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A Libertarian Critique: U.S. Military Conscription: Constitutional Power or Involuntary Servitude?

Ben Bertoni

Background:

While searching for a suitable topic for this assignment, I found a discussion that has immediate relevance to be as both a Libertarian and prospective member of the military. I decided on the topic of the U.S. conscription process after talking with several friends and observing ‘meme culture’, and how it fantasized about this system with the rise in geo-political unrest. This topic has many different outlets of opinion, but the two that I will focus on are largely mainstream in terms of cohesion and evidence. These two sides are divided by Constitutional interpretation, specifically having to do with what rights the American government has to form a militant force to defend itself with. The foundation of this disagreement is the understanding of whether the conscription process is a right of the federal government as given by the constitution, or is actually ‘involuntary servitude’ as defined by the 13th Amendment. My position on this topic is far more nuanced than these two principled understandings, though I would strongly side with conscription being classified as involuntary service. One of these nuances is the distinction that I make between an ‘offensive’ and ‘defensive’ war. Based on this contrast, I believe that defensive wars, or those that are preemptive responses to a threat or attack on sovereign soil of the United States, and offensive wars are any militant actions that do not fit this description.

Introduction:

If you have been on any social media platform over the past two to three months you are likely aware of the sensationalization that younger generations have placed on the military draft through meme culture. While much of this is overexaggerated by means of ignorance to the topic of conscription or geo-political unrest on a whole, this reaction illustrates that a lionshare of the public is largely confused with the legal protocol and jargon of the conscription process. The common understanding is that only ‘eligible’ males between the ages of 18 and 25 are required to register with the Selective Service, the federal organization that controls how the draft occurs. However, what most do not grasp is that every male between the aforementioned age range is required to register, regardless of disabilities or conscientious objections. In this paper, I will demonstrate my full support of a conscription process for defensive wars, but argue that offensive wars should not be allowed to enforce mandatory enlistment because it is an abuse of power by the U.S. government.

Body:

It is always best to start by defining particulars and in this portion of the proposal we will dive into what ‘conscription’ means, as it pertains to its use in the United States system of Selective Service. Understanding these terms is critical to grasping the larger context as well as being able to enter into the wider academic discussion in good faith. Conscription, also known as the draft, is defined as “compulsory enrollment for service in a country’s armed forces.” This institution has been a staple of regimes since ancient history, and is widely seen as a set in stone tradition that is necessary for safety and security of a given nation or territory. However, as a Libertarian, I recognize that the government’s true purpose is to self-perpetuate more government. As a result, I am skeptical of government regulations and mandations, and argue that conscription, or mandatory military service, should only be employed in defensive wars. Allowing the government to install a draft for an offensive war (any military response not in the territories of the US), continues a dangerous precedent in which we as citizens are slaves to the whims of those who control these institutions.

The current state of this discussion is still heavily debated between political ideologies, namely libertarian and conservative groups. My goal is to shed new light on this division and bring new understanding to the separation of legality and morality. The major foundation that the anti-conscription group utilizes as a defense of their interpretation of conscription is the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The full text of the 13th Amendment (where we derive the notion of involuntary servitude) is as follows: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” This was originally the amendment that abolished slavery in the United States and since that point it has been widely used as a criticism of conscription. This was best illustrated when the Libertarian Party put out a statement condemning conscription outright.

“The draft is simply slavery by another name. Drafting people to go abroad and kill or be killed is barbaric and a discredit to our military and country,” says Nicholas Sarwark, chair of the Libertarian National Committee. “If a national emergency is so severe as to merit mobilizing extra troops, Americans from all backgrounds, ages, and genders will pitch in to do what is needed. The Libertarian Party urges elected leaders to end the draft and also to pursue foreign policy which is less dependent on military might.”

Though this is from an institution that I largely agree with on a political level, I take issue with the destruction of conscription as a whole. Conscription has valuable contributions to give to society as a whole. For example, conscription gives testament to the social contract that exists between private citizens and the federal government, a notion that was popularized by theorists such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke. The basic idea of the social contract that citizens create and give power to a government, and in return the government rewards the citizens with rights. Rights, such as property rights, are provided by the government, but liberties are what keeps the government under the control of the people. Both citizens and government have duties to each other, thus allowing each to operate in a balanced and checked system. Taxes and conscription are duties of the citizenship to the U.S. government, therefore I am not arguing for the demolishing of conscription; simply a qualifier for what the government has a right to demand from its people.

