A Thinking Reed

Political philosophy Friday

Written by

Lee M.

in

I’ve sometimes described my political outlook as “chastened liberalism”, or, more grandiosely, “Augustinian liberalism.” Imagine my interest, then, when I came across these couple of articles:

A Christian Argument for Political Self-Restraint

Augustine and the Case for Limited Government [PDF]

Probably the secular thinker who’s influenced me the most in this area is F.A. Hayek, whose argument for limited government and against a planned economy rests more on the inherent limitations of our knowledge than on a theory of natural rights. This resonates well with an Augustinian emphasis on our fragmented and fallen state I think.

P.S. A valuable Christian thinker in this vein is Glenn Tinder. See especially his The Political Meaning of Christianity.

Comments

2 responses to “Political philosophy Friday”

  1. Lynn Gazis-Sax

    Yeah, I’ve been thinking that, while some of the limitations I want to see on government depend on inherent rights and wrongs (torture being the obvious example), others have more to do with my sense of the limitations of what government is good for than any absolute theory of rights.

    Reply
  2. Lee

    Right – and I wouldn’t want to deny that there are rights, or moral boundaries limiting what can legitimately be done to people.

    Reply

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