it had no door marked Exit. . . . But, of course, what mattered most of all was my deap-seated hatred of authority, my monstrous individualism, my lawlessness. No word in my vocabulary expressed deeper hatred than the word Interference. But Christianity placed at the center what then seemed to me a transcendental Interferer. If its picture were true then no sort of "treaty with reality" could ever be possible. There was no region even in the innermost depth of one's soul (nay, there least of all) which one could surround with a barbed wire fence and guard with a notice of No Admittance. And that was what I wanted; some area, however small, of which I could say to all other beings, "This is my business and mine only."
This is an excellent summation of the matter. The atheist wants a limited liability universe, and he seeks to create a limited liability political and economic order. The more socialistic he becomes, the more he demands a maximum advantage and a limited liability from his social order, an impossibility."
No comments:
Post a Comment