All Americans, and especially libertarians (who purport to both encourage liberty and be more effective than government when it comes to saving money and lives), should think about both constitutional and cultural benefits and regressions of maintaining conscription because it is important to differentiate between checking the powers of government and undermining a common good. This is because most libertarians have anarchical leanings and this boosts a dishonest approach to the necessity of government. Some libertarians argue that the social contract theory is a “statist apologia”, and that it is simply an excuse used by those who support the limitation of liberty. Though this dives into another topic completely, such a statement makes me completely disregard them as rational beings. Going into an argument believing whole-heartedly that the opposition is operating in bad faith, is detrimental to the outcome, especially if you claim to be operating in good faith while employing such antics.

The main citation that those who support the conscription process is found in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the US Constitution. It is stated that the US Congress has the absolute power to, “…raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years.” The main issue that I have with this interpretation of the clause is that though the Constitution has the ability to ‘raise and support armies’ there are conflicting amendments. The 13th Amendment which we went over in the first paragraph, would define conscription as compulsory (mandatory) which would breach the clause having to do with involuntary servitude. With this being said, the government should have the right to defend itself along with its citizens, and thus I argue that defensive wars should be the only instance wherein the draft is used. Even the Selective Service System echoes this sentiment:

“The constitutionality of the Military Selective Service Act (MSSA) has been consistently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. As was stated by the Court in the case of Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598 (1985), “Few interests can be more compelling than a nation’s need to ensure its own security. It is well to remember that freedom as we know it has been suppressed in many countries. Unless a society has the capability and will to defend itself from the aggressions of others, constitutional protections of any sort have little meaning.”

Conclusion:

The ongoing debate between contemporary scholars on whether or not military conscription is a right of government or simply an abuse of power is still raging. However, in this paper I offer up my simple argument for why there should be a clear distinction between an ‘offensive’ war and a ‘defensive’ force used to defend the homeland of the United States. Offensive wars should only be manned by employed members of the military and the volunteership of those who feel strongly about that particular conflict. I charge all libertarians who claim to value human life to consider employing the social contract theory to rationalize future opinions on government action. It is important to utilize our ability to see the dangers of unchecked government to support the public, not just ourselves.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

D’Amato, D. S., & Facebook Twitter. (2018, January 30). Social Contract Theory as Statist Apologia. Retrieved from https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/social-contract-theory-statist-apologia

Duignan, B. (n.d.). The Social Contract and Philosophy. Accessed March 31, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/story/the-social-contract-and-philosophy.

“Frequently Asked Questions.” Accessed March 22, 2020. https://www.sss.gov/faq/.

Staff. “The Draft Is Slavery. End It.” Libertarian Party, April 14, 2017. Accessed February 19, 2020. https://www.lp.org/news-press-releases-libertarian-party-the-draft-is-slavery-end-it/.

“Power to Declare War.” US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives. Accessed February 7, 2020. https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/War-Powers/.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Conscription. (2020, March 05). Retrieved February 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/conscription.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Selective Service System. (2016, May 24). Retrieved February 24, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Selective-Service-System.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Thirteenth Amendment.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., August 14, 2019. Accessed February 4, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thirteenth-Amendment.

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My First Blog Post

One of the first philosophy papers I wrote. At this time I would still have classified myself as ‘Christian’, and that is fairly evident throughout the text. Let me know what you think!
Ben Bertoni

Virtue versus vice; the balance between these two avenues of character expression is an undying battle that has lasted since the beginning of time, and will last until the end of time. As I brainstormed about which virtue and vice I wanted to delve into and compare for this assignment, I settled on the virtue Justice fairly quickly; whereas, the vice Cruelty, took a while longer for me to come around to. I decided to choose Justice because it is a virtue that I believe I have, but want to grow stronger in. I have always been seen to be an impartial mediator when dealing with friends and family, but as I look towards my vocation and professional career in the future, I hope to become even closer to this excellent virtue. Cruelty, while not the opposite of Justice, is very closely linked to it in various aspects. In this paper, we will discuss both the definitions, applications and implications of these declarations of moral extremities.

