I defended a quite modest separationist position. I distinguished between three ways in which religion and politics might mix: the level of the citizen, the level of the legislator, and the level of the state itself. I argued that mixing religion and politics is permitted and even commendable at the levels of the citizen and legislator but not at the level of the state. I argued that more substantial forms of establishment, like a coercive confessional state, are unjust. I then argued that more moderate forms of establishment, like subsidizing an established church, probably don’t work based on a survey of the empirical literature in economics, political science, and sociology. As one might expect, my arguments came from political philosophy and political economy.

Sebastian argued for an establishmentarian position but in a much different manner than I did. Sebastian claimed that all societies have some religious establishment in some manner or another and that, given that we must have an establishment, we should hope to establish the right one. He also argued that if we get the culture right, then an established state will arise from that culture. So, he rejected my claim that we could confine religion in politics to the levels of the citizen and legislator. The social and spiritual nature of the human person will continually expand, grow, and shape human societies. Sebastian did not defend a particular form of establishment or a range of forms of establishment. Scruton’s influence gives him less confidence in reason, so he declined to say much about what he supported. I found this to be a weakness of his position, but he found it a strength.

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I prepared tremendously on the empirical side. I had arguments backed by arguments laid out in my notes. I prepared an overview of over a dozen recent papers on social scientific theories of religiosity. But Sebastian’s method of argument was so different from mine that we couldn’t get into those claims.

I was much more nervous than Sebastian, who has far more experience in the media spotlight than I do. I also should have looked up more often and spoken more slowly. The trouble was that while I had timed many of my responses, I wanted to ensure I shared them in a logical order.

The structure of the debate threw me off. I prepared for stringent time controls, with each exchange timed to the minute, but those time controls were not enforced, so I had to be quicker on my feet than expected. I tend to talk too much, so I find time controls relaxing.

Acton told us they wanted to avoid the contentious debate, so our gracious moderator, John Pinheiro, asked us questions to ensure the discussion was productive. However, we did not coordinate expectations about how much the moderator would guide the discussion, which I should have asked about. My expectations were attuned to the need for strict time controls. So, after my opening statement, I did not always know who had the floor. Sebastian felt the same way, but his more relaxed and comfortable style served him well.

I have a hard time watching the debate and not thinking I came out ahead in my opening and closing statements. Sebastian did not challenge my two main contentions. While eloquently articulated, his argument that some form of establishment is inevitable was critically ambiguous. My critique of his argument became more precise in my closing statement than when I offered it in the discussion.

Sebastian’s best argument was that my modest separationist view was unstable. It would either tend towards more robust forms of establishment of religion or decay into secularism. But without some account of what the establishment of religion comes to, I thought the argument ultimately failed.

My favorite part of the day was getting to know Sebastian over wine after dinner. He’s a fantastic host. I found that we had a remarkable set of common convictions. He is staunchly Catholic doctrinally, but Orthodoxy profoundly influences his pastoral theology (he has served as a catechizer). We agreed on understanding what it means to live a Christian life. We even commiserated about the dangers of falling in love with Aquinas. You can become so intellectually fulfilled and encouraged that you can forget to develop spiritual practices. Morello is an accomplished Aquinas scholar with an excellent short book defending a neo-Platonic reading of Aquinas (The World as God’s Icon). I read his book in preparation for the debate and agreed with nearly every word. I found Sebastian utterly charming and look forward to learning more from him.

Another point of interest is that we both reject standard liberal approaches to church-state relations and integralism. Sebastian’s conservatism grounds his skepticism of integralism, given that it is a radical ideal theory.

Since this was my first debate ever, I know there are ways to improve, and I look forward to your feedback. I want to do this again, as the process forced me to think more clearly about my views.

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The Integralist Meaning

At the extreme pro “Christ is King” end, we have the integralists. The integralists think Christ’s Kingship implies that political regimes must direct their citizens to union with Christ. That means a firmly established Catholic religion, partially subordinated to the papacy. Since the Pope is Christ’s Vicar on Earth, partial papal rule helps institutionalize Christ’s Kingship, though so do policies that enforce ordinary natural law, like abortion bans.

Of course, Christ is King in other senses, too. He is the ruler, creator, and operator of the world and, by extension, our social world. Integralists believe this. What makes them unique is the institutional recommendations they draw from Christ’s Kingdom.

The Postliberal Meaning

There aren’t many integralists. But there are a lot of more moderate postliberals who see Christ’s Kingdom similarly.

Christ’s Kingship implies some coercive establishment of Christianity. Subordination to the papacy is not necessary. However, the state must recognize and establish Christianity as the true faith. They might enforce Biblical morality. That would be enough to recognize Christ’s kingship. One wonders, though, why we shouldn’t fully install Christianity into institutions if we should install it halfway. So, I wonder if the moderates have good responses.

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Jacques Maritain

Then, we get to groups that are either broadly liberal or who agree liberal institutions are best. The most interesting figure here is Jacques Maritain, the great Catholic philosopher. Maritain was an integralist early on but moved away from it over a few decades. The Primacy of the Spiritual (1927) is integralist, but Man and the State (1951) is not.

What changes for Maritain?

He begins to separate political principles from the institutions that (might) realize them. He always held to the “primacy of the spiritual.” That means, in justifying political claims, we must always consider our spiritual good, which is our highest good. But that won’t look the same in all social orders. Maybe integralism worked in Latin Christendom for a time, but today, it would not express the primacy of the spiritual but wound it. That’s because of the central features of large, pluralistic social orders. (See Chapter 5 of Man and the State for the details). Why? Christ’s Kingdom precludes significant religious coercion.

A Neo-Maritainian Meaning

Here’s how I would defend a Maritain-like position.

The reason is that a loving union with God requires the freedom to reject God. Even God does not force us into a relationship with Him, so what right do we have to do so in His stead?

Some religious traditions may be silly, but I think many are reasonable, as are some secular doctrines. Maritain did too.

If so, Christ’s Kingdom rules out coercive establishment. That would damage our ability to unite with God in loving union with those who disagree because our coercion would displace their free and rational will.

The result is a paradox. Christ’s Kingship means society should be ordered to a free and loving union with Christ. However, such a loving union prohibits the firm establishment of Christianity. The love of Christ must be free.

Christ is King of the whole world, including our social, civil, and political worlds. But how societies realize Christ’s Kingship will vary across cultures.

Quick Response to an Integralist/Post-Liberal Objection

Integralist and postliberal Catholics should pause before they criticize me because of the integralist claim that states must never coerce the unbaptized for religious ends. (Unless those religious practices violate natural law.) Religious coercion in such cases violates our dignity as free and rational beings, as well as our capacity to unite with others in love.

So, even integralists have to agree with the general thrust of my position for the unbaptized. In my view, and as I argued in the book, the same arguments that ground protections for the unbaptized apply to the baptized. So Christ’s Kingdom requires respecting our freedom and reason, and in the name of love, for everyone.

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My Travels

Over the past months, I’ve had the privilege of speaking at esteemed institutions such as the Acton Institute, Ohio State University, Notre Dame Law School, Baylor University, the University of Florida, the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, the University of Texas at Austin, University of Chicago Law School, Franciscan University at Steubenville, the Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, the University of Toronto, and the University of Pittsburgh. I’ve also had the opportunity to share my thoughts on various podcasts.

Amidst these engagements, I've also been committed to my academic responsibilities. I’ve taught an online course on religious alternatives to liberalism to undergraduates through the American Enterprise Institute, led a new graduate seminar on the liberal political tradition, and contributed to research on a Templeton grant through the University of Pennsylvania. Additionally, I’ve been serving on a search committee for our PPE program at BGSU, and I’ve had to fulfill several promised essays.

Oh yes, and next week, I’m speaking at the University of Virginia and the Catholic University of America.

Integralist Students

I've mostly been speaking about my book, which has been great. I’ve also learned much that might interest you, chiefly from talking to integralist students.

(1) Generally, most students inclined toward what they call integralism think the “pure” version I assess goes way too far. Most want Christianity to play a much more central role in shaping American institutions, and they want Christians to push the culture away from secular liberalism, often through the use of state power. Young people use “integralism” more broadly than specialists, especially since the movement’s leaders have mostly stopped discussing it. One negative consequence of the movement’s leaders withdrawing from the discussion is that integralism’s opponents get to define it (as I often do!). That’s a price integralists have paid that may prove unwise.

(2) Many integralist undergraduates are unmoved by criticisms from the social sciences, as my Transition and Stability Arguments do. For whatever reason, they think they can set those matters aside. However, with several nice new reviews, most find the Justice Argument interesting. Some believe it presupposes liberalism, so I must clarify the argument in future writing. However, I was surprised at how uninterested the students were in determining whether integralism was a stable ideal. I thought they’d care about that, but they seem unmoved.

(3) Most people miss the book's main new move, which is to apply the framework of ideal/non-ideal theory in philosophy to Christian political thought, which was already present in Catholic political thought. The Notre Dame philosophy graduate students saw this most clearly. They think that’s the enduring contribution. I’d be thrilled if that turned out to be true!

(4) The hardcore integralist students are profoundly grateful that I take them seriously. Contrary to one review, they think I’ve been fair to their position. I’ve found enormous meaning in helping these students think through their views.

(5) Of similar interest are the Protestant post-liberals. They’re up for a Christian state, but they are often shocked that the core integralist thinkers would subject Protestants to canonical penalties for heresy. The Catholic integralists I talk to don’t talk much about it, but it creates a degree of shock among Protestants. I guess that’s not so surprising. But then most Protestant students say that integralism in the US is ridiculous because the US remains Protestant. Fair enough.

(6) Many students want to identify the social order that would stop the progressive social project and ultimately reverse it. They’re not precisely revolutionaries, but they are trying to think about how to beat the left once and for all. That’s a scary prospect, but the students often think we’re in a kill-or-be-killed situation.

(7) Most integralist students don’t know Thomas Pink’s work. My lectures cover Pink’s views in detail, as Pink laid the philosophical and theological foundations for the movement. For whatever reason, the young integralists often find much of his project too subtle. They don’t say “it’s too subtle”; instead, they almost want to think that integralism can’t be so subject to precise views about the nature of the Church, the power of reason, etc. Integralism is supposed to be intellectually obvious. It’s the Christ-centered alternative to liberalism. They sometimes manifest a bit of intellectual impatience, but far from always.

