The Imagined Isle Irish Catholic Identity in the Restoration Era Nathan Mainster Brown University Author Matthew Dowling Armaan Grewal Kara Huang Shreya Raghunandan Rudra Srivastava Editors Fall 2018 This essay explores to what extent an Irish Catholic nation formed in the Restoration Era. The Bleeding Iphigenia, written by Nicholas French, Bishop of Ferns, in the early 1670s and published in 1674, informs the reader of the principal metaphor which governs the tract: “The author hath drawne another Iphigenia of the body of a noble, ancient Catholic Nation clad all in red Robes.” He then claims to speak on behalf of said nation, writing that he, “presents to the view of our gracious King Charles the second a Catholic People, his faithful subjects wounded by thieves, and left half dead.” His request is also spelled out: “I beseech you, gentle Reader, pray to God for my afflicted Country, and for the Catholic Religion therein persecuted.”[1] The confidence with which French asserts the existence of a Catholic nation is striking; most scholars, including Joseph Leerssen, Tom Garvin, and Jim Smyth, maintain that neither an Irish Catholic nation nor a concept of nationalism appeared until the eighteenth century. The inherent social and political complexities of the Restoration era (1660-88), originating from a gaping ideological and power vacuum following the frenetic confusion of the Interregnum, coupled with the self-interested imperative of rebuilding of pre-Cromwellian life, effectively forestalled religious or national coalescence. Experiences of the war and of the post-war settlement did not fall neatly along confessional lines; in many cases, Protestants and Catholics of certain classes or political persuasions had more in common with each other than with their co-religionists. However, in the discursive realm, the confusion of the Restoration era provided fertile ground for the unification of the Irish Catholic interest. By the time of the Glorious Revolution, Protestant lawyer Richard Cox claimed that, “the Old English...are now so infatuated and degenerated, that they do not only take part with the Irish, but call themselves Natives.”[2] Protestants and Catholics clashed bitterly over a multitude of issues, and the politics of memory ensured that battles fought during the 1640s were replayed in an intellectual context. In an attempt to justify their positions during the Interregnum, Irish Protestants aggravated the memory of the 1641 rebellion, focusing on the epoch wherein Catholic loyalty to the crown may have been called into question. New pamphlets emphasizing the barbarity of the Irish Catholics during said revolt proliferated, and old ones, such as Sir John Temple’s famous 1646 account, enjoyed consistent reprintings. The Irish parliament indirectly participated in these politics of paranoia by forming a “committee for the preservation of the rights of Protestants” in Ireland, in response to falsified reports of another rebellion.[3] Combined with the bitter realities of mass dispossession, political disenfranchisement, and marginalization, one would think that the volatile Restoration period would foster an atmosphere conducive for Catholic nationhood. However, such a notion was not fully-fledged during the Restoration. Instead, the time period laid the ideological framework for such a concept by embedding the notion of Ireland as a Catholic nation in propagandistic discourse, thus recognizing Catholic unity as a desirable goal. Though Irish Catholic nationhood did not develop in a visible sense, it became a standard theme of contemporary political dialogue, in which several complex versions of unity were promulgated to support the view of individual authors. The idea of nationhood emerged from the fray, guaranteeing that following the Restoration period “Ireland” became a decidedly Catholic entity. The Divisions in Catholic Irish Society The disappointing reality of Catholic Ireland in the Restoration period was one marred by entrenched intra-communal conflict. The ancient divisions between the Old English and Gaelic ethnicities, the two major Catholic groups, were far from obscured. Though intermarriage and centuries of interaction had helped to diffuse certain quotidian cultural distinctions, sentiments of prejudice, distrust, and alienation overwhelmingly predominated.[4] State-sponsored discrimination, even by the likes of Catholic heroes such as the Earl of Tyrconnell, and mutual animosity, served to definitively prevent Catholics from cooperating across ethnic lines.[5] Irish Catholics were no more unified by the experience of the land settlement. On 23 October 1641, sources suggest that Irish Catholics possessed 69 percent of Ireland’s profitable land; during the Interregnum, this figure was reduced to 10 percent. However, when the Stuarts were restored to the throne, Catholic land ownership increased significantly to 30 percent due to the briefly-operational court of claims, which rather clumsily attempted to restore unjustly dispossessed Catholics, royal sympathy, and access to patronage.[6] This rather arbitrarily orchestrated and haphazard process ensured that Catholic experiences with the settlement were myriad. Spokesmen for dispossessed Catholics such as Sir Nicholas Plunkett and Richard Talbot, and later the Earl of Tyrconnell, spent much of the 1660s at Whitehall lobbying for the restoration of their co-religionists. They asserted that the 1648 peace entitled Irish Catholics to full restoration of property of which they had been stripped by Parliamentarians, and as such undermined the legitimacy of the Cromwellian claims.[7] Perhaps the greatest single effort occurred in 1670, when 52 dispossessed Irish Catholics and their supporters sent Talbot to present a petition to the King and parliament for full Catholic restoration. Delivered in the name of the King’s, “Most distressed subjects of your kingdom of Ireland who were outed of their estates by the late usurped government and are not yet restored,” the petition claimed that under the terms of the 1648 peace treaty, most, if not all, Catholics were entitled to repossession, and requested an “Act of Indemnity” and fair revision of the settlement act. The argument was underscored by a narrative of unwavering Catholic loyalty from the Interregnum to the present in the face of Cromwellian temptation. This argument fell on deaf ears: the Crown rejected the proposal, citing the material and political benefits already wrought by the land settlement.[8] The land settlement meant that 20 percent of dispossessed lands did return to Catholic hands. Patronage or sound political connections proved to be of paramount importance in procuring articles of restoration, and men such as Viscount Muskerry, the Marquis of Antrim, the Talbots of Malahide, and the Earl of Carlingford found their estates restored or expanded thanks to covert political machinations.