As Christians, we are called to love as God loves; this means having mercy as God had mercy on us. This is something I struggle with every day, I tend to have unchecked judgement based on something someone has said or believe, be it in politics, religion or casual conversation. One way that I hope to lean into “justice by love” is through compassion. Seeing the struggle of the perpetrator and empathizing with their plight. We see this in action with Christians after a terror attack on a Charleston church in South Carolina. The families of the victims came to the courtroom, confronted the shooter and forgave him; showing the epitome of the Christian heart. I cannot imagine the pain that these individuals were experiencing, but if they were able to muster up the courage to give God’s grace and love to the murderer of their family members, then I have no excuse.

Let us start by looking at Justice with a critical eye. Justice is defined as “righteousness, equitableness, or moral rightness: to uphold the justice of a cause”. using this definition, we can begin to think about the applications of this virtue. There are a copious amount of principles involved in the term ‘justice’. For example, fairness, equality, and reciprocation are just a few of the auxiliary aspects. To be able to apply Justice with the appropriate effectiveness, these secondary provisions must be given appurtenant contemplation. These provisions are applied differently depending on the form of justice required in any given circumstance. For example, “justice by law” would keep strictly to these stipulations, while “justice by love” would have a heavier inclination to mercy and empathy.

Victor Nell, an author and neuropsychologist, defines Cruelty as, “…the deliberate infliction of physical or psychological pain on other living creatures, sometimes indifferently, but often with delight.” When researching for this exquisite definition of Cruelty, I came across a list of synonyms that is perhaps more telling than the definition could be. Among the ‘Related Terms’, was the word ‘inhumanity’. Ultimately, to be cruel or brutal is to be animal-like, or to lose your sense of humanity, which is why those who are guilty of cruel and unusual crimes are judged harsher than those guilty of venial crimes.

As we shift our focus from virtue to vice, keep in mind that one is an extreme of moral expression and the other is the ‘golden mean’ between the two extremes; Cruelty and Justice respectively. I chose this vice because I do not have extensive knowledge of Cruelty and hoped to confront it in my own life and in the lives of those who I surround myself with. That is, after all, the purpose of moral philosophy; to live an ‘examined life’ and improve yourself and those around you by pursuing virtues of the soul rather than pure carnal pleasure to pleasure’s sake. Cruelty, as described by famed author George Eliot, is “…like every other vice, it [cruelty] requires no motive outside itself; it only requires opportunity.” In one masterful sentence, Eliot is able to simplify all vices as having one underlying “capital vice”; which is ultimately selfishness in gaining pleasure, and a loss of self-control.

In conclusion, in the section devoted to Justice, we came to understand that rather than it being an opposing extreme to its dependent vice (injustice), it is the mean between two extremes that constitute as vices. The opposite is true for the second section; or the paragraphs dedicated to the vice Cruelty. Cruelty is not only the opposite of mercy, but also only one of two vices connected to the mean of ‘mercy’. I found the research that I sifted through for this assignment to be eye opening, as I attempted to spread out further than just the readings that were assigned in class. As Christians, we have a unique role to play as both critical philosophers and steadfast believers. That means every circumstance we find ourselves in with grace and justice, and not prejudice or cruelty. We must also balance compassion with naivety, and not let our emotions override our rational process. Cruelty and Justice, while not dependent on each other have many colliding aspects such as the idea of mercy, or the lack thereof. Using these similarities I hope to call out Cruelty and the miscarriage of Justice. I encourage my fellow Christians to do the same, and to put the ‘Justice of Love’ above the ‘Justice of Law’, as God does for us.

Bibliography:

Eliot, George. “Janet’s Repentance: Chapter 13.” Accessed April 28, 2019. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/e/eliot/george/e42j/chapter13.html.

“Justice.” Virtue First Foundation. Accessed April 29, 2019.

Laughland, Oliver, Paul Lewis, and Raya Jalabi. “‘I Forgive You’: Charleston Church Victims’ Families Confront Suspect.” The Guardian. June 19, 2015. Accessed April 28, 2019.

Nell, Victor. “Cruelty’s Rewards: The Gratifications of Perpetrators and Spectators.” PhilPapers. January 01, 1970. Accessed May 01, 2019.