What’s Next?

My thoughts turn increasingly towards my next project. Much of the next year or two will focus on producing papers from the national survey we’ve run through UPenn. However, I want to embark on a big project in positive political theology. I’ve criticized integralism. Now, I want to explore what I think is the correct view. I already have five essays on the topic, but I must write ten to fifteen more before I’m ready to put them together in my next book.

I will continue to use this space to discuss various issues related to the book and liberal political thought in general, but I wanted to post to let you know I'm still committed.

The No Alternative Objection is attractive to those who would impose their faith or ideology on those who disagree. Such impositions seem morally unobjectionable if they’re unavoidable.

I think the No Alternative objection dramatically underspecifies its key concepts. To help us focus, let’s explore the claim that there’s no alternative to religious establishment. Here, the idea is that every society has some dominant religion, whether it recognizes this or not. Further, every society has some establishment of this religion via governmental endorsement.

Consider now two questions: What is religion? And what is establishment? After all, there are thousands of religions and many forms of establishment. We can define a No Alternative Formula by abstracting from particular answers to those questions. This formula can generate any No Alternative Objection. The Formula contains two sets, the first a set of laws and policies, and the second a set of doctrines or worldviews.

The No Alternative Formula: There is no alternative to {x} establishment of {y} religion.

From what I can tell, {x} and {y} are large sets. Governments can establish religion in many ways, from extreme thought control to vague cultural approval. Religions number in the thousands, and {y} balloons further if we count religion-like moral doctrines and ideologies.

Thus, the No Alternative Objection requires tremendous specification. And the plausibility of the objection turns on that specification.

In my view, most specifications of {x} and {y} render the no alternative objection either false or banal. Suppose the objection is that there’s no alternative to the coercive establishment of theistic religion. That’s false. Historic India and China, all the way to the present, are counterexamples. Suppose the claim is that all societies have shared values and norms enforced by ostracism. That claim is true but uninteresting.

To vindicate a No Alternative Objection, the postliberal must locate subsets of {x} and {y} that make the objection both true and interesting. I’ve not seen this done. If liberalism is a “religion,” then everything depends on one’s account of religion. (On this, see my Is Wokism a Religion? post.) If establishment involves social ostracism or coercion of some form, then everything depends on how the postliberal specifies ostracism and coercion.

The unspecified No Alternative Objection seems intuitive. But it is misleading. That’s why analytic political philosophers approach the objection differently. Anti-neutralists specify intuitive neutralitarian principles and then reject the arguments for those principles. But that approach will not help the post-liberal much. Suppose all plausible neutralitarian principles are false. How should we respond? It’s unclear; maybe we only need to depart from them slightly. And so, the No Alternative Objection may not bring us closer to postliberalism.

So, when a postliberal says, “There’s no alternative to imposing values/religion,” ask which values and what impositions are inevitable.

The problem is that Vermeule does not in the first place actually endorse the extreme political program Vallier attributes to him.

Feser agrees that I deny that Vermeule favors violence seven times. We sharply disagree about whether those claims suffice to reject Feser’s claim that I attribute a “ruthlessly doctrinaire and violent ‘Thomist-Leninist’ revolutionary program” to Vermeule.” Neither is his plan “extreme, bloodthirsty, and indeed unhinged.” I can show this, but first, I must answer Feser’s central new point.

I hope we can then answer more important questions, like whether integralism as such has a transition problem.

State Capture Is The Issue

My reading of Vermeule assumes Vermeule wants to get to integralism. That is a widespread belief, even among integralists. Less familiar is my claim that he envisions four stages on the way there (community-building, state-staffing, the collapse of liberalism, and state capture). The critical dispute concerns the last stage: whether Vermeule favors state capture. If there's good evidence that he favors state capture, my interpretation of Vermeule is reasonable. It is not a strawman. My interpretation might be wrong, but that is the risk of any interpretation.

Before I begin my rebuttal, a note on how Feser uses the word "extreme." I assume Feser means my claim that Vermeule aims at state capture, since that is a big deal compared to the other stages. So, I'll explain why I believe Vermeule aims at state capture and has some ideas about how to do it.

Vermeule on State Capture

Why assume Vermeule aims at state capture? First, he has developed views about the preconditions of state capture, namely that liberalism will fall and the right people should staff the state. These preconditions raise a question: once liberalism falls and the right people staff the state, what should they do? The answer, I assume, is to turn the state to the common good, which for Vermeule has a supernatural part.

Consider an analogous claim from late 20^th-century Western liberalism. Some Western liberals predicted that the Soviet Union would collapse. They also hoped that Russians sympathetic to liberalism partly staffed the state. And so, once communism became discredited, Western liberals hoped Russians sympathetic to liberalism would capture the state and make it liberal and democratic. 

I think Vermeule imagines something like this. Maybe that's an "extreme" political program, but it's not silly to attribute it to him. It would be foolish and irresponsible to attribute the consequences to him, but that's not what I do. 

Feser says that most of Vermeule's strategic work focuses on short-run questions. That's also true. But Feser seems to deny that Vermeule thinks long-term, too, or else that Vermeule’s text can’t bear that interpretation. I think Feser believes there's no support for the idea that Vermeule has thought through an endgame. But there is evidence.

Passages On State Capture

Let's go through the passages, most of which I cite in the book. Taken together, they're strong evidence that Vermeule has radical state capture in mind. At a minimum, they make my interpretation reasonable.

1. Integration from Within Supports Radical State Capture

In "Integration from Within," Vermeule says, in the passage Feser cites:

Instead it is a matter of finding a strategic position from which to sear the liberal faith with hot irons, to defeat and capture the hearts and minds of liberal agents, to take over the institutions of the old order that liberalism has itself prepared and to turn them to the promotion of human dignity and the common good.

What does Vermeule mean by "take over the institutions of the old order"? And who should lead the takeover? My reader is that he wants state capture led by people who will "restore a substantive politics of the good."*

I grant Feser’s point that the passage does not say that integralists capture the state. Nor does the passage say that the goal of state capture is integralism. But Vermeule envisions a form of state capture. That's clear.

If not integralism, what sort of state capture does Vermeule envision? Something radically non-liberal. Vermeule agrees with J. F. Stephen’s remark that we must engage in a kind of "warfare" that will root liberalism out "to the last fiber, the place where it grew being seared as with a hot iron."

Let me stress once more the means Vermeule endorses. Stephen's passage favorably contrasts intellectual warfare against liberalism with violent warfare against liberalism. That’s because, on Stephen’s view, intellectual warfare is more effective than violent warfare. And Vermeule next cites Cass Sunstein-like nudges as another example of non-violent social change. But my chapter claims that Vermeule does not favor violence seven times, including once on the chapter’s first page. My point is that integration from within aims at a new state with nothing liberal in it.

So, I assume Vermeule supports some form of radical, but non-violent, state capture. State capture that will entirely snuff out liberalism. The passage also says that Vermeule wants people to "take over the institutions of the old order" to "restore a substantive politics of the good" that is not liberal at all.

So, yes, the article does not name integralism. But it amply supports the claim that Vermeule favors a form of radical state capture. A complete departure from liberalism is a substantial social change.

Nonetheless, I find it significant that "integration" is in the title. What else is "integration" supposed to mean other than integralism? For support, consider how Vermeule uses the term "integration" in #4 below. Deneen, whose book Vermeule is reviewing, only uses “integration” to refer to economic integration. The term is Vermeule’s.

Other passages clarify the goal of the state capture.

Note: Here I could have improved my evidence for non-violence by citing the Sunstein and Stephens’ discussion explicitly.

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2. Waldstein’s Account of Vermeule’s Goals Indicate State Capture

I next cite Fr. Edmund Waldstein's remarks on Vermeule. Waldstein distinguishes between types of integralists. He then relays what he takes to be Vermeule's position:

On the other hand, Adrian Vermeule and Catholic integralists, more generally, wish to establish something more like the paleo-Durkheimian arrangement of the baroque confessional state. Or, perhaps even more radically, they want to work towards something like High Medieval Christendom. … Thinkers who promote such an integration do not necessarily want to emulate the Middle Ages in other respects. Vermeule, for instance, argues for further development of a robust administrative state, of a sort that St. Louis IX could never have imagined. But the crucial point is that integralists want an ordered relation of temporal and spiritual power in the deliberate pursuit of the good for human beings.

Waldstein, a friend of Vermeule's, says Vermeule wants to work towards something radical: "something like High Medieval Christendom." Vermeule "argues for a further development of a robust administrative state." I presume that "further development of a robust administrative state" means capturing it.

3. The Famed Empire of our Lady of Guadalupe

Feser wasn't on Twitter for Vermeule's famous "Empire of Our Lady of Guadalupe" remark. I decided not to cite Vermeule's Twitter, but the association began with a blog post of Vermeule’s. Let’s attend to the passage that started it all:

As the superb blog Semiduplex observes, Catholics need to rethink the nation-state. We have come a long way, but we still have far to go — towards the eventual formation of the Empire of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and ultimately the world government required by natural law.

The Empire of Our Lady of Guadalupe phrase links to an article that claims that Mary was America's Foundress. Here, Vermeule endorses a radical goal: to form an empire that Our Lady rules and then press for world government.

I presume that means we want nation-states devoted to Mary. If Mary rules nation-states, I assume Her authority will pass through the Church. The arrangement will look integralist. Or something near enough. At least, that's what everyone thought Vermeule meant. 

4. Vermeule’s Strategy is for Integralism

Let’s turn to my final batch of evidence. In “Ralliement: Two Distinctions,” Vermeule discusses Leo XIII’s political strategy of ralliement, which Vermeule says has several variations, including one Vermeule endorses.

A. Restoring an Integrally Catholic State.

Vermeule favorably cites Waldstein description of his favored “strategic version” of ralliement, whose goal is “the restoration of an integrally Catholic state.” The passage:

In the second, strategic version, Catholics deny that liberalism has any best self to which it might somehow be recalled. They work within a liberal order towards the long-term goal, not of reaching a stable accommodation with liberalism, even in a baptized form, but rather with a view to eventually superseding it altogether. Pater Edmund Waldstein sees this strategic version as the one Leo XIII himself favored:

Waldstein: “For Leo the ralliement was meant as a stage towards an integral restoration of Christendom. That is, Catholics were to work for the common good in the current un-ideal framework of a state that did not recognize the superiority of spiritual over temporal authority, but the hope was that this would lead eventually to a restoration of an integrally Catholic state.”