[9] Consequently, a powerful minority of “new interest” Catholics emerged and effectively stonewalled any legislation altering the settlement throughout the Restoration period. Indeed, they wholeheartedly endorsed bills to confirm their titles at the expense of their unrestored co-religionists. In 1678 and 1680, Lord Lieutenant Ormond unsuccessfully attempted to call a parliament to pass legislation which would fully complete the land settlement. Under the proposed acts, the dealings of the court of claims were to be formalized and a commission was to be entrusted to investigate uncertain titles. In other words, further possibility of restoration would be curtailed. Predictably, responses to the bill polarized around the experience of the settlement; restored Catholics such as Colonel John Fitzpatrick and Nicholas Taaffe, Earl of Carlingford actually traveled to London to support the legislation and to counter the claims of unrestored Catholics or their advocates who simultaneously pleaded their case at Whitehall. The legislation was eventually killed in its crib due to the unstable political climate resulting from the so-called popish plot, but the similarly difficult experience of James II in attempting to overturn the land settlement provides equally illuminating insight. Upon his accession, distraught Catholics rejoiced over the prospect of a co-religionist as their sovereign and hopes for a reversed land settlement ignited anew. Yet once again the vocal minority of restored Catholics consistently and forcefully lobbied against any alterations. In 1689, the Earl of Tyrconnell, new Lord Deputy of Ireland, fulfilled his dream of the past two decades and called a parliament to overturn, or at least drastically transform, the land settlement. His efforts were met with immediate opposition. A petition presented to James composed by “new interest” Catholics and Old Protestants warned of the inevitable downturn the Irish economy would face should land be confiscated from the settlement’s beneficiaries. It rejected the disaffected Catholics’ contentions that the court of claims did not operate for sufficient time to evaluate the Irish situation effectively, and affirmed the conservative Declaration for Ireland of November 1660 as the basis for the settlement. The petition ended with a cautionary warning of desertion from the Jacobite camp if the land settlement was overturned: “Suffer me to make one step more, and query: Whether the Catholic Purchasers now to be turned out of possession, will join heartily with those that enter upon them?” This faction aligned themselves with Old Protestant representatives in the House of Lords to block the legislation. In the end, those in favor of repeal represented the larger interest, and James, forced to choose between war funding and bankruptcy, conceded to their demands and began to repeal the settlement. Even religion itself proved to be a divisive force. Questions of the monarch’s role in ecclesiastical structures and Irish Catholics’ often contradictory obligations to Rome and London precipitated not only acrimonious debate, but also persecution and bitterly vindictive conflict. These debates found their visible manifestation in the proposed 1661 remonstrance. This petition, attempted to reconcile the dissonance in Catholic theo-political theory created by their dual loyalty by affirming the supremacy of secular loyalty to the crown. The petition was also a political document responding to contemporary Stuart policy, whose ultimate object was to assert the right of Catholics to participate in a political society which increasingly appeared to cater solely to Protestant interests.[10] The remonstrance emphasized the Catholic duty of, “being entrusted by the indispensable Commission of the King of Kings with the Cure of Souls...and teaching the People that perfect Obedience...they are bound to pay to your Majesties Commands,” yet they still found themselves, “loaden with Calumnies, and persecuted with severity.” They lamented that they could not “with freedom appear to justify [our] Innocence, all the Fictions and Allegations against them are received as undoubted Verities;” and thus seek to “humbly beg your Majesties pardon, to vindicate both by the ensuing Protestation” their loyalty. The petition claims that, “These being the Tenets of our Religion, in point of Loyalty and Submission to your Majesty’s Commands, and our dependence of the See of Rome no way intrenching upon that perfect Obedience...we are bound to pay to your Majesty,” and elaborates on these “tenets”: "We do acknowledge and confess your Majesty to be our true and lawful King, supreme Lord, and rightful Sovereign of this Realm of Ireland, and of all other your Majesties Dominions. And therefore we acknowledge and confess our selves to be obliged...to obey your Majesty in all Civil and Temporal Affairs ... as the Laws and Rules of Government in this Kingdom do require at our hands. And that notwithstanding any power or pretension of the Pope... or by any Authority, Spiritual or Temporal, proceeding or derived from him, or his See, against your Majesty, or Royal Authority, we will still acknowledge and perform, to the uttermost of our abilities, our faithful Loyalty, and true Allegiance to your Majesty."[11] The remonstrance prioritized temporal loyalty over spiritual, denied the pope any tangible jurisdiction over monarchs, and implied that the pope’s role in secular affairs was an advisory one devoid of real political power if the monarch opposed his judgment. It was signed by 98 Catholic peers and sent to Ormond in 1661. The document immediately provoked rancorous debate. Most Catholic clergymen, who necessarily relied on Rome for patronage without a legal, state-sponsored episcopate of the Gallican variety, followed the lead of their backers and refused to sign the document for its judgments regarding papal power.[12] Bishops Anthony MacGeoghegan of Meath and Nicholas French of Ferns pamphleteered vociferous opposition to what they considered religious treason. Peter Walsh, one of the few clergymen who backed the remonstrance, who was also a supporter and confidant of Ormond’s, defended the document in various written works throughout the Restoration period. Formal protests were submitted, and a synod of Catholic clergymen in 1666 meant to resolve the issue only further retrenched animosity.[13] The movement collapsed and no remonstrance was ever submitted to the Crown.[14] Yet the ideological divisions within the Catholic community by no means ended with the defeat of the remonstrance. Not only did the questions it raised dominate clerical discourse for the remainder of the Restoration period, but the internal debate it generated also had concrete implications for the shape and character of the Restoration church. The appointments of the fervently anti-remonstrant Peter Talbot to the Archbishopric of Dublin and Oliver Plunkett to that of Armagh in 1669 fundamentally transformed the politics of Catholic ecclesiastical structures. Encouraged by the death or marginalization of many of the remonstrant clergy, Talbot embarked on a campaign of vindictive persecution against the remainder. They were relieved of official positions and denied material support. He was reported to have proudly proclaimed that the remonstrant clergy “would all hang” and ruthlessly purged them of all offices within the church.[15] Furthermore, the pamphlet debate continued in full fury well into the 1670s and did little to mend fissures in Catholic ecclesiastical ideology. Given these firmly-rooted ethnic, economic, and spiritual divisions, any claims that a common Irish Catholic nation made itself visible in the Restoration would be extremely difficult to substantiate. Yet, do these fissures necessarily mean that no Irish Catholic nation developed at all? Contemporary pamphleteers did not think so. Nicholas French’s The Bleeding Iphigenia was by no means the only tract which referred to the Irish Catholics as a “nation.” In fact, every side of Irish Catholic discourse in the Restoration era over the aforementioned issues of the land settlement and the Remonstrance often addressed “All Irish Catholics,” either described a coherent Irish Catholic nation or called for one, compartmentalized all Catholic experiences into one which fit their theses, and denounced efforts to divide the Irish Catholic polity in a tract which was contributing to just such a phenomenon. Though each version of history, each founding memory, and each sense of what “Irish Catholic” meant was distinct, all tracts contended that their prescribed formula could create this new idea or explain its existence. How is this difference between discourse and practice possible? Perhaps the issue arises from how the modern reader perceives nationhood. Instead of conceptualizing it concretely, as manifested in a coherent body of united individuals with a common ethnicity, culture, or interests, it may be more accurate to conceive of it as Ernest Renan did: as a people unified through common experiences and shared memories.