Meno Burg: How a Jewish Military Officer Navigated Ramping Anti-Semitism During the 19th Century

Introduction:
To understand the significance and horrors of the Holocaust and terror of the World War II era, it is necessary to grasp how antisemitic rhetoric was spreading and affecting prominent Jewish figures prior to the Nazi takeover of Eastern Europe. In this paper, we will be looking at a prominent member of the Jewish military community and how he navigated mounting violence against Jews due to an increased frequency in smear campaigns and conspiracies against the Hebrew nation. The main subject of my research is Meno Burg; a Jewish member of the Prussian military during the mid-19th century. This topic and research is something that I hope to pursue next year as my Junior Research Project and using Sociology Professor Tim Bertoni, my father, as an additional source, I think that this library free research project will have credibility.

Meno Burg was born on October 9th, 1789 into a poor Jewish family in modern day Berlin, Germany. After attending the Berlin Building Academy in 1807, he apprenticed for his cousin Salomo Sachs, a government building inspector, and Burg was soon after promoted to the position of field-surveyor. To this point, Sachs was one of two Jewish men in Prussian civil service who had not renounced their Jewish beliefs. Subsequently, Berg was restricted in terms of employment and career choice, however, under Frederick William II, he became a civil servant of the Prussian government. This was exceedingly rare, as it was officially illegal for a person of Jewish descent to hold a government position under the ‘Revised General Concession and Regulation’. This is just one of the many discriminatory laws that barred Burg, and other Hebrews who aspired to put their talents to work for their government as civil servants.

In 1813, Fredrich Wilhelm III finally joined Russia to beat back Napoleon and the French forces from invading Eastern Europe and encouraged other German states to do the same. “A new struggle for liberation opened three years later with the defeat of Napoleon’s grande armée in Russia. As the Russian armies began to cross western frontiers in December 1812, the crucial question became what reception they would find among the rulers and the inhabitants of central Europe.” The king was pressured to join the Russians by one of his generals, and he joined the war effort reluctantly, in contrast to many of the Prussian people. Watching this chaos unfold was Meno Burg and masses of young and ambitious Prussian men and as war became more imminent, it became second nature for this demographic to enlist, nor could you blame them as they were filled with pride and patriotism. Subsequently, on 14 February, 1813 Meno Burg volunteered for military service to fight for ‘Prussia’s freedom and rebirth’, as he put it.

Burg applied to be a part of an elite guard known as the Guard Infantry Battalion (Garde-Normal-Bataillon), but was refused entry solely based on his Judaism. However, his position as a government official afforded him valuable connections, one of which was the Prince of Prussia, Wilhelm Heinrich Augustus. This relationship was quite significant as Prince Augustus “…secured for him [Burg] admission to the artillery; but his desire to go to the front was not fulfilled, and he had to be content with service in the fortresses. At the end of the war he was appointed instructor at the provisional military school at Danzig; and when the school at Berlin was established, in 1817, he was transferred there.” Here, Burg taught geometry and actually became very popular after publishing a textbook on the subject. He was promoted on time and according to his seniority on the 4th of July 1826, while other Jewish volunteers were rejected because of their faith. However, when it came to being promoted to officership, the fact that he was now a well known author and respected military educator were not taken into consideration, as the King wished Burg to abandon his heritage and be baptised as a Christian, an invitation that Burg refused. As a result, he was originally only promoted to the position of “captain of the army”, a rank that was not equivalent to a captain of the artillery. And when he finally was promoted to his proper rank, he was denied the right to wear the uniform of the artillery, and was forced to wear that of an armory captain, the lowest ranking branch in the Prussian army.

Interestingly, during the Pre-March Era (an era known for its suppression of autonomy and harsh reform of civic institutions), through a cabinet order of 16 April 1844, Meno Burg received the uniform and epaulettes that matched his rank. This move came in the same year that Karl Marx published his work “On the Jewish Question” (Zur Judenfrage), and while this would not have had much traction in its day, it shows the corporate negative connotation with Judaism. Marx was in fact ethnically Jewish, but his parents had transitioned to Lutheranism, probably as a professional necessity. In Marx’s essay, he equates “practical Judaism” with “huckstering and money”, and concludes that Christianity and Judaism are now both equally enslaved to ‘practical Judaism’.
Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. “Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist.”
This section of the second half of Marx’s response to Bruno Bauer (the block quote above) is often cited as evidence of his rampant antisemitism. This belief would not have been radical or even unique in this time period, and seeing this during the lifetime of Meno Burg makes you realize just how violent these anti-Hebrew messages often were. Though this is stemming into another topic entirely, these antisemetic ideals were initially birthed through the widespread adoption of Christianity. This is something that I will tackle in my Junior Research Project, along with Durkheim, Heigl, and Dreyfuss.