Vermeule then contrasts his vision of raillement with Ross Douthat’s version, and Vermeule maps his position onto this second, strategic version. Indeed, Vermeule even links to “Integration from Within” as his strategic version of raillement.

B. Pat Smith’s Interpretation of Vermeule

Vermeule then favorably cites a blog post at Semiduplex (run by Vermeule’s friend, the lawyer Pat Smith) that distinguishes between Douthat and Vermeule’s approaches to Catholic strategy. In that post, Smith writes this,

Building on an essay in First Things some time ago, Vermeule argues essentially that integralist Catholics ought to consider populating elite institutions and, occupying positions of power, use their authority “to further human dignity and the common good, defined entirely in substantive rather than procedural-technical terms.”

Smith seems to read “Integration from Within” as concerned with integralist Catholics. Indeed, he says it builds off of “A Christian Strategy,” the essay Feser claims gives a merely defensive strategy. Smith’s post is evidence that “Integration from Within” is about integralism. It is evidence that “A Christian Strategy” is integralist, too!

Note: I did not cite Smith in the book.

C. Vermeule’s Strategy for Eventual Integration

Now, back to Vermeule. Vermeule is talking about integralism in this post. And here’s a great reason to think so:

Hence my own version of ralliement, which hopes for eventual integration effected from within institutions currently extant in liberal-democratic orders, focuses on executive-type bureaucracies rather than on parliamentary-democratic institutions per se.

Vermeule blogged this at The Josias, the central intellectual hub of integralism. Here, no one would mistake "integration" as meaning anything other than "integralism." And, read in context, that is surely what Vermeule means. And, again, he cites passages that say integralism is the long-term goal of his version of ralliement.

There’s Good Evidence Vermeule Supports State Capture

These passages are why I’ve long thought Vermeule supports state capture. I’m not sure why Feser so confidently asserts that I’m wrong. I wonder if Feser wants to interpret Vermeule as affirming Feser’s much less problematic soft integralism.

But let’s step back and review Feser’s main complaint:

The problem is that Vermeule does not in the first place actually endorse the extreme political program Vallier attributes to him.

I have plenty of reasons for thinking Vermeule has a transition plan that involves state capture, indeed integralist state capture. At a minimum, my interpretation is reasonable. It’s not a strawman.

So now I leave it to you, reader. Is it unreasonable to assume Vermeule has the goal of state capture? Indeed, is it unreasonable to think Vermeule aims to reach integralism through state capture? Tell me in the comments.

Moving On?

I should address some other issues eventually, but I needed to respond to Feser’s main claim ASAP.

We should get on to discussing more substantive matters. So, my next post will address the more important question about whether integralism as such has a transition problem.

UPDATE: 12/22/23: three points need stressing. First, I did not cite the Smith piece in the book, just to make that clear. Second, my argument that Vermeule favors non-violent would have been strengthened if I had discussed the Sunstein passage on nudging in the book. Third, while seven passages are enough to vindicate my non-violent reading of Vermeule, I can now add an eighth: integration from within indicates that Catholics “must take over the state and destroy liberalism from the top-down, not so much with coercion, but with other forms of persuasion and soft power. (AKW, p. 15, emphasis mine).

—

*Vermeule then cites Joseph de Maistre’s Considerations on France (though without page numbers). Maistre was an integralist (as Sebastian Morello persuasively argues). Maistre’s book, Du Pape, defends an integralist position. (Or, as I read it, something that gives the Pope even more power than integralists would.) Surely, this point is not lost on Vermeule.

1. God authorizes the nation-state to pursue the temporal common good of its citizens.

2. God authorizes the Church to pursue the supernatural common good of its citizens. (corporate salvation in Christ)

3. The Church may sometimes direct Christian states to enforce its spiritual policies against all baptized persons in their domain.

To illustrate, suppose the Church excommunicates a heretic who then refuses to repent. Under integralism, the Church could direct the state to punish the heretic with physical coercion.

Adrian Vermeule is arguably the leader of the new Catholic integralism. He has said, however, little to defend integralism as a political ideal. He has left that to figures like Thomas Pink, Edmund Waldstein, and others. Instead, he focuses on formulating a strategy to reach a point in our political debate where integralism would be viable. And here, he has been enormously influential.

In my recent book, All the Kingdoms of the World, I criticize Vermeule’s strategic writings. I argue that he faces a dilemma: his strategy might lead to integralism, but only by violating Catholic moral teaching. Vermeule must choose between his morals and his agenda. Integralists must either compromise their ethics or abandon their political goals.

There I am clear, however, that Vermeule does not advocate violence or authoritarianism.

On Feser’s Accusation that I Strawman Vermeule

Edward Feser, the great Catholic philosopher, and my undergraduate mentor, makes several claims that make it sound as if I think Vermeule endorses violence and authoritarianism. Feser does note at one point that I say Vermeule does not want coercion. But that leaves the impression that I only say this in passing.

Consider two of Feser’s remarks:

What could be further from the ruthlessly doctrinaire and violent ‘Thomist-Leninist’ revolutionary program Vallier absurdly attributes to Vermeule?

…

The reader might be wondering exactly where Vermeule sets out this extreme, bloodthirsty, and indeed unhinged program for action.

I never impute such things to Vermeule. The reason I made seven claims about Vermeule and violence was to forestall objections like those Feser implies.

As evidence, consider five claims I make in my book, all of which Feser omits:

1. “Integralism can be put into practice only by methods that most integralists disapprove.” (117)

2. “Vermeule would not suppress liberalism with violence.” (134)

3. “Vermeule must insist that his agents follow [Catholic] ethical constraints.” (136)

4. “I am not saying that integralists relish violence, but I am saying that victory requires violence.” (137)

5. “Vermeule has publicly declaimed all such [violent] tactics.”* (147)

These passages show that I’m not attributing to Vermeule an “unhinged program for action” or a “ruthlessly doctrinaire and violent ‘Thomist-Leninist revolutionary program.” Feser’s rhetorical flourishes mislead the reader.

Feser also says, “The false impression given by this procedure is that Vermeule has somewhere advocated the harrowing plan Vallier describes.” But given how frequently I claim that Vermeule does not want violence, I’m not giving a false impression. I chose my words carefully and did what I could to place them in obvious parts of the chapter.

At a minimum, these passages should suffice to worry readers about Feser’s review.

I would now like to answer some of Feser’s other criticisms.

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Extreme Versions of Integralism?

Feser contends that I critique only the extreme and most coercive version of integralism. Not so. I consider what he calls “soft” and “hard” versions of integralism. The “soft” integralist position holds that integralism is the best form of government but that we should probably never try to reach it. The “hard” integralist position says we can and should pursue integralism here and now. Feser says I argue only against the “hard” integralist position in the book. This is true in chapter 4 but not afterward. 

I argue against soft integralism in chapter 5. I say that integralism will destabilize even if we could reach a point in our polity where it would be viable. I also say integralism is unstable regardless of how much coercion it uses. Indeed, I built this point into my model of integralist stability. Destabilization occurs in both low-coercion and high-coercion forms of integralism. 

On the Justice Argument

In addition, on the topic of justice, integralists face a dilemma. In my view, they can’t reconcile two claims:

1. Forcing people into the Church is always unjust.

2. Forcing people to remain in the Church is often just.

Integralists claim baptism makes forcing people to remain in the Church just. But I argue baptism cannot do this. 

Feser claims baptism gives us a new final end, an ultimate aim: union with God. That new end creates obligations in the baptized, apart from their consent. But Feser does not specify to whom the baptized owe their new obligations. Of course, the baptized have obligations to the Church. But that does not explain their obligations to obey an integralist nation-state. Integralists nevertheless claim that baptism makes us subject to both Church and state. Feser does not address that point, even though I discuss it in the book.

A natural response from integralists is that the Church can authorize the state to use civil coercion to help enforce its spiritual policies. In chapter 6, I argue that this cannot occur. The Church lacks the authority to use physical coercion. If so, it cannot give the state authority it does not possess.

I hope this clarifies my position, and I thank Ed Feser for his thoughtful engagement. I look forward to a fruitful dialogue. But I have not misrepresented Vermeule, as I have demonstrated.

For further discussion, see my Substack (to be published Wednesday).

*The word should be “rejects,” an error in the book.

Here, four integralists provide an hour of criticism. I then respond for fifteen minutes and then fifteen minutes of questions. The first commentator is philosopher Thomas Pink, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at King's College London. He is, in many ways, the intellectual founder of the movement. The second commentator is Alan Fimister, Assistant Professor of Theology at Holy Apostles College and Seminary and one of the leading integralist theorists. The third and fourth commentators are Tyler McNabb and Brian Besong. McNabb and Besong are Associate Professors of Philosophy at St. Francis University. They represent a younger generation of integralist scholars.

My exchange with Pink was the one that helped us advance the integralist research program the most. Here, I review the discussion. In my next post, I'll focus on its significance for integralism.

I. The Justice Argument

It all begins with my Justice Argument against integralism. The argument is simple. Integralists make two claims:

1. Coercion into the Catholic faith is always unjust.

2. Coercion to keep the faith is often just.

These claims are hard to reconcile. Doubly so because integralists use baptism to render claim 1 and claim 2 consistent. Baptism somehow transforms religious coercion from unjust to just. I don’t see anything in the Catholic doctrine of baptism that can explain this. Indeed, as far as I can tell, any principle that plausibly explains 1 seems to undermine 2. Baptism leaves those arguments untouched.

For example, the argument that authentic faith must be free supports claim 1 and undermines 2. Baptism doesn’t change this. Second, that respect for persons requires religious liberty supports claim 1. However, the argument also undermines claim 2. Baptism doesn’t change this either.

II. Aquinas on Vows

Now, I don’t think those two arguments should be compelling to non-liberals, and that’s why I don’t fool with them in the book. Instead, I run through six ways of reconciling the essential claims, none of which are quintessentially liberal, not even consent theory.