[16] If we conceptualize it as such, it becomes evident that the idea of Irish Catholic nationhood appeared constantly in written work of the time, not as one singular, exclusively-defined identity, but as a fractured concept which agreed on little more than the fact that such an idea existed or should exist. As we have seen, Irish Catholic experiences varied widely in the Restoration era. Yet, discourse often attempted to ignore entrenched complexities in order to impose upon reality a set of homogenous experiences which all Catholics ostensibly suffered together. The reconstruction of history – over the recent war as well as more distant moments – provided the memorial basis for Catholic unity in the discursive realm. In using historical memory as a propaganda tool, each author to be examined asserted that their treatises could bring or explain Catholic unity under their terms, which often sought to justify or persuade the legitimacy of a short-term ambition. * * * The rhetoric of unity regarding the land settlement will be examined first. As Danielle McCormack has noted, the success of Catholic lobbying for restoration in this period was principally predicated upon proving the legitimacy of the 1648 peace, whose indemnity clause would directly contradict the Restoration policy of inordinately limiting the potential of Catholic innocence.[17] To support their positions, Catholic advocates of restoration simplified the 1640s into an era of nationalized, confessional conflict of English Protestant versus Irish Catholic. Yet, though the search for material interests undeniably acted as the principal imperative for this type of language, the effects of its presence took on quite a different form. Pamphleteers employed discourse as a bandage to patch up undeniably present acrimony by framing the past as an era of unity, and thus implied either that unity still existed or could be attained, and affirmed the image of Ireland as a state closely associated with Catholicism. The anonymously written pamphlet Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland from 1668 articulates the obdurate, oppositional position taken by Catholics such as Nicholas French and Oliver Plunkett, espousing a view of history wherein Irish Catholics since 1641 had displayed indefatigable, flawless loyalty, yet nevertheless had been betrayed in the land settlement by Ormond, the king’s ministers, and self-interested, land-grabbing Protestants.[18] This ideological history is intended to lump all Catholic experiences into a single, inflexible memory so as to purge the discourse of the complexities of the social reality and Catholic culpability for wartime atrocities and subsequently affirm the validity of Catholic claims to land. The opening line of the tract states that the author’s intention is to recount, “the sad and deplorable state of the Irish Nation, and the apparent injustice, and inequality used in the present Settlement of that Kingdom.”[19] He substantiates this claim of extant Irish nationhood by claiming the existence of a force which binds them all together: “It cannot be denyed, but that the Roman Catholicks of Ireland have infinitely suffered, during the late Usurped Government.”[20] A few sentences later, he entirely omits the qualifier of Catholicism, believing it instead to be implicit in the statement wherein he simply describes the sufferers as “the Irish alone,” thus conveniently ignoring the significant portion of Irish Catholics (and Protestants) whose experiences differed from those of his vision of a unified Catholic community collectively double-crossed by the settlement, and retrenches the link between Irishness and Catholicism.[21] Having thus postulated the existence of an Irish Catholic nation indivisibly united by the universal experience of dispossession, and casually conflated Irishness with Catholicism in a manner which inextricably and exclusively binds the two identities, the author then recounts a historically revisionist understanding of the past to defy Protestant land claims. As the antithesis to his purportedly unified Catholic body, he conceives of the enemy as one equally monolithic Protestant beast, fueled by greed, vengeance, and unfaltering support of Cromwell, blurring all nuance present in the equally complex reality of Irish Protestantism. He claims that the land settlement was legislated and supervised entirely by Protestants, and transmuted into law by, “a Parliament, which met on the 8th. day of May 1661. The Lower House of this Parliament was all composed of Cromwellists, and but very few of the Irish Peers were admitted to sit in the House of Lords, under the pretence of former Indictments. This Parliament made the first Act of Settlement...This Act decides all the doubtful expressions of the Declaration in favour of the Cromwellists, and to the disadvantage of the Natives, it allows only a Twelve-months time for the tryal of Innocents; But those Irish Gentlemen who served His Majesty abroad, together with the generality of the Nation pretending to Articles, (half a score persons only excepted, who were particularly provided for) are forever debarred by this Act, to recover their Estates without previous Reprisals, which is a thing not to be had in nature.”[22] Several important rhetorical devices are present in this passage. First, the word “Catholic” is never uttered. It is implicit in the word “Irish,” which is placed in direct opposition with a “Cromwellist” interest. The pamphlet, whose object is a searing takedown of former Protestant royalists such as the Earl of Clarendon or the Duke of Ormonde, erases their monarchist credentials by portraying them as greedy post-Cromwellists attempting to deprive loyal Irish Catholics of their land much like the Lord Protector did. Thus “Cromwellist,” in this context, does not necessarily refer to political leanings; rather, it likely denotes any Protestant beneficiaries of the land settlement regardless of their political affiliation during the war. This statement confessionalizes not only nationality, but also political loyalties during the war in an attempt to invalidate Protestant claims under accusations of treason. The essentialist implication that Protestants by nature are inherently inclined towards parliamentarianism is a cogent reduction of the historical narrative meant to promote the author’s vision of the Irish Catholic: resolutely royalist yet deferentially shocked at the loss of their lands to the “enemy.” The author underpins his position with a host of ethical and legal arguments. Morally, he claims that the: “parties pretending are the Irish Proprietors, and the London Adventurers: The first enjoyed it for so many ages...and they lost it at length upon the account of Loyalty, fighting for the Kings Interest against the Murderers of his Royal Father: the last...have no other Title but what they derive from the Ordinance of an usurped Government, for having disbursed vast sums of Money to countenance Rebellion, to pull down Monarchy, and put up a pretended Commonwealth. And yet the Land is adjudged for them, and confirmed to them and their Heirs forever...”