Abstract
This chapter argues that the metaphysics of economic reality offers a suitable foundation for understanding Purgatory. Purgatory, as a place to personally pay off one’s freely incurred debts, is grounded in the same metaphysical framework as economic reality. Two notions figure crucially in this account. The quality space permeates all of reality and its two extremities are eternal bliss or eternal suffering, i.e. Heaven and Hell. Fitness peaks are action possibilities that transfactually cause a person to reach a position in that quality space that is relatively higher than other nearby action possibilities. They are dynamic, i.e. they can grow or shrink through time or because of our actions. A person is always either more disposed towards the one ultimate fitness peak called Heaven, or more disposed away from it. This results largely from the decisions and habits of a lifetime, even though the last moments before death remain crucial. For those tending more towards Heaven than away from it, but lacking a perfect directedness towards it, their death leaves them at a metaphysical distance from Heaven. This distance is the accumulated debt relative to the fitness peak Heaven. Purgatory is the bridging of that distance, while lacking the abundant powers and resources of creation that can be used to reach that fitness peak. Since the period for making decisions is over, one can only passively undergo this process of purification, at the rate at which one was disposed towards Heaven at the moment of one’s death.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
R. L. Anjum, S. A. N. Lie, and S. Mumford (2013) ‘Dispositions and Ethics’ in R. Groff and J. Greco (eds.) Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism (New York: Routledge), pp. 231–247.
J. J. Gibson (1986) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (New York: Psychology Press).
J. M. Keynes (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (London: Palgrave Macmillan).
L. B. Lombard (1986) Events: A Metaphysical Study (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul).
S. Mumford and R. L. Anjum (2011) Getting Causes from Powers (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
R. M. Pirsig (1974). Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (New York: HarperCollins).
S. Wright (1932) ‘The Roles of Mutation, Inbreeding, Crossbreeding and Selection in Evolution’, Proceedings of the VI International Congress of Genetrics, 356–366.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bauwens, M. (2017). On the Metaphysics of Economics and Purgatory. In: Vanhoutte, K., McCraw, B. (eds) Purgatory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-57890-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-57891-0
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)