Thomas Aquinas solves this problem with a consent theory. Aquinas analogizes baptism to a vow. One must make a vow voluntarily, but a legal body may, after that, enforce it. But Aquinas's article on this matter doesn't address infant baptism. He can't, I don't think, because infants make no vow upon their baptism.

Their parents or godparents make a vow. And I allow their vows to obligate their children in some respects. But if the child grows up without Catholic beliefs, she lacks obligations to the Church. Ex. If her parents raise her Jewish, she will be non-culpably ignorant of the Catholic faith. That holds regardless of her baptism. She has no obligations to the Church, or at least cannot be held to them.

It also isn’t clear how baptism relates to vowing. If baptism is a vow, we should always expect it to contain a choice. But that isn’t the case for infants. But if baptism accompanies a vow, it looks like the vow explains our obligations, not baptism.

III. Classical Theories of Political Obligation

Political philosophy has distilled the historical theories of state authority into neat classes. I modified some of these to help explain the authority of the integralist state. But these theories must explain authority over the baptized and not the unbaptized. The theories don't work for state authority, and don't work for integralism either.

Associative theories of obligation explain political obligations via membership in a community. The non-Pink integralists in the video implicitly adopt an associative theory (in my view). Indeed, their associative theory runs so deep that they don't see the force of the justice argument. In their view, we acquire obligations simply by becoming members of the Church and the state. Baptism marks our membership in the Church. They reason from the tight association between community membership and political obligation.

IV. Pink’s Theory of Legal Authority

Fascinatingly, Pink did not run this line. Instead, he offered a scholastic theory of legal authority (in contrast to Thomas Hobbes). This theory can explain how baptism creates obligations to the church-authorized state. But he does not think baptism guarantees that we have such obligations.

For Pink, legal authority (church or state) exists if:

1. It facilitates its subjects’ response to normative power (reason and/or grace).

2. Subjects trust the authority as an authoritative witness to truth.

The first claim is tremendously rich and complex. You'll only understand it with a background in scholastic theories of reason. The second claim, however, is easier to assess. Pink claims legal authority rests on trust in the authority. The people must trust the authority as an authoritative witness to significant truths. Concerning the state, our trust in political authority comes naturally. Concerning the Church, by contrast, trust begins or is amplified by our baptism.

My counterargument was simple. We naturally tend to trust our parents and the people we associate with. We do not have a natural disposition to trust national political authorities. I don’t see evidence for it in the political trust literature. Plenty of people seem to grow up distrusting the government.

Similarly, baptism only disposes us to trust the Church. The disposition does not become a reality if we remain ignorant about the Church. Or if we have some weak epistemic link to it.

Pink replies that much distrust is culpable. A legal authority can exist even when distrusted, so long as people are at fault for not trusting it. But this raises the problem of determining when distrust is culpable.

I solve this problem by exploring our practice of holding people responsible for disobedience. Most people think the laws of their nation-state are authoritative. They blame people who deliberately break the law, at least when the laws seem moral. But only some people grow up with such trust. Consider totalitarian states with enormous black and grey markets.

Baptism does not automatically make people culpable for distrusting the Church. We see this with many Protestants. But Pink agreed on this point. He thinks punishing Protestants today would generally be unjust.

I don’t see this as a concession on Pink’s part. He thinks integralist coercion is only justified for a subset of the baptized. It does not apply to those who mistrust the church-authorized (integralist) state non-culpably.

The trouble is that non-culpable mistrust might be everywhere. Even if it is common, modern integralist states face tremendous difficulties determining when mistrust is culpable. Indeed, they will struggle to determine who is mistrustful in the first place. In practice, the legal authority of the Church is de facto narrow. It applies only to those we can tell are trusting or culpably mistrusting. And I think Pink is OK with that point. He’s not, as he said to me, a coercion-monger.

V. Closer Together

This means that Pink and I have moved closer together extensionally. In practice, similar groups of people are subject to legitimate coercion. Here's my view, at least in principle. If someone joins the Orthodox Church, they can be subject to spiritual coercion. That can include excommunication. I can imagine them growing up to trust a church-state union, and if that union serves the common good in a public manner, their distrust might be culpable in some cases. In that case, the church-state union’s coercion might be publicly justified for many citizens. Owing to the dynamics of disagreement, that won't happen often. So Pink and I are far apart. But Pink's integralism is far less illiberal in its implications. And, in my view, his theory of legal authority isn’t intrinsically illiberal at all.

Here’s where I think we made intellectual progress. Pink and I agreed that our positions remain far apart because of differences in our accounts of culpable failures in reasoning. It is striking that this is where our differences turned out to lie. I did not even begin to anticipate this before our discussion.

So, I am edified and delighted that we made intellectual progress.

In my next post, I encourage integralists to adopt something like Pink's trust condition on legitimate legal authority. They should update their views.

I gave the talk at McGill University’s Research Group on Constitutional Studies. It was a blast. And hey, Charles Taylor came!

Do watch it, despite the intense video photo.

Also, I respond to some recent criticisms of my book at Law and Liberty. You’ll find links to the original pieces in my response.

Y’all, I’m super proud of the talk! Please watch or at least listen to it!

But before the world goes to hell, I want to remark on a hopeful development in American politics. Left- and right-liberals seem closer together than left-liberals and leftists. My center-left friends often speak of the liberal/leftist split. I finally see it as manifest. Leftists have made this plain.

The New Right/Fusionist contrast now seems less salient. Much of the New Right seems united with traditional conservatives. One reason for this is that the first-mover intellectual on the New Right is Yoram Hazony. He's Jewish, living in Israel, and I am worried for him and his. We also see this among New Right pundits like Josh Hammer, who is also Jewish.

So, we have a spectrum of opinions divided into four groups. These are Leftists, left-liberals, right-liberals, and the New Right. Leftists favor Palestine and more than a few seem inured to Israeli suffering. The other three groups favor Israel. Of course, these groups differ on several issues regarding Israel. They differ first on how much to blame Netanyahu for the crisis. Yet even the New Right thinks the intelligence failure is a disaster. Indeed, Trump and left-liberals agree on this point.

Leftists seem far from the other three groups, especially the elite campus left. They express little concern about how anti-Israeli sentiment creates an environment of fear for Jewish students. Reflecting on this, I now find the cancellation of conservative speakers more offensive than before. Many leading universities have little issue shutting down conservative speakers. Yet they protect student groups indifferent to the death of Israeli civilians.

I will watch what happens to left-liberal/Leftist unity. I expect the previous practical unity to return once the Israel-Hamas war ends. But I fear the war will continue for a long time. That could create a deep fracture on the left for years, not unlike the Bernie-Hillary split, but worse. I don't know if this affects electoral outcomes in the US. Maybe not at all.

The only silver lining is the potential for a national liberal alliance favoring Ukraine and Israel. Roughly:

Leftists (often) oppose Israel and (usually) support Ukraine.

The New Right (mostly) supports Israel and (usually) opposes Ukraine.

Liberals support Israel and Ukraine.

The liberal center has a more coherent and defensible position.

As I argue in the epilogue of my book, liberals must ally. Our disputes about markets and the welfare state are now less critical. What matters is preserving the liberal framework within which we work out our disagreements. In the 20th century, liberals took too long to see this. Fascism and communism got the upper hand. This time around, anti-liberal forces are much weaker. Liberals can beat them.

How do liberals win? We point to the alternatives. Really-existing anti-liberalism means Putin and Hamas. Really-existing liberalism means Joe Biden.

Two reviewers reject my Transition Argument against integralism. The argument: we do not know how to reach integralism without violating Catholic moral teaching. The reviewers deny that this is a problem. Integralism may seem like an unreachable goal, but integralists can create new strategies. I focus on Vermeule’s transition plan (beginning here). But other transition plans might work. So why think refuting Vermeule tells us anything about the truth of integralism?

Here’s John Macias in La Thomistica:

The transition objection certainly demonstrates that integralism faces significant practical challenges in the near future, but integralists would likely agree.

And here’s Gideon Lazar in The American Postliberal:

This would just mean integralists have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new plan. As Vallier himself notes, many integralists disagree with Vermeule’s strategy. This is really an in-house integralist debate. Overall, I found this objection very weak. However, I did appreciate his very comprehensive engagement with Vermeule’s articles on integration from within. I will leave it to Vermeule himself to analyze whether Vallier’s synthesis of his thought is an accurate representation.

In this post, I discuss parts of the Transition argument I fear the reviewers miss. I also add an argument not in the book, further strengthening the Transition Argument.

1. Vermeule’s Plan Adopts Constrains on Any Serious Plan

Vermeule’s plan includes features that are necessary for the transition. First, integralists must get the Catholic Church's leaders to support integralism. That is a tall order indeed. Integralists must also co-opt a modern state that is democratic, pluralistic, and complex. Third, the Church and the state must integrate when the Church is less powerful than the state. Any transition plan must meet these conditions.

I can think of one exception: localism. Integralists could practice their politics locally instead of capturing a state. But problems remain. First, you still must convince the Church. Second, you still need Church-state integration. Third, you must still partly convert a state so that it will protect the integralist polity.

Fourth, you must deal with a new problem: easy freedom of exit. Central to integralism is the claim that you cannot leave the Church or its secular arm. But suppose Catholics can leave an integralist regime for a milder Catholic regime. The milder regime would not have civil punishments for canonical crimes. (Cool!)

Remember: integralism is not church dogma. Non-integralist but wholly Catholic regimes are a genuine possibility. They are also much more common in church history. Can’t people move from Integristan to Poland?

This is one reason why Vermeule avoids localism as a pass-through to integralism. Modern states will stick around, but liberals within the state will decline owing to internal contradictions. Capturing a liberal state is much too hard.

Vermeule is one of the world’s premier theorists of the modern state. If any integralist can devise a reasonable plan, it is him. And he has identified the necessary contours of any transition plan. Localist integralism must face powerful states that may eradicate them. Or, like Mt. Athos in Orthodoxy, they are small and unobtrusive. But in such regimes, freedom of exit is a constant problem. It will pressure local regimes to become less punitive and less integralist.

Vermeule’s plan will fail, so most transition plans will probably fail, too.