[23] Furthermore, Cromwellian settlers, he asserts, are not technically entitled to their land until the 1641 Catholic, “rebels be declared by the two Houses of Parliament to be wholly conquered; until a Commission….[examines] who are the Rebels, and who are Innocents.”[24] Oftentimes, the distinction between logos and ethos are blurred. The author laments that the “Duke of York should now enjoy all that Land, by no other Title but that of the Regicides. The Land was given them by a Tyrant, for murthering the King, let the World judge of the goodness of their Title.”[25] This rather incisive averment insinuates that James’s land claim is illegal precisely because of its immorality; it was acquired through the crime of regicide. Implicit in this statement, of course, lies the contention that all Protestant claims to land are void by virtue of their ostensible parliamentarian and thus regicidal tendencies. Yet, according to the author, Protestants alone controlled the outcome of the settlement and ensured that Catholic capacity for reinstatement was minimal. First, the Catholic gentlemen in exile with the King were never reinstated. Next, the Protestants made it so difficult to “qualifie an Innocent, that it should be Morally impossible to find any such” in Ireland.[26] In a final, devastating act, Parliament in 1664, “decreed, that no benefit of Innocency, or Articles, shall be allowed... to any of the Irish Natives.” [27] The King is absolved of all culpability in this grand Protestant conspiracy, and blame instead is placed on the greedy minister Clarendon and the Earl of Orrery, who, “assured to the King, that there was a sufficient stock of Reprisals to, “satisfy all interests” and thus maintain the loyalist credentials of the Catholics.[28] The Protestants, furthermore, are motivated by lustful material concerns, not love for the king. This passage is worth quoting at length: ...the first Minister of State...telling, as for a final reason, that the Protestant English Interest cannot be maintained in Ireland, without extirpating the Natives…. True Religion was ever yet planted by preaching and good example, not by violence and oppression: An unjust intrusion into the Neighbours Estate, is not the right way to convert the ancient Proprietors...And as to the present Settlement of Ireland, it is apparent to the World, that the Confiscation of Estates, and not the Conversion of Souls, is the only thing aimed at. If by the English Interest we understand the present Possession of the London Adventurers, and of Cromwell's Soldiers, there is no doubt it is inconsistent with the restoration of the Irish, neither can the New English Title to Land be well maintained, without destroying the old Title of the Natives; even as the Interest of the late Commonwealth was incompatible.[29] In this version of history, divisions within the Irish Protestant community are effectively erased. They are replaced instead by an immutable bloc of irreligious, selfish, politically radical colonialists labeled the “English interest” who use the cover of missionary work to ultimately destroy the Catholic Irish--or the natives, as the author would say--for the worldly sake of appropriating their property. The Catholic experience is presented with an equal lack of nuance. Ignoring the existence of legally restored Catholics, the author maintains that Ormond “is gone with all his Greatness, and the miseries of the poor Irish do still continue” and laments the state of “that Nation, who are deprived of the Benefit of Law, Justice, and public Faith,” of course referring to the Catholic nation.[30] Furthermore, this narrative of history does not stop with the Restoration. The author sees the struggle between Irish Catholic royalism and English and Scottish Protestant radicalism as ongoing, and uses the memory of the attempted Presbyterian coup by Colonel Thomas Blood and the English Civil War, as sufficient justification for promoting Catholic interest in Ireland: For that the true Interest of England (as relating to Ireland) consists in raising· the Irish as a Bulwark, or balance, against our English and Scotch Presbyterians….when the Presbyterian practises and Covenant began to disturb these Kingdoms, the Papists and Prelatiques in Ireland (as well as in England) joined their hearts and hands against Presbytery for the King. [31] Thus, in arguing for the overturn of the land settlement, the author of A Narrative constructs his vision of an Irish Catholic nation: a unified, loyal polity, whose history consists of having fought heroically during the war yet being tragically betrayed by the king’s selfish ministers and their Protestant and imaginably Cromwellian or neo-Cromwellian supporters. Though egregiously misrepresenting the actual experience of the war, the nature of the land settlement, and the complex character of confessional identity in Ireland, it serves as adequate foundational history for his equally distorted vision of a unified Catholic nation. His conflation of “Irish” and “Catholic” further embeds the image of the entity of “Ireland” as fundamentally Catholic, and ignores the serious ethnic, social, and theological distinctions of the population. This position, however, was met with backlash from other members of the Old English community. Archbishop of Dublin and celebrated anti-remonstrant Peter Talbot’s 1674 Duty and Comfort of Suffering Subjects is an essential piece to examine, not only because its message differs vastly from that of A Narrative, but also because its purpose is slightly different and adds a complex element to the debate.[32] This text was not written with the purpose of obtaining anything material, and grounds its arguments in theological rather than political justification. Just like the author of A Narrative, Talbot uses the concept of Catholic unity, justified by the common experience of 1641, to accomplish a distinct goal: to end what he sees as immoral and heretical practices. Talbot follows the lead of the author of A Narrative and addresses the pamphlet to all of the “Roman-Catholics of Ireland,” thus implying that he believes Catholic unity exists, and sets out to prove it on his terms.[33] His main area of concern is the ostensible Irish Catholic obsession with property, decidedly sinful in his eyes. He affirms, “that the Happiness of Man in this present state consists more in possessing the riches of a good Conscience than the conveniences of this world.”[11] Yet he recognizes that, “Tis the depraved condition of human nature which makes us affectionately covet...such paltry trash.”[34] The “paltry trash” referred to is property confiscated by the land settlement, and his treatment of the incident manages to be wholly out of touch with both the new interest Catholics and the dispossessed faction. Again, what is an Inheritance? A parcel of land whereof our Ancestors were Masters as long as they liu'd; which term of Life (the only interest any of them could pretend to) is valued but at seven years purchase: Is it reasonable then think you, to fix your hearts so…passionately upon that earth, as if your Souls were to turn into it as well as your Bodies? Poor Souls! After a mans death hee has no expectation of any good for his Temporal Estate, being quite out of all circumstances of enjoying the least convenience from it.[35] Talbot here makes the oft-vaunted religious claim that acquisitive interests are inherently sinful. Such a belief carries additional weight in the phrenetic context of the Restoration era and the politics surrounding the land settlement. His call for salvation to, “be your comfort, not that empty one of possessing estates already disposed” was an unequivocally bold statement, because the tract aims to unite Irish Catholics on its terms.