Unfortunately, this cycle of discrimination continued and after being passed over by younger officers, Meno Burg was finally granted the “character of a Major in the artillery” in March 1847. Though Burg was able to dress appropriately to his rank, he never officially served on an established post as major. This is how Meno Burg would end his military career as he was never in line for another promotion. Burg had a mindsight that was exceedingly rare during this era, and even more obscure now. This was his ability to separate his government service, or career identity, with that of his religious identity. This was one of the hardest tasks that he undertook, as his government considered itself “Christian” and his Jewish congregation classified itself to be “orthodox”. Burg even served as an elder on the board of the congregation for a year, but resigned when it failed to comply with the General Concession for the Jews.

In his autobiography, Meno Burg mentions that he was not able to strictly follow the Jewish ceremonial laws, and had to disengage from a strict orthodoxy.
Burg would begin working on his autobiography in 1847, “History of My Life in Service”, and would be published in 1854; a year after he died as one of the first victims of the cholera epidemic. While he would be regularly persecuted as a result of his religious beliefs while in military service, he was honored with three civilian awards during his lifetime: the Medal for Merit, the Gold Medal for Art and Science, and the Order of the Red Eagle. His funeral, 29 August 1853, was conducted with military honors and was a massive event for the city of Berlin, with over 60,000 people in attendance.

Bibliography:
Burg, Meno (1854). “Geschichte Meines Dienstlebens”. Berlin.
JewishEncyclopedia.com. (n.d.). Accessed April 27, 2020. Retrieved from http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3831-burg-meno.
Marx, Karl. Zur Judenfrage, first published in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 1844.
McLellan, D. T., & Feuer, L. S. (2020, March 10). Karl Marx. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Marx.
Meno Burg. (2020, April 22). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meno_Burg.
PeoplePill. (n.d.). Salomo Sachs: German architect and writer (1772-1855) – Biography and Life. Accessed April 27, 2020. Retrieved from https://peoplepill.com/people/salomo-sachs/.
PeoplePill. (n.d.). Meno Burg: Prussian field officer (1789-1853) – Biography and Life. Accessed April 26, 2020. Retrieved from https://peoplepill.com/people/meno-burg/.
Rieger, Renatus F. (1990). Major Meno Burg. Ein preußischer Offizier jüdischen Glaubens (1789–1853).
Revidiertes General-Privileg. (2019, October 9). Accessed April 27, 2020. Retrieved from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revidiertes_General-Privileg.
War of Liberation. (n.d.). Accessed April 27, 2020. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/War-of-Liberation.

Faith vs. Reason

My Take On The Faith-Reason Debate

This is an essay from my Philosophy 101 class. At this time I would have still classified myself as Christian. My views on this topic have since changed, though not drastically. -Ben Bertoni

‘Smart Graduate’, it was not long ago that I was in a position in my religious faith in which I began to doubt the very existence of an omniscient being; and how much more the notion of prospective ‘religious rationality’ when it comes to the support of these beliefs. I’ve always considered myself a ‘critical believer’. I do not just blindly accept everything that the church tells me (I think we can all behold the problems the world has had with the church over the centuries), nor should you. To begin discussing the rationality of a belief, we must specify what particular ‘belief’ we aim to scrutinize. In this excerpt, we will be discussing the rationality of the Christian belief in the existence of a ‘God’; or an omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being, and several philosophers that I disagree with and samples of their work that I do agree with. I believe that it is not possible to prove the existence of God through reason or natural theology; instead I would argue that it is God’s goal to allow us to reach the conclusion of His existence through a ‘leap of faith’ as Søren Kierkegaard so eloquently formulated, but it is not just that simple; I integrate several strains of thought from an unlikely group of thinkers.