2. Integralism as an Ideal

I draw on the Catholic distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory in all my critiques. This is their thesis/hypothesis distinction. The thesis is the ideal regime. The hypothesis addresses societies that face barriers to the ideal. Thesis theorizing explores integralism as an ideal. Hypothesis theorizing considers real-world limits and transitional questions.

Thesis theorizing has several functions. One function is indisputable: the ideal defines the best regime in a fallen world. That’s what it means to be an ideal. The integralist ideal, though, has certain requirements.

First, the ideal cannot violate natural law in its essential operations. After all, the ideal regime has direct access to grace through the Catholic Church. The ideal also suits human nature in order to advance the common good and human flourishing.

At a macro level, integralism must be a kind of social order. Integralist regimes must rebuff external and internal threats. And it must do so owing to its unique stabilizing properties. Integralist regimes must contain dynamics that course-correct to maintain their existence.

I reject these claims about the ideal in chapters 5 and 6. Integralism cannot do its job: being a just ideal.

3. Ideal Action Guidance

But here’s something else many political philosophers think ideals should do. Ideals should be action-guiding. Weak action guidance means the ideal tells us how to improve local circumstances. Strong action guidance means the ideal tells us how to move towards it. Part of the Transition Argument is that integralism does not tell us how to approach it. Or rather, it does not tell us how to approach it without violating Catholic moral teaching. So integralism lacks strong action guidance.

Now to weak action guidance. An attractive ideal should tell us where other societies go wrong and how to fix them. If integralism is light-years away, it will fail to help us fix local problems. Or rather, we won't need it to do so.

We can see this if we consider Russell Hittinger’s work on Catholic moral teaching. Hittinger claims that Catholic moral teaching adopts four principles. These are the common good, human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity. These principles are substantive. They guide action for improving local circumstances. (They also help justify integralism, according to integralists.) So, why not dispense with the ideal and only use Hittinger's principles?

In short, we don't need to consult the ideal to improve local circumstances.

Let’s go further. If integralism tempts us to violate our principles, integralism is worse than no ideal! Indeed, as Jerry Gaus argues, that's a general feature of political ideals. We face trade-offs in approximating the best regime. We can go for local improvements that fall short of the ideal. Perhaps we get stuck there because the adjacent alternatives are worse. Or we can go for the ideal, realizing we're giving up local improvements. Gaus calls this The Choice. Integralism does not provide weak action guidance. It may not help. It may even make things worse.

To strengthen the point, recall that Catholicism has several basic moral principles. That means different institution arrangements might realize these principles to different degrees. Some will respect human dignity less but promote the common good more, and vice versa.

The Transition Argument has several lines of argument. Altogether, it strips away one attraction of a political ideal: action-guidance. That isn't the only attraction of the integralist ideal. The Stability and Justice Arguments take care of the rest.

I believe the Transition Argument devastates the case for integralism to conservative Catholics. Conservatism is often marked by the rejection of ideal theorizing. Conservatives understand that pursuing ideals often make society worse. So, the Transition Argument should make integralism less appealing to its prime audience. Of course, it may still appeal to a kind of romantic Catholic. But again, that's where the Stability and Justice Arguments kick in.

4. Beautiful from Afar but Ugly Face to Face

I would also add another piece to the Transition Argument I didn’t work out in the book. If it is quite far away, we may become confused by the attraction or even the rationale for an ideal. And that’s because we don’t know how the ideal will function even under favorable conditions. Why do integralists think that their ideal will be a just and stable order? Why do they think it will work as they hope? If the ideal is far away, integralists have less reason to believe integralism will succeed. And since integralism is very far away, it may look good from afar but hideous face-to-face.

In the book, I think I’ve struck the right balance. But I also wanted to strike that balance in my editorials, blog posts, etc. Recently, Haaretz published an editorial of mine on the topic. Unfortunately, they gave the piece a misleading title and added a photograph that misrepresents a prominent integralist. I've asked for a correction.

I want to clear the air and refocus the discussion in this post ASAP. First, I do not think today’s integralists are a threat to Jewish people. Rather, I think a modern integralist regime would endanger its Jewish citizens. There’s a world of difference here. I also don’t think integralists today are anti-semitic. Indeed, some integralists have defended special protections for Jews in their ideal regime. And in general, integralists believe in the complete religious freedom of unbaptized Jews.

But any modern-day attempt to talk about integralism to a broader audience must respect integralists and validate Jewish fears, stressing the latter.

We can illustrate Jewish concerns by recalling the Mortara incident. Many integralists supported Pope Pius IX's separation of Mortara from his family. Jews are right to judge Pius IX’s actions as evil. Maybe Pius IX meant well, but his actions were gravely unjust.

The Mortara incident highlights two reasons Jews should oppose integralist regimes.

(1) If Jewish children receive a valid baptism, they become members of the Catholic Church. If these Jews grow up and reject Christianity, they're still members, whether they like it or not. Thus, an integralist state could punish Jews for grave sin, apostasy, and heresy. Integralist governments might avoid such actions for prudential reasons. But they could, in principle, exercise such power. Indeed, quasi-integralist regimes engaged in these actions for centuries. That strikes all non-integralists as a severe injustice. I agree!

(2) The second problem is more complex. Integralist theory contains two moral principles that can conflict. Principle one: the church-authorized state must protect the faithful from spiritual threats. Principle two: all unbaptized people have a right to religious freedom. The second principle flows from the integralist interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae. If we combine these principles, the integralist state must protect the faithful while protecting the errant. 

That tension has played out in medieval Europe, often grossly. The Papal States maintained Jewish ghettos until the late 19th century. The popes defended their actions by appealing to principle one. Catholics need protection from Jewish ideas. But the popes downplayed principle two. Indeed, the Catholic Church seemed to forget the second principle for centuries. This inconsistency was one problem Vatican II sought to remedy.

So, even ideal integralist regimes will face the temptation to mistreat Jews owing to the tension between principle one and principle two. In the real world, integralist regimes will likely perform much worse. Most states mistreat minority groups who have no political power. Ideal or real, integralist states will face internal pressure to pursue related policies. That is more than enough reason for Jews to worry about integralism.

--

I wrote this post as a public record of my thinking on the relationship between integralism and the Jewish people. I reject any implication that current integralists are a threat to Jews. Unfortunately, the misrepresentation remains beyond my control. But I now distance myself from that misrepresentation. 

Two quick points. Following Mollick’s advice, I use Bing on Creative to answer all my web queries. It is so good I never Google anymore. I also find the Bing app pretty intuitive on my smartphone. I use Google Fi on long solo drives. You can talk to it in real time and learn a lot.

I pay to use ChatGPT 4. I use it to improve my research. Here’s what I’ve found.

(1). GPT-4 can create excellent documents from standard writing formats. Examples include recommendation letters and grant proposals. OpenAI has trained it with millions of examples. Letters of recommendation need to be personal. But GPT-4 can help produce the first drafts of a grant proposal. Or at least a skeletal outline. That has saved me a good bit of time.

(2) GPT-4 writes good paper abstracts from an introductory section of a paper. In general, the more content you give GPT, the better results it produces. The more complex the content, the more it can enhance the product. I can put a long introduction into ChatGPT and ask it to make a shorter abstract, and it does a decent job. Note: ChatGPT can only count words if you finagle it a bit. But it can replicate a good abstract based on millions of examples. Writing abstracts is now less tedious.

(3) GPT-4 is bad at generating objections to arguments. Yet, it is not terrible. Ask GPT-4 to generate objections by providing a short argument or paper section. It may give you five or so, four of which are no good. But sometimes, one of them is good enough to see humans wanting to advance it. GPT-4 surprised me here. I expected it to be 100% bad, but it is more like 90% wrong. In the academy, asking others to read your work takes effort and commitment. But there's a faster way to improve your papers. You can also ask GPT-4 to repeat your argument, which is helpful.

(4) Academics hate meeting word limits for submitting articles to journals. But GPT-4 is fabulous at cutting words from a paragraph or two. Follow my advice in the next point with a few paragraphs. You’ll soon approach the word limit. (If you’re trying to cut 100-300 words out of a 10,300-word piece).

(5) I write rough drafts before editing and adding citations. ChatGPT excels at editing rough drafts. It knows how to reduce the reading grade level of text. Some reading grade-level algorithms are old. For a century, grade schools have needed ratings to assign grade-appropriate books. So, if you have a paragraph, use the Hemingway Web app to generate the reading grade level. Then drop the paragraph in GPT-4 and tell it to reduce the grade level to grade 8 or 9. It helps me see tons of extraneous text, sometimes as much as 40% of my paragraphs. Also, do go paragraph by paragraph. The more text you give GPT-4 at one time, the worse its edits. It’s also good at the sentence level, but I focus on paragraphs.

Here, I’ve had great success. I can often reduce the number of words in a rough draft by 30-40%. I took one rough draft from ten thousand to six thousand words in a few hours.

Now, the text it produces is weird and child-like. You can’t rest with that text. It breaks the text into small portions, too small for ordinary readings. Combining short sentences into long ones is more straightforward than shortening long sentences. So, the text atomization saves time.

ChatGPT could be better at varying sentence lengths. If you don't connect it to Wolfram Alpha's web app, it won't count the words it makes. Even with WA, the counting is very slow. So you’re going to have to vary sentence lengths yourself for now. I use Pro-Writing Aid to measure sentence lengths and edit within that app.

(6) GPT-4, even Bing’s version, is still not great at finding sources, though it is much better than a few months ago. So, it is OK to use Bing for citations (owing to its live internet connection). I still don’t use ChatGPT to produce sources. However, it can often find older sources in the public domain. OpenAI likely trained it on those texts.

(7) Generally, the more you know about a subject, the more ChatGPT can help you write about it. You can find mistakes fast, and the tech gets smarter as you ask more intelligent questions. Specific questions are better than general questions.

(8). Besides writing, I use Bing on Creative to answer other questions. For example, I can learn how to solve annoying problems in my house. I can find remedies for minor health issues, improve my diet, and plan workouts. I can even discover fun games to play with my kids when I'm out of ideas. Asking GPT-4 for help is cheap and could have a big impact.

* I also recommend ignoring Mushtaq Bilal. He has sent me down many rabbit holes. Moreover, he advises people on how to improve their academic writing, but that skill doesn’t show up in his CV. He has 35 citations. By contrast, Ethan Mollick has 10269. Bilal also insists on payment for all his speaking events. And he reacts with indignation when he’s invited to speak for free. I know because he tweets about it. I find this intolerable.