[36] As we have seen, the land settlement polarized Irish Catholics along lines of the repossessed and the dispossessed. Talbot’s argument essentially claims both sides to be reprehensible. Talbot spends several lengthy paragraphs asserting that, “Disobedience to our King necessarily implies disobeying God,” and denounces rebellion, “against His Majesty’s Government, Person, or Subjects,” as religiously and politically unforgivable.[37] He then supplements his contention with a more political rationalization for the deleterious essence of material concerns: they lead to rebellion. He asks, “how can it be imagined that [God] will allow of so great a crime as rebellion upon any score….much less upon that meer Temporal motive of saying or regaining an Estate?”[38] Challenging the land settlement, if not explicitly an act of revolt, can easily lead to one. Thus, “Let not the vain hopes of better Times, or the desire of passing a short Moment something more commodiously plunge you into the intolerable miseries of Hellfire for all Eternity... You have lost your real Estates, let not Imaginary ones fool you...”[39] His principle over which Catholics could find unity is one of collective responsibility: either to stop pressing for restoration, or to ensure that their Catholic brethren lay down their claims. And the shared experience which provides the imperative for such collective responsibility? The war. Talbot’s idealized understanding of 1641 stands in direct opposition to the view espoused by the author of A Narrative, who argues that, “ The Irish insurrection...hath not been accompanied with that Insolence and Malice in the beginning...which...some Pamphlets have charged the Irish with.”[40] His view is more in agreement with the Protestant narrative which emphasizes Catholic atrocities and greed instead of monarchical loyalty. He writes: You have had experience of...Preachers who pretend great zeal to God and the King’s service, and yet, at the same time Rebellion, and Murders were proou'd against them. These are the men you must not give ear to, nor converse with, lest you be infected with their Doctrine and perverted by their Example….And yet if either these, or I, or an Angel from Heaven should go about to persuade you that it is lawful to molest your Protestant neighbors, or defraud them of their goods, or enter upon their possessions by any means or method which the Law of the Land doth not allow, give them no credit...[41] This theologically-underpinned incarnation of Catholic unity is derived from a necessity of repentance. Like that of the author of A Narrative, Talbot’s vision of a united Catholic Ireland is prescriptive rather than descriptive; a means to an end rather than a factually accurate statement. Old English discourse over the land settlement, then, engendered several iterations of an Irish Catholic identity, none of which were reconcilable with each other nor with reality. Yet there are striking methodological parallels: both tracts assume the existence of a united Catholic Ireland as a critical element of their rhetorical strategy. Such a rhetorical strategy was a conscious choice and the considerations that went into it should not be taken lightly. One may assume that claims of unity would be the most effective way to convince others of their point; unity was evidently an ideal that appealed to much of the literate Old English community. A Gaelic perspective on the land settlement and memory of the Cromwellian wars is essential to any comprehensive assessment of the extent to which Catholic Irish identity formed in this period. The relative paucity of surviving Gaelic sources for everyday native Irishmen renders any evaluation of their contribution to Catholic discursive identity problematic. Yet one does remain which can offer insight into the way the Gaels constructed their version of Ireland: Gaelic poetry. Historical memory in Gaelic poetry was a familiar concept by the time of the Restoration. For centuries, Irish poets evoked the names of legendary heroes, battles, and kings to draw a firm line connecting their patrons to extant days of Irish glory.[42] During the Restoration period, however, a salient change took place. Gaelic poets began to treat the Irish heroic past as more self-consciously legendary, and presented it in stark contrast with recent memories of English conquest. Every element of English culture, society, and politics was acrimoniously criticized with relentless vigor and poetic wit. As such, Dáibhí Ó Bruadair, the most renowned poet of the era, claims in his poem “Thou Sage of Inanity” that the English historical pedigree pales in comparison to that of the Irish.[43] He derides a defender of Ormond who claims, “That his father or himself or any offspring of that race E'er performed such deeds as those,” performed by the Irish, as having, “been hoaxed by thy conceit.”[44] Shameful, cowardly Englishness is placed in direct dialogue with powerful, resplendent Irishness. This theme is expanded into the cultural realm and the traditionally English conception of civil and moral superiority is shrewdly reversed. The Restoration-era poems of Ó Bruadair depict a cultured, refined Gaelic Ireland ruined by boorish English brutes representing Cromwellian plantation and the Restoration settlement. Ó Bruadair laments this tragic state, writing in his 1674 poem “Woe Unto Him Who Hath Failed”: Every prayerful, faultless, noble, charming chieftain of the flock, Scattered through the land of Fionntan, growing with no lowly growth, Who hath been compelled to part with state and wealth and native nook...”[45] These “Noble-born, cultured, and high-minded chieftains” have been replaced by “ignorant dullards” and “ostentatious upstart[s] swollen high with pompous pride” whose pastimes include “plundering maids, single, defenceless, in delicate health.”[46] The title of the poem from which the last excerpt is taken, “Proud as a Chief is the Bailiff,” embodies the contempt with which the Gaelic poets treated the English upstarts who believed that they represented the rightful, moral and political governing class of Ireland. As Joseph Leerssen has noted, the English language was often used as a signifier in Gaelic-language texts for Saxon incivility. Restoration-era poems often contained Gaelicized loanwords from English--such as “clóca” or cloak, “cóta” or coat, sbuir or spurs, buat or boot, sdocaidhe, or stockings, locaidhe, or curls, ráipéar, or rapier, and sgarfa, or scarf, which were deliberately employed to disrupt the rhythm and rhyme scheme of the poem; these intentionally painful interruptions easily communicated to the reader or listener the invasionary nature of the English settlers.[47] Ó Bruadair explicitly treats with the contamination of the Irish language in his 1675 “I Shall Put a Cluáin On Thee,” where he writes, “Now the Béarla Teibidhe is the language which Ó Lonargáin used to talk...on account of the excessively silly bombast of the poets in Freamhain.'' Béarla Teidbidhe, the dialect of Irish which more liberally utilized loanwords from other languages, functions as a literary device signifying the degradation and decline of the Irish language by “silly bombast.”[48] From a confessional perspective, theologian Francis O’Molloy printed a comprehensive overview of the Irish language in 1677, which contained a lengthy tract lamenting the seemingly concurrent decline of the Gaelic nobility and language, writing: Pity the people for want of literacy after the destruction of their letters...Ireland has fallen under the shower against the host of its ancestors. The music of tunes has not remained, nor proper instruction, nor learning. The Irish do not even understand the Irish language, they speak it carelessly, they do not read it with any propriety; they abandon it, and leave honour behind….If you ask them to read verses in their own sweet mother tongue...they cannot. This is what happened to the Irish from Ireland.