As I am sure you are aware, being a Smart Undergraduate, Blaise Pascal and Søren Kierkegaard are separated from the rest of philosophical thought in that they completely cast the ‘skeptics challenge’ to the side; not even addressing it. This daring move displays the idea that both of these thinkers do not believe reason is at all required to rationalize faith. As I review Pascal’s Wager, I am drawn to the unmistakable logic of the writing. It painly lays out the contention that when you wager that a ‘god’ exists: “If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing”. In a more extensive explanation: if there is a ‘god’ and you believe in him/her you gain all, and if you do believe in a god and there is not one you lose nothing. However, if you do not believe in a god and there is one, you lose all, but if you do not believe in a god and no god exists; you lose nothing. Pascal goes onto say that the best way to become Christian is to surround yourself with Christians, and imitate them. It is hard to find a fallacy in this argument; however, I have found two that I find most troublesome, and these are the ideas of ‘faith’ as Pascal introduces it; and to which ‘god’ we owe our allegiance after we have accepted the wager. Is this wager truly faith? I would argue that is it simply self-preservation, or a prudential good, and not in fact, faith. For example, some Christians today are simply ‘Christian’ because it serves them in the public sphere or they obtain a false sense of ‘safety’ in describing themselves as Christian and acting ‘Christianly’, but not believing for the sake of believing. It is important to act morally and be the best version of yourself for the sake of those around you and the God whose name you proclaim; however, “…the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts” (1 Chronicles 28:9). This is a well written argument to dissuade atheists from the vices of atheism and into the good of theism, but as for the rationality of faith versus reason, and in the argument of which ‘god’ exactly to worship; it seems to be tediously lacking.

Kierkegaard’s premise is that the more faith one has the less objective certainty one obtains, and vice versa. I would urge you to accept this idea as it not only makes logical sense but also this explains the existence of the ‘god of the gaps’ theory (i.e. the more science discovers of natural phenomenon, the less one would place faith in the existence of a deity). One assertion I would warn you to circumvent is his assertion of ‘subjective, inward truth’. I have to admit that I am truly perplexed by this definition of truth; if truth is subjective there is no truth, because one’s ‘inward’ truth might contradict or vary from another’s. An extensive issue that I found while researching Kierkegaard was the idea that if you believe something with an extreme passion, it is not only subjectively true, but it becomes objectively true! I find this assertion utterly absurd. Unfortunately, I believe the adoption of this assertion is the reason for the state of American politics, and the polarization that is being experienced nationwide. Both extremes have adopted their interpretations of truth; facts, statistics, etc, to be the truth, or objective truth. This is an explicitly dangerous position to be in as an intellectual thinker, especially for Kierkegaard, a philosopher of formidable caliber.

Now that I have addressed the contentions of Pascal and Kierkegaard that I both agree and disagree with; I will do something that many philosophy teachers would deem ‘ill advised’. In fact, my own professor stated that it would be mixing oil and water. However, I think that it there is an important connection to be made between these two chains of thought; those being the thoughts of Pascal and Kierkegaard in comparison to Alvin Plantinga. The difference between these thinkers is that Plantinga opts to openly confront the skeptics challenge, or the ‘evidentialist objection’, as he calls it. Plantinga helped invent the idea of ‘reformed epistemology’, the idea that religious belief can be rational without any appeal to evidence or argument. Plantinga argues that God’s existence is a ‘properly basic’ idea because of the ‘self-referential’ nature of the classical foundationalist’s central tenet; it is irrational by his own standards.

The connection to be made between the three philosophers, in my opinion, is their belief in the role of ‘radical conversions’. Pascal experienced a religious experience of his own that dramatically changed the way he thought about the roles of his passions and affections. Kierkegaard and Plantinga, although on almost polar opposite sides of the philosophical sphere, both agree and “…realize that our passions and affections play a crucial role in radical conversion”. This is a key point for my belief in the rationality of religious beliefs. I believe that it takes radical conversion to have religious belief, and that belief needs no evidential support because it is an experience that shows the truth to the beholder.

Bibliography:

Otte, Richard. Passionate Reasoning: Kierkegaard and Plantinga on Radical Conversion (University of California) https://people.ucsc.edu/~otte/articles/kierk.plant.pdf, Accessed: February 23.

Pojman, Louis. Philosophy: The Quest for Truth (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014) 9th ed.

Wrenn, Chase. “Naturalistic Epistemology,” (The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002). https://www.iep.utm.edu/, Accessed: February 22.

Introducing Myself

Hey everyone! My name is Ben Bertoni and I am a Junior at Wheaton College, IL. I am studying History and Political Science as well as Philosophy, and love debate and civil discourse on a wide range of topics.

If you have any questions please let me know via email! I’m always willing to be persuaded and value constructive criticism. Looking forward to getting this up and running!

The major reason that I’m starting this blog is to see how my educational and emotional development effects my political and religious views.

I got the username idea from a friend. It is just my name (Ben) combined with ‘analytical’ = benalytical.