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Philosophers make all kinds of causal and explanatory claims. I’ve learned from Gaus and Muldoon that these claims imply the presence of a model. Sometimes, these models are implicit, like in G.A. Cohen’s camping trip argument for socialism. Or they’re partially explicit, like John Rawls’s original position. Or they’re explicit, like Robert Nozick’s argument for the minimal state. Regardless, political philosophers model to defend their conclusions.

The question in political philosophy is not whether to model but whether to do so well. The same goes for political theology. I’ve co-authored a few articles modeling stability claims in contractarian thought to critique them. I’ve drawn on Rawls, Jerry Gaus, Ryan Muldoon, John Thrasher, and others there. I used some of those tools to analyze integralists’ stability claims.

Integralists advance implicit models of our social world. That includes their claim that a mere natural law state - one that enforces moral law - will degrade without a church that graces it. The implication is that grace will reduce the degradation rate.

That’s a qualitative claim. And one we can model. One way to model a qualitative claim is to convert it into a quantitative model. The model takes on explicit parameters. We then see under which parameters the claim is true or false. We can reject the qualitative claim if it only holds under implausible parameters, or we can accept it if it holds under a plausible range of parameters.

That’s why I built an explicit quantitative model in Chapter 5. That’s why I used figures of speech like “grace rate.” I wanted to describe how grace restrains destabilizing factors like pluralism. I do that to assess integralist claims about political stability, which are, again, their claims, not mine.

I also wanted to be charitable to the integralist, which is why my model grants them two claims that might be false. First, I grant that religious coercion increases stability up to some margin. Second, I grant that their ideal society can have many policy equilibria. If one policy combination destabilizes, society could return to a different mix and still count as stable.

That is sometimes easier to represent graphically, so I drew some graphs. I used some made-up numbers to illustrate the shape of the curve (which I explain in detail) and go from there. My critics thought I drew the curve arbitrarily, but I defended myself, again, at length.

So, I use a formal model to make their claims explicit and check them as best I can. Again, the choice is not whether to model but whether to model well. My goal was not to end the debate. Indeed, I invite integralists to build alternative models. If they respond by creating their own models, that would be fantastic. We’d advance our understanding.

Unfortunately, some integralists prefer to poke fun. But I will not withdraw my extended hand.

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Reviews

Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution: “… likely to be one of this year’s books that turns out really to matter.”

Mustafa Akyol at the Acton Institute’s Religion and Liberty Online: “We are indebted to Kevin Vallier for his new book All the Kingdoms of the World, which gives a stimulating introduction to the new integralist movement… A work that deserves to be read, discussed, and pondered.”

Podcasts

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Videos

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Mercatus Center (9/9)

American Enterprise Institute (9/22)

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What is Wokism?

The term “wokism” derives from the claim that some people are “woke” by recognizing certain progressive-tinted truths about race, gender, etc. I am not sure the term maps neatly onto the world. We certainly have no clear definition yet. But I take it to consist of at least six theses:

1. Strong Egalitarianism - wokism affirms the equality of persons, including equality of the races, sexes, and genders. It is suspicious of social hierarchy, including voluntarily agreed upon hierarchy, and hierarchy in private spaces. In general, all hierarchies threaten equality and oppression and so require deconstruction.

2. Radical Social Construction - wokism holds that nearly all identities, if not all, are the product of human beliefs and practices. That includes, in many cases, the distinction between biological males and females, but not always. Wokism does not necessarily affirm the social construction of all metaphysical claims, just specific claims about human nature (or lack thereof).

3. Structural Realities - wokists tend to think that the categories of unequal treatment and oppression imply that social institutions can create unjust inequalities even if everyone within those institutions has the correct beliefs about race, gender, etc. Structures as such can be sexist, misogynistic, etc.

4. Pessimism about Social Change - while less essential to wokism, one often finds pessimism, for instance, that white people can ever truly set their anti-black racism aside. Conditions of oppression can improve, but they will never be eliminated. Progress is slow and quickly reverses itself.

5. Sectarianism - one commonly recognized feature of wokism is not so much what they believe but how they treat dissenters and critics. A part of wokism seems to be that disagreement with the woke is unreasonable. Disagreement originates in ignorance, bigotry, and probably some combination. No person fully aware of the relevant features of social reality could reject wokist theses 1-3. So, wokists have trouble working with the non-woke. That makes their social group look more like a sect than a movement.

6. No Mercy for Oppressors - for the woke, bigotry, and indeed culpable bigotry, is a pervasive feature of human life. Nonetheless, violators do not merit forgiveness or the ability to have their reputations wiped clean of past offenses. Indeed, offenses merit severe penalties, like losing one’s job.

We can call features 1-4 the theory of wokism and 5-6 the practice of wokism. Wokism is a series of beliefs about how to change the world.

Notice here how little wokism has to say about other arenas of life. It focuses primarily on an ethical and political claim that humans are equal, a metaphysical claim about the necessity and sources of hierarchy, and a methodological claim about how to relate individuals and institutions in understanding the dynamics of oppression.

Wokism says nothing about whether any religion is true or false; it does not list a complete set of human goods or give one a criterion for developing an account of the good life. It has very little to say about economic issues and little to say about how to structure institutions or resolve conflicts.

What is Religion?

Following philosopher Robert Audi, I treat “religion” as a cluster concept. Religions often but do not always include:

1. Appropriately internalized belief in one or more supernatural beings (gods);

2. Observance of a distinction between sacred and profane objects;

3. Ritual acts focused on those objects;

4. A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the god(s);

5. Religious feelings (awe, mystery, etc.) that tend to be aroused by (2) and (3);

6. Prayer and other communicative forms concerning the god(s);

7. A worldview according the individual a significant place in the universe;

8. A more or less comprehensive organization of life based on the worldview;

9. A social organization bound together by (1)–(8).

Audi’s definition of religion is good (even if there are others). It seems to include everything we’d ordinarily call a religion, and little of what we’d deny is a religion.

If Audi’s definition is good, wokism is not a religion. For instance, wokism has nothing to say about whether God or gods exist. There is no transcendent moral code, although the doctrine of equality is treated as objective and fundamental to morality and a person’s moral worth. There are no prayers or communicative forms about divinity. We’re not told whether the individual has significance in the universe. And there’s no comprehensive organization of life, only part of one.

Conditions 2 and 3 are more interesting. I think wokism distinguishes between sacred and profane objects, including forms of speech and discourse and different groups of people. Intersectionality helps us to identify the most holy objects, namely those oppressed along multiple dimensions (a Black transgender person, for example). It also allows us to identify profane things, like the cis white male. And it does have a certain kind of ritual focused on those objects, in terms of days celebrating the oppressed (holy days). But I fear much of what I just said is an exaggeration.

Condition 9 is also interesting. There’s no church of wokism, but it has a natural home in humanities departments on elite college campuses and often in human resource departments. So I would say that wokists have a kind of organization - a league of universities and specific departments within those universities. And then they have various camps in, say, the arts.

What, Then, is Wokism? A Slender Ideology

Wokism is not a religion. It may share features 2, 3, and some of 9 with the major religions. But that’s pretty dissimilar. And so, we should not call wokism a religion. That’s a distortion of what wokists believe and what a religion is. When people call wokism a religion, they want to show that it is irrational or hypocritical. Opponents of wokism should simply justify those claims. Don’t use religion as an extra step in your arguments.

I would say that wokism is a slender ideology. It is undoubtedly a political ideology that is thin in that it only addresses some social and political issues. That doesn’t mean wokism is true. But let’s get our categories right. It aids clear thinking.

That said, we gain more insight by addressing the theorists. The strategists strive for the ideal. If the ideal is defective, they should pursue other projects. Addressing the ideal, then, addresses the integralists all at once. So the book engages the theorists more than the strategists. 

My four theorists are Thomas Pink, Fr. Thomas Crean, Alan Fimister, and Fr. Edmund Waldstein. 

The strategists include Adrian Vermeule, Gladden Pappin, Chad Pecknold, and Pat Smith. I think Sohrab Ahmari and Patrick Deneen are now both integralists. But they’ve made some public remarks that distance themselves from the ideal. 

The two groups differ in many respects. Here are five.

(1) Location: The theorists primarily live outside the United States; most are not American. Pink, Crean, and Fimister were born in the UK. Waldstein is American but lives in Austria. 

Vermeule, Pecknold, and Smith all live in the US. Deneen is American, and while Ahmari is Iranian, he lives in the US. Gladden Pappin is an American citizen too. However, Pappin has moved to Hungary. He is now President of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

(2) Time Period: The theorists worked on integralism five to ten more years before the strategists. (Perhaps excepting Pappin.) Pink, Fimister, and Crean were all interested in some version of the ideal in the 2000s. But most of the strategists became integralists in 2016 or later. The strategists also contain several converts. Most of the theorists are cradle Catholics. 

I’ve spoken with all the theorists. They say a Catholic society is a precondition for transitioning to integralism. The strategists have a more top-down approach. They sometimes say that they can capture elite institutions like the nation-state. That can produce an integralist society over time.

(3) Current Political Attitudes: The theorists have an authoritarian political ideal. But their attitudes toward modern politics are more anodyne. Indeed, many reject Vermeule’s fondness for the administrative state. Crean and Fimister see integralism as opposed to the modern nation-state. The strategists have authoritarian politics about current political affairs. 

(4) Scholarship: The theorists also write much more on integralism. Pink has many papers, Waldstein has a few and an array of blog posts, and Crean and Fimister have an entire book. The strategists write and publish far less on integralism.

(5) Kindness: Finally, the theorists are kinder than the strategists in their digital interactions. The strategists are often unkind to their critics, especially on Twitter. 

The theorists and strategists are different. Our approach towards them should reflect that. We should dialogue with the theorists. They merit engagement. The strategists seem to dislike dialogue, even with other integralists. I sometimes worry that all we can do is oppose them.

*Actually, there are two other groups. The first group includes the left-wing integralists involved in the movement before 2016. They split with the theorists and strategists over Trump. While they were once a cohesive group, they collapsed. Many now identify as ex-integralists (so I won’t identify them).

The other group are the hardcore localist quasi-integralists. They have direct or indirect ties to New Polity magazine. They’ve tried to dialogue with the strategists. They’ve failed! I am often surprised about how little the strategists want to discuss their ideal. They seem content to talk to no one but themselves and their followers. 

Catholic Integralism is a tradition of thought that, rejecting the liberal separation of politics from concern with the end of human life, holds that political rule must order man to his final goal. Since, however, man has both a temporal and an eternal end, integralism holds that there are two powers that rule him: a temporal power and a spiritual power. And since man’s temporal end is subordinated to his eternal end, the temporal power must be subordinated to the spiritual power.

This definition is problematic as it defines integralism against liberalism. It uses a distorted account of liberalism too. And it incorporates moral judgments. A better definition avoids these faults. It should also encapsulate what historical figures defended.

What Kind of Thing is Integralism? Ideal, Goodness, Authority

I see integralism as a kind of ideal theory. It is a theory of the best human regime or at least a limit on the set of the best human regimes. But these are all regimes that contain the reality of the Fall. So integralist ideal theory differs from ideal theory in liberal and socialist thought.

Integralism is also a theory of the human good – individual and social. The justification for the integrated church-state is to promote the whole common good. This “dyarchy” advances both parts of the common good--temporal and eternal.

Integralism is also a theory of political authority. God authorizes the church and state to advance the whole good of the human person and the entire common good. Authority comes from God by way of these moral criteria.

Integralism Defined

With that, let’s define integralism with three claims. I use variables to convey that integralism can take a diversity of forms. That said, to be an integralist is to hold the following:

1. Natural authority: God directs the state to advance the natural common good, G, of a community, C.

2. Supernatural authority: God directs the church to advance the supernatural common good, S, of all baptized persons in C.

3. Indirect supernatural sovereignty: to advance S, and only for this reason, the church may mandate state policies, P, backed by civil penalties, E, that advance S directly (i.e., not merely by advancing G) without excessively undermining G or S in some other respect.

The first two conditions are easy to understand. God grants secular rulers the authority to foster the natural common good. The natural common good is essential for earthly flourishing. Further, one can grasp its authority through reason. God also endows ecclesiastical rulers with related authority. Their role is to promote the supernatural common good of the community of the baptized. These common goods, essential for eternal prosperity, come to us through revelation, as well as our knowledge of these goods.

The Indirect Power

The third condition makes integralism unique. Most Christian theologians believe that God empowers the church and the state. Both have divine authority to rule in their own domains. Theologians also agree that the church has a nobler mission than the state. But integralists diverge from even most traditional Catholics in a particular way. They think the church's higher end has implications for political sovereignty. States can threaten the church's mission. The church must accordingly have some authority over them.

The church cannot have total political authority. God grants secular rulers authority directly, including infidel kings. But, for the integralist, God cannot deny all temporal authority to the church. The church is, by God's design, a perfect society. It is a society that, in principle, has no defect. It must therefore have all the powers required to fulfill its mission. That includes the authority to require states to help advance the church's spiritual ends.

The pope and his bishops have what Cardinal Robert Bellarmine called indirect power. I define it as indirect sovereignty in supernatural affairs—indirect supernatural sovereignty. These terms are more precise. Our question concerns authority and not mere power. (Contemporary English has lost the idea of a moral power as an authority.)

The indirect power means that the pope and his bishops can direct state law and policy to some extent. That includes apt forms of punishment. But the church only has such authority on spiritual matters.

Integralist Regimes

Notice that integralism does not stipulate how states should make laws and policies. A society can have an integralist monarchy or an integralist democracy. But dogma largely fixes the legal structure of the church.

I'll add two more points. Ideally, the church will not wield its indirect sovereignty in private. Societies should exercise power in public view. And the church's reasoning should become part of the reason of the public. This power should also respect the rule of both civil and canon law. It should operate in a regular and predictable manner. If so, state constitutions should incorporate indirect sovereignty. Integralism thus implies that an ideal, yet sinful, regime should constitutionalize the church's indirect power.

Centering Cardinal Bellarmine

Second, I've elevated Cardinal Robert Bellarmine's defense of integralism over contemporary figures. Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Church and a saint, holds high authority. His writings remain influential within the Catholic Church. He defended integralism in a profound and public manner that influenced political practice. Early 20th-century Catholic theologians recognized Bellarmine's work in political theology. Liberals like John Courtney Murray felt compelled to engage with Bellarmine's thought.

Moreover, today’s leading integralists greatly admire Bellarmine. That includes Thomas Pink, who has published extensively on Bellarmine. Adrian Vermeule too. Vermeule's Twitter handle blends his name with Bellarmine's (@Vermeullarmine).

Religious anti-liberal doctrines favor a strong coercive establishment of religion. The state must recognize true faith. It must also use law and policy to help people enjoy spiritual goods. These doctrines also reject liberal theories of political legitimacy. The state receives some of its legitimacy from a higher power (God, Allah, Heaven, etc.). The state must recognize its divine authority and fulfill its religious mission. 

These views are anti-liberal because they reject the equal treatment of true and false religions. (As the Catholic anti-liberals say, “Error has no rights.”). They oppose universal religious toleration, at least in principle (they may tolerate false religions for pragmatic reasons). The liberal tradition has not always opposed religious establishment of any kind. But it has, in all its forms, favored the elimination of coercive establishment.

Religion and Its Goods

Following philosopher Robert Audi, I treat “religion” as a cluster concept. Religions often but do not always include:

1. Appropriately internalized belief in one or more supernatural beings (gods);

2. Observance of a distinction between sacred and profane objects;

3. Ritual acts focused on those objects;

4. A moral code believed to be sanctioned by the god(s);

5. Religious feelings (awe, mystery, etc.) that tend to be aroused by (2) and (3);

6. Prayer and other communicative forms concerning the god(s);

7. A worldview according the individual a significant place in the universe;

8. A more or less comprehensive organization of life based on the worldview;

9. A social organization bound together by (1)–(8).

I define “religious goods” as goods that help establish union or harmony with the divine. In Catholicism, these include the sacraments, the physical means of grace, like the Eucharist, and the associated theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. In Confucianism, the virtues help one imitate and harmonize with Heaven (Tian), and harmonization is a chief religious good.

Strong Coercive Establishment

In a religious anti-liberal regime, the state does not directly promote spiritual goods. It can produce healthcare, but not faith. The anti-liberal state instead creates conditions where people can readily secure religious goods. For instance, the state will suppress temptations to false religion. It might ban heretical books.

Today, religious establishment is often weak. Many nation-states identify themselves with a single religion and endorse one religion as correct. Some Islamic states go much further. But, generally, a religious establishment does not use coercion to suppress false religion.

A strong coercive establishment suppresses aspects of false religion with coercion. They might say, execute apostates. 

Divine Legitimacy

Religious anti-liberalisms hold that political authority is divine. Integralists claim, for instance, that God authorizes states and the church both directly. God also grants the church indirect authority over the state to direct the state to support its religious ends.

Islamic regimes acknowledge the divine will as the source of political legitimacy. God wills the Shariah and authorizes the caliph. The caliph then wields divine authority within the bounds of Shariah law.

Confucian legitimacy comes from holding the mandate of Heaven. The mandate comes from virtuous rule, as Confucians understand the virtues (benevolence or ren (仁), righteousness or yi (义), propriety or li (理), wisdom or zhi (智) and fidelity or xin (信)).

All three anti-liberalisms allow for democratic government. But the people do not have original authority to rule but borrow it from the divine.

The Leading Anti-Liberal Theorists: Pink, Jiang, and Ghannouchi

AKW examines three religious anti-liberalisms. These include Catholic integralism, moderate Sunni Islamism, and Chinese Confucianism. I analyze these doctrines by way of their most thoughtful and reasonable representatives: Thomas Pink, Jiang Qing, and Rached Ghannouchi.

Thomas Pink is the father of the Catholic integralist revival (though with concerns about American integralism). He’s one of the finest philosophical historians in the world (see his translation of Suarez’s De Legibus here). Jiang Qing is the leading Confucian establishmentarian. Everyone in Confucian political circles knows Jiang’s work. He currently runs a private academy in China, far from Chinese politics. 

Rached Ghannouchi is the most prominent. He led Tunisia’s Assembly until quite recently, as he just became a political prisoner in his own country. Ghannouchi is a moderate Islamist thinker (who has made Tunisia more liberal than before). 

Each figure publishes widely in defense of their doctrines, and you can find much of them here (for Pink), here (for Jiang), and here (for Ghannouchi).

All three figures are much less anti-liberal than one might think. Pink, for instance, is quite keen on British legal and constitutional institutions and favors a republican form of government. Pink also stresses religious liberty for the unbaptized. He has steadfastly avoided adopting the worrisome policy suggestions of other integralists.

Jiang Qing proposes a Confucian tricameral legislature. Its highest house is the House of Ru, comprised of Confucian stages/gentlemen. The authority of the House of Ru comes straight from Tian. But Tian also authorizes two other houses—of culture and the people—to balance out the errors to which the House of Ru is prone.

Rached Ghannouchi argues that the umma—the Muslim people as a whole—hold the office of caliph. They then appoint a government. For Ghannouchi, therefore, Islamism must be democratic. Further, he stresses that there is no compulsion in religion. No one can be forced into Islam. He also thinks that non-Muslims can form parties and have representation in parliament. That said, non-Muslims cannot become heads of state. Nor can non-Muslim parties rule outside of a Muslim majority coalition.

I disagree with them, but they might improve their nations in various ways. Catholic integralism would worsen Pink’s Britain overall. Still, he wouldn’t press for it unless the British people became almost entirely Catholic. Jiang’s Confucianism beats the Chinese Communist Party, and Ghannouchi’s moderate democratic Islamism has already improved Tunisia.

Religious Anti-Liberalism

So, that’s what I mean by religious anti-liberalisms. They affirm a strong coercive establishment and the divine origin of political authority. These factors entitle the state to promote true religion and discourage false religion with force, if necessary.

But first, feel free to read a summary here. And, of course, buy the book! If you buy it from Oxford UP, it’s only $20.97! (What a price!)

All the Kingdoms of the World (now AKW) delves into faith-infused political movements worldwide. I deeply dive into the Catholic anti-liberalism movement, also known as Catholic integralism. I use integralism as a case study to understand the revival of faith-centered politics in the 21st century.

Big Reveals

1. AKW is not a defense of liberalism. I’ve done that (here, here, and here) and will do it again many times. I thought it best to evaluate Catholic integralism and other religious anti-liberalisms on their own terms. The book will take you through integralism and offer a purely internal critique of the view. Far too many anti-liberals get away with trashing liberalism and not submitting their own doctrines to similar scrutiny. I want to end this practice.

2. AKW defends integralism at length. Before I argue against integralism, I make the best case for it I can (pp. 53-117). I want you to take the doctrine seriously and honor my opponents.

3. AKW develops three arguments against integralism. This book does not give a battery of small arguments. I instead give three worked-out arguments. But, I have a slogan that summarizes them. Integralism: you can’t get there, you can’t stay there, and it’s unfair. Transitioning to integralism is infeasible or immoral; integralist societies will likely unravel owing to their own logic, and integralist regimes impose unjust coercion on many of their members.

4. AKW provides a general framework for assessing other religious anti-liberalisms from the inside. The final chapter carries out the project. My great regret about the book is that I didn’t discuss Hindu Nationalism, but that work will come in time. Still, I give Islamic and Confucian anti-liberalisms a fair shake.

AKW’s Table of Contents

Here’s the book’s table of contents.

A Brief Overview of AKW

In the introduction, I explain why contemporary faith-infused political movements matter. I also explain why they were bound to revive in some form or another.

Chapter 1 introduces you to integralist doctrine and the integralists themselves. They’re fun characters, so I introduce them through a few short narratives. I then review their doctrine in (I hope!) a clear and intriguing fashion.

Then I turn to defense in Chapter 2. Integralists might have Catholic history and church teaching on their side. I call this the History Argument. Chapter 3 argues that integralists have a coherent project. They think the state should promote the earthly common good and the eternal common good too. Most Catholic natural law views these days think the state should only promote the natural good. So integralism is, in a sense, more symmetrical in its treatment of the good. I call this the Symmetry Argument.

Next, I turn to critique. Chapter 4 analyzes the claim that integralism is infeasible. Vermeule has published some short pieces on integralist transition strategy. I offer a unified interpretation of these pieces as a transition strategy Vermeule calls integration from within. I then ask whether the plan is feasible given Catholic social teaching. The answer is that integralism is either infeasible but moral or feasible but immoral. I call this the Transition Argument. In sum, Integralism: you can’t get there.

Chapter 5 focuses on the integralist ideal. Here I address the work of Thomas Pink, Fr. Edmund Waldstein, Fr. Thomas Crean, and Alan Fimister. Integralists love to talk about order, but what sort of social order is integralism? How does such a society perpetuate itself over time? I argue that even an ideal integralist order is subject to internal contradictions. It is likely to unravel owing to its own commitments. Integralism is not a moral order. I call this the Stability Argument. In sum, Integralism: you can’t stay there.

Chapter 6 argues that integralism is unjust on its own terms. I’ve publicized this argument quite a bit already in public talks. Go here for one. The fundamental problem owes to the integralist doctrine of baptism. In their view, baptism licenses religious coercion of the baptized alone. I argue that this commitment is internally inconsistent. It treats the baptized unjustly and so unfairly. I call this the Justice Argument. In sum, Integralism: it’s unfair.

Critiques complete, I generalize the five arguments (History and Symmetry in favor, Transition, Stability, and Justice against). I apply the argument schema to anti-liberal doctrines in other faiths. I focus on contemporary Sunni Islamic political thought and contemporary Confucian anti-liberalism. In particular, I examine the ideas of Rached Ghannouchi and Jiang Qing.

I end by proposing ways liberals and anti-liberals can reconcile. I'll keep that concealed. Sort of.

Buy the Book! Only $20.97!

So, folks, there it is. I will raise integralism high before I break it down. AKW is awfully cheap for a work of political philosophy, political theology, and political economy all rolled into one. So, BUY MY BOOK. Let’s have some EXTREMELY NERDY fun.

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1. What’s Going On Here?

My Substack focuses on liberalism: its varieties, defense, and fiercest enemies. I think online discussion of these matters is too impatient. I prefer to think more carefully, more, well, tortoisean, for lack of a real word.

I’ll also pursue balance. Liberals will find respectful engagement with anti-liberal thought. Anti-liberals will find a liberal who takes them seriously. While I am a liberal sort, I want to add value for everyone who engages with liberal thought.

I will publish 2-3 essays a month for a year. I start in July 2023 and will end in June 2024. I limit my Substack for two reasons. First, it will include essays tied to my forthcoming book, All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism (Oxford UP 2023). [official launch soon!]Books have half-lives. Second, products often have more value when creators and consumers know when it ends. I will publish 25-30 essays over twelve months. We now have shared expectations.

2. Who Am I?

I’m Kevin Vallier (pronounced: val-YAY), a political philosopher trained in the analytic tradition. I’m an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. I’ve worked on liberal theory for fifteen years in philosophy and political economy (I’ve written a few books on these matters). While I’ve done some blogging, most of my writing aims at other academics working in the liberal tradition. That is changing.

Why? My Christian faith centers my identity. And I view liberalism discussions through a Christian lens. That’s a bit odd. Most political philosophers are secular, and most Christian philosophers avoid political philosophy. So, I often find myself as an extreme outlier, even in sub-communities within my profession. But for now, I want to reach out to more people who think more like me: young Christians grappling with the liberal tradition.

My new book does just that. All the Kingdoms of The World explores faith-infused anti-liberalisms, but I focus on Catholic anti-liberalism, the system of thought often called integralism. (Some “integralists” call themselves “postliberals.” Some of them have a related Substack, Postliberal Order.)

So, from your perspective, who am I? I’m a Christian, liberal political philosopher trying to address people, especially young people, concerned about liberalism.

Of course, this raises some preliminary questions. What is liberalism? And what is liberal order?

3. What Is Liberalism?

I see liberalism as a tradition of political thought. The tradition contains a host of political philosophies and political ideologies. They differ in many respects, but their principles and policies have a family resemblance.

Political principles serve to justify the character of political order. They tell us what the state should and should not do. Liberalism usually contains four principles: liberty, equality, toleration, and social harmony. These principles tell governments to:

1. Liberty: Respect the individual by protecting a range of personal freedoms.

2. Equality: Treat everyone equally through equal treatment before the law.

3. Toleration: Tolerate a diversity of religious and moral opinions. Avoid using coercion to privilege controversial and sectarian doctrines over others.

4. Harmony of Interests: Create social conditions where diverse groups can work together. Make social interactions mutually advantageous. States should lessen conflicts where they can.

In short, liberalism says that the state should treat all as free and equal, tolerate diverse beliefs and forms of life, and reduce conflicts created by that diversity.

In my view, liberalism is not a form of life. Or not chiefly that. The liberal tradition is downstream of our personal moral values but upstream of public policy and institutions. These secondary principles justify institutions and public policies, but not by appealing to a comprehensive picture of the good life.

4. What Is Liberal Order?

A liberal order is a set of institutions. These institutions stably and effectively honor liberal principles. They respect freedom and equality and promote tolerance and social harmony. Accordingly, ideal liberal orders have five features:

1. Constitutional Rights and Liberties: Everyone has effective rights of speech, press, religion, due process, etc.

2. The Rule of Law: Everyone is accountable to the legal system. This system's laws are publicly recognized, equally enforced, and independently adjudicated.

3. Democratic Governance: Everyone has an equal right to select their leaders. Elected leaders have parallel rights to choose laws and policies.

4. The Market Economy: Everyone has a right to own property, including capital goods. Citizens may use their property as they wish and exchange goods and services with one another.

5. The Welfare State: Markets need a degree of correction, chiefly through safety nets. Safety nets and smart regulations protect the weak from excess risk, severe poverty, and workplace domination.

Some self-described liberals reject democracy, the market, or the welfare state. These departures make their liberalism defective or at least non-standard.

5. What Does Liberalism Need?

The liberal tradition is, in my view, around two hundred and fifty years old. As we will see in future posts, I see John Locke as a proto-liberal. He is, first and foremost, a radical Protestant thinker concerned with working out the social implications of his theology. Liberalism as a coherent doctrine developed fifty to one hundred years later in 18th-century Europe.

Since that time, the liberal tradition has issued a profusion of liberalisms. New social challenges produce new variations. The most well-known cleavage is between classical liberals and revisionist liberals. Classical liberals favor the extensive use of markets and limited use of the state, whereas revisionist or progressive liberals favor a large state and more restricted markets.

Liberals differ in many other respects too. But I think liberalism must now take on new forms. I began this Substack because I believe we stand at the beginning of another era of ideological evolution.

Presently, liberalism faces left-wing and right-wing challengers, though the challengers are not as powerful as those in the inter-war period. Fascism and communism pose no danger. But we face subtler forms of left- and right-authoritarianism.

Why? The post-war liberal consensus has, by and large, collapsed. People no longer take liberal principles for granted (even if most feel stuck with liberal order). Liberalism is no longer the stage for our political contests. It is now on stage as a contender.

Further, the US has troubling low trust/high polarization social dynamics. Those dynamics have produced a new skeptical political mindset. Aspiring intellectuals no longer take the justifiability of their inherited institutions for granted. They want to think politically from the ground up.

What liberalism needs today is adherents willing to rethink liberalism from the ground up. Liberalism is a flexible tradition, having evolved and adapted to many threats. It has hybridized with other ideologies to survive in several cases. In my view, liberalism must adjust again. And I want to help.

Helping requires better theory, as we have seen throughout liberal history. Each era must recombine and reinterpret liberal principles.

I’ve already tried to make a tiny contribution to this reshaping. My first book argued that liberalism must shed its secular bias. My next two books provided a trust-based defense of liberal order. I claim liberal orders can sustain social and political trust and contain damaging political polarization.

My liberalism is one of peace and reconciliation. It seeks to preserve liberal order in response to those who would overthrow it. In this way, my liberalism is also one of conservation and reform.

6. If you like what you see, subscribe!

Please subscribe for the 25-30 essays to come. It is free. You’ll also want to subscribe if you find my new book of interest (more soon!).

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