[49] The use of language as a symbol for not only cultural, but also national distinctions, is essential to note here for two reasons. First, it places the bardic poet, master of the Irish language, at the center of Gaelic national identity. Gaelic poetry in this time was something of a moribund cultural relic, existing in a world that had long considered it a vestigial curiosity. Indeed, Ó Bruadair died hopelessly impoverished, and much of his later poetry focuses on this destitution.[50] Ascribing language a primary role in the formation of Irish identity assigns the poet a relevance which he had most certainly lost. Second, by linking language and idealized history, Gaelic poets implicitly grounded Irish national identity in both ancient and recent historical memory: the glorious past, the apex of Irish linguistic hegemony and its cultural byproducts; and the depressing present, wherein language is under threat of extinction thanks to an influx of English colonialists bent on aggressive acculturation of the Gaels. Such perceptions of English savagery are reflected in Gaelic poetic treatments of social class. Gradually, the English of all classes replaced the lower classes of all ethnicities as the paradigm of boorishness and stupidity. Prior to the Restoration period, foreigners were categorized with poorer Gaels in criticisms of the uncultured and barbaric enemies of refined Gaelic Ireland. It was a classist—as opposed to a nationalist—distinction. Yet, Restoration poetry increasingly defined the brutes as distinctly English “boors” whose humble patrimony did not warrant their wealth and status, and whose rough, bumbling language and contemptible manners stood in stark opposition to those of the refined, well-spoken Gaels.[52] This conflation of ancient and recent memory also featured heavily in political rhetoric surrounding Gaelic perspectives of James II and their high expectations for his rule. Leerssen affirms that Gaelic poets rejoiced upon James II’s accession, due to his heritage and Catholic faith; thus, poems from the period were tinged with an arrogant optimism. Diarmaid Mac Carthaigh, for example, writes, “Behold there the Gaedhil in arms...they have powder and guns, hold the cities and fortresses; the Presbyterians, lo, have been overthrown, and the Fanatics have left an infernal smell after them,” thus drawing on a recent memory of conquest. Several lines later, he remarks, “Prophets and saints in great numbers have prophesied that Erinn would sure get help at the promised time; by Thy wonderful power, O Christ, and thy nurse’s prayer, everything they predicted shall certainly come to pass.”[53] James II’s accession was lauded in both recent and ancient terms; it was an event foretold by ancient Irish history to relieve the Gaels of their more recent suffering.[54] By contextualizing the often disconnected quilt of Gaelic history within a framework grounded in fresh experiences of collective trauma sustained by a vaguely-defined group of people in “Erinn” devoid of very present internal distinctions, these Gaelic poets implicitly “nationalized” a confederated Ireland in opposition to “Fanatics”; Protestants. This concept of unity is underpinned by the trajectory of the word “Éire,” which underwent linguistic signification during the Restoration period from a term denoting specific dynastic regions to one which conveyed the entire island.[55] Furthermore, the Irish side of the dichotomy between English and Irish is not necessarily exclusive to the Gaels. In fact, it lended Gaelic history a quasi-democratic character; in defining Irishness as a set of cultural and linguistic practices in opposition to Englishness, anybody who agreed with this contemporary critical assessment of Englishness and indulged in or sympathised with Gaelic customs could subscribe to the ancient legacy of old Gaeldom. Whether this happened or not is not relevant; what matters is that this poetry laid the basis for Irish Catholic national identity. Like Old English discourse, its artificial construction of a Catholic Irish memory had serious implications for Irish nationalism; Joseph Leerssen notes that the rise of Irish nationalism in the eighteenth century was characterized by a fascination with and appropriation of Gaelic culture which crossed confessional boundaries, emphasizing the importance of a language, culture, and history in direct opposition with that of the English.[56] Yet there is one important caveat: Gaelic discourse surrounding the land settlement did not explicitly address unity transcending ethnic boundaries as much as it laid out the historical and cultural groundwork for an ostensible common experience. Gaelic writers erased dynastic distinctions, spoke of common experience, and denigrated English language, manners, and history while touting their Gaelic counterparts, thus permitting unity. It was not clear from this literature who could participate in this unity and how qualified it would be. This will be discussed in the next section, focusing on Gaelic religious discussions. * * * As has been shown, the Irish Catholic clergy—and much of the laity—were irreconcilably factionalized throughout the Restoration period, with the initial split precipitated by the proposed 1661 remonstrance which would have subordinated the pope’s jurisdiction to the king’s. Internal acts of vindictiveness by squabbling Catholics in positions of authority, combined with Ormond’s deliberate rehashing of the issue in order to weaken Catholic political activity, served to isolate his Catholic allies from enemies based on who subscribed to the remonstrance, and allowed him to persecute the identified foes, ensuring that Catholics could not even appeal to their common religious beliefs for unity well after the remonstrance failed.[57] But, as with the land settlement, polemicists attempted to surmount these obstacles through discourse by either denying the reality of conflict, or attempting to impose unity artificially through their tract. And once again, as with the land settlement, the context of the topic to be dealt with dictated the experiences used to found this unity. The land settlement was a direct result of recent conflict; thus, memories of the 1640’s were evoked and framed so as to suit the agenda proffered. The remonstrance debate took place within the context of centuries of constantly evolving Catholic theology. Accordingly, the time frame for memories evoked was significantly enlarged. Father Peter Walsh’s mammoth-sized 1673 tract History and Vindication of the Loyal Formulary, or Irish Remonstrance is the first text to be examined.[58] Walsh, a Franciscan monk, was one of the earliest defenders of the remonstrance when the conflicts first began in the 1660s; he notably convinced Ormond to let the clergy summon a synod to ratify it. Walsh’s advocacy of unity is more subtle than that of some other tracts analyzed in this essay. Its implicit, rather than explicit, nature likely derives from the nature of the work. It is intended to defend a coherent set of principles and the man who constructed it from accusations of treachery rather than accomplishing anything concrete through mass support. Remonstrant Catholicism was a significant theo-political departure from orthodox Irish Catholicism, and should be treated as a micro-identity within a larger Catholic body with its own ideological history to ground it. In this case, instead of attempting to forge an Irish Catholic identity out of the shards left behind by its bitter internal conflicts, this tract attempts to construct a wholly new paradigm parallel to the defunct alternatives. As such, unity is implicit insofar as the memories evoked attempt to justify subscription to a piece of reformatory legislation so large it can more or less be considered a separate sect of Catholicism. In short, this tract is purely ideological; unity was the express goal. It does frame the remonstrance as an end to dissolve the penal laws, but that is not the priority. The end of the penal laws is another justification for the benefits of the remonstrance. So how was a “Remonstrantist” identity fashioned? Walsh envisioned the remonstrance model as an acceptable, patriotic manifestation of Catholicism in an increasingly hostile Stuart state which would affirm monarchical loyalty while simultaneously foregoing certain unsavory papal principles in the process. Due to the increased crackdown on Catholicism in the early 1670s, “the old and fatal Controversy” was rehashed in public debate and called into question the loyalty of all Catholics.[59] Walsh explained his remonstrance as, “ a conscientious, Christian...and satisfactory profession of the duty which by all Laws... they...owe His Majesty against all pretences of the Pope to the contrary.”[60] Walsh does not blissfully ignore the existence of deep divisions which may prevent adherence to his vision; instead, he embraces them, writing that soon after the drafting of the Remonstrance it was, “impugned by sundry Ecclesiastics of the Roman Communion and chiefly by many of those Irish who had received most benefit by it.”[61] The reason behind this open admission of failure is twofold. One, it is easier to deny Catholic divisions when there is no public referendum on the issue by which one can concretely gauge the extent of conflict. The synod provided such a referendum and thus its failure was historically impossible to deny. The second reason is that this embarrassment substantiates one of his key arguments: the steady degradation and increasing corruption of Rome over the last several hundred years. Crafting the narrative of his history as a constant, descending slope from Pope Gregory VII to the present, Walsh paints a picture of a corrupt, tyrannical institution which generates political instability by presenting itself as a parallel power structure to secular hierarchies. He claims that over the past six hundred years, Rome has been operating under a set of principles which, “many Thousands of the most Learned, Zealous; Illegible word Godly Illegible word, Priests, and Doctors, as well as [the laity], who never approved... but always reproved, condemned, abhorred, detested; and protested against them both, as not only heretical, but tyrannical.[62] Chief amongst these he names the unchecked, absolute power of the papacy. He enumerates specific examples of malevolent papal authority intended to evoke contemporary politics in such a way as to galvanize support for his ecclesiastical program against Rome which may eliminate differences between Irish subjects. He writes: That by divine right...the Bishop of Rome is Universal Monarch and Governor of the World, even with.... spiritual and temporal authority over all Churches, Nations, Empires, Kingdoms, States, Principalities; and over all persons, Emperors, Kings, Princes... and People...and in all things and causes whatsoever, as well Temporal and Civil, as Ecclesiastical or Spiritual….That He is empowered with lawful Authority, not only to Excommunicate, but to deprive, depose, and dethrone (both sententially and effectually) all Princes, Kings, and Emperors; to translate their Royal Rights, and dispose of their Kingdoms to others, when and how He shall think fit…. That whoever kills any Prince deposed or excommunicated by Him, or by others deriving power from Him, kills not a lawful Prince, but an usurping Tyrant; a Tyrant at least by Title, if not by Administration too: and therefore cannot be said to murther the Anointed of God, or even to kill his own Prince.[63] Tyranny, usurpation, and regicide were all terms typically lobbed at the Cromwellian regime in Catholic discourse. By framing these crimes as inherent to the Catholic Church, and not to the inevitable outcome of radical Protestantism, Walsh accomplishes several discursive feats. One, he sets familiar terms of objective abjectness within a new context and places the blame on a supposedly friendly institution, therefore forcing Catholics to make a choice between loyalty to their beliefs and loyalty to Rome. Two, he implies that his prescription is the only feasible path for Catholics who wish to remain loyal, and thus forces a second introspective confrontation regarding royal or papal allegiance. Three, he maintains that said tendencies are inherent not in the religion but in the institution, implying that following his example will not change liturgy or customs but will simply purge ecclesiastical structures of institutionalized corruption. Four, he constructs a narrative that renders a, “System of Doctrines and Practises... contrary to those...manifestly recommended in the...Gospel of Christ... in the belief and life of the Christian Church universally for the first Ten Ages thereof,” entirely culpable for the, “misfortunes and miseries whatsoever of the Roman-Catholics in England, Ireland, Scotland.”[64] Thus, in Walsh’s world of untenable Church institutions which act as the source of all present Catholic suffering, the only viable way forward lies in subscribing to remonstrance principles. These “misfortunes and miseries” are embodied in the penal laws. Following his affirmation of Rome as the cause of all Catholic tribulation, he expands upon the statutes as a shared traumatic experience to encourage unity over the remonstrance. He affirms that: All Roman-Catholics... without any distinction of Sex, or Age...from the most illustrious Peer, to the most obscure Plebeian...lie under all the rigorous Sanctions, and all the severe Penalties of so many incapacitating... Laws...And your Predecessors, before you, have well nigh a whole Century of years been continually under the smart or apprehension of the severity of them.[65] Such an evaluation of the present state was not entirely true. Irish Catholics often circumvented the penal laws which were rarely enforced during the Restoration period. Yet it is important to remember that this tract was published in 1674, and likely written two years before, at which time the indulgence controversy in England had ushered in a period of harsher persecution and a crackdown on Irish Catholics.[66] Using the aberrational reality of the contemporary political climate, Walsh seizes the opportunity to affirm that such experiences were the normative standard. Yet instead of using shared experiences of oppression to galvanize resistance to the crown, he contextualizes them within his own narrative of uniquely Catholic culpability. Thus, he contends that only Catholics can change their own situation, making subscription to the remonstrance an absolute necessity for any Catholic who wished to ameliorate their present struggles. Within this discourse, that would be all of them. One final point that is necessary to fully illustrate Walsh’s utilisation of memory to craft a remonstrant identity is his claim that the blame for the seemingly never ending cycle of Irish rebellion can be entirely attributed to the pope’s corrosive influence. This counters the oft-articulated English and Protestant claim that the Irish, or Catholicism, for that matter, are inherently rebellious, and supplements his assertion that loyalty to the crown was not only of paramount importance for Irish Catholics, but is also possible under the proper ecclesiastical leadership. Here, Walsh describes a Catholic Ireland forced into repeated rebellion against the Crown by malevolent Roman overlords. And Pope Pius V, His Declaratory Sentence...against Queen Elizabeth. And the Bull or Breve of Gregory XIII...granting to all the Irish that would join and fight in the Rebellion of the FitzGeralds of Desmond against Queen Elizabeth, even the same plenary pardon and remission of all their sins, which is granted to those engaged in a Holy War against the Turk...And that other of Clement VIII...of the like tenor and direction to the Irish Nation in general, animating them to join unanimously in Tyrone's Rebellion against the self-same heretical Queen... And lastly...that Bull or Breve of Plenary Indulgence...given yet more lately to all the Roman-Catholics of Ireland, who had join'd in the Rebellion there begun in the year 1641...witness in the second place all the no less unchristian, than unhappy effects of these very Bulls, Breves, Judgments and Indulgences.[67] Significantly, Walsh fails to add that many Catholics in all conflicts listed refused to rebel, and thus makes this history, just like his other narratives, available to all Catholics. It also skirts around the complicated question of Catholic culpability and the extent to which they acted illegally in the 1640s by affirming that Rome was the reason for any malicious action. Thus, Walsh’s defense of the remonstrance should really be considered a formulation of a specific brand of Catholic identity, just like those of the other authors. He draws on a range of memories, constructing various histories intending to support his argument, and connects these histories to contemporary politics in such a way as to provide a direct catalyst for unification. Catholic nationhood is rarely mentioned explicitly; it functions in this tract not as a means to an end but instead as the ultimate objective. The end goal is a new brand of Catholicism, loyal to the king over Rome, freed from the shackles of forced insurrection, and instead fully integrated, and presumably welcomed, into the Stuart political nation. Yet not everyone approved of such a radical restructuring of Catholic theo-political doctrine. Peter Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin and self-appointed nightmare of remonstrants, produced a pamphlet the following year in 1674 titled The Friar Disciplind, Or, Animadversions On Friar Peter Walsh: His New Remonstrant Religion. It thoroughly excoriates Walsh and his perceived treason, spends an undue amount of time examining laws regarding public whipping and the extent to which they apply to Walsh.[68] Even when he is not indulging his fantasies of subjecting Walsh to corporal punishment, the rage in Talbot’s writing is still palpable. He accuses him, perhaps correctly, of intending to found a “new religion” and becoming, perhaps incorrectly, the “Pope of this new Remonstrant Church.”[69] He labels him a traitor, and maintains that by accusing, “all Bishops, and by consequence the Representative Roman Catholic Church, or...its supreme Pastor together with all the other Bishops of the said Communion, of holding and swearing the lawfulness of Treason,” he has become the “greatest Rebel...of the Irish nation.”[70] It is significant, of course, that the Irish nation means Catholicism, and we shall see that in this tract, as in his The Duty and Comfort of Suffering Subjects, Talbot constantly portrays Ireland as a categorically Catholic nation. This conflation of Ireland with Catholicism is intended to explain the reason why Walsh’s church failed in Ireland. Just as Walsh attempted to create a distinct, remonstrant Irish Catholic identity, so too does Talbot attempt to claim the existence of an opposing number which interprets history and shared Catholic experiences differently. The bulk of Talbot’s evidence for Walsh’s treachery lies in his accusations that Walsh’s remonstrance articulates nothing more than Anglican Protestantism. He argues that the remonstrance affirms that the, “King is the only supreme Governor of England, and of all other his Dominions, as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes, as temporal,” religious authority is duly denied to the pope, and thus the King is given, “all the spiritual power and authority in his own Dominions.”[71] He draws an immediate parallel with Protestantism, noting how, If you will read the Statutes 1. Eliz. 1. & 8. Eliz 1. You will find that the Kings of England’s supremacy, is so spiritual and sublime, that there needs no changing the signification of the word spiritual into temporal, and that a King of England (if he should think fit) may, according to the principles of the Protestant religion, established by the lawes of the land, giue power by letters patents, to any of his lay subjects to consecrate Bishops and Priests… [72] Thus, in practice, Walsh is, “the greatest Traitor and Rebel that breathes,” to the Catholic faith, stemming from his attempt to create a separate Protestant Church to make himself its pope rather than out of a genuine reforming impulse.[73] However, Talbot does not limit the scope of his argument to legal queries over the separation of temporal and ecclesiastical power. He uses the notion of collective memory and a constructed Catholic identity to prove that Walsh is truly operating contrary to the interests of all Irish Catholics. His selection is a curious one: the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered on King Henry II’s (unintentional) orders in 1170. The reasons for this choice are twofold. First, Talbot needs to formulate a narrative honoring Rome for the same period of time that Walsh did to provide a viable opposition model. Thus, he claims, “it’s much better….to justify…. doctrine of...the whole Roman Catholic Church, ever since S. Thomas his Martyrdom, then the fancies of a dull ignorant Friar.”[74] Walsh, however, objects against it the Martyrdom and Miracles of S. Thomas of Canterbury; it being evident out of all Histories, both sacred and profane; that S. Thomas suffered, was canonised and declared a Martyr, for defending the immunities of the Church, and particularly that of Churchmen from the coercive supreme power of secular Courts.[75] Becket’s murder is the founding moment for Irish Catholics because of its contemporary relevance; he died defending the ecclesiastical court’s integrity and independence from a crown increasingly attempting to encroach on spiritual authority. Yet there is something else implicit in such a choice, something far more salient. By claiming that Walsh, who has become a Protestant, has succeeded in bastardizing the memory of saint Thomas Becket, Talbot further retrenches the Irish Catholic and English Protestant worldview. Though Henry II was a Catholic, he was the English king who conquered Ireland, and as we have seen, Talbot’s criteria for Protestantism is predicated on how one perceives the divisions (or lack thereof) between temporal and spiritual power as vested in the monarch. Thus, Talbot ahistorically assigns to Henry the faith of Protestantism to define the Irish Catholics in opposition to the English monarch who, like those of the Restoration, desired for himself ecclesiastical supremacy. Having described a common experience to unite all Catholics, Talbot thus claims that a pan-Catholic identity already exists, with a rich history of papal loyalty and devoted to the separation of secular and ecclesiastical authority dating back to the martyrdom of Becket. He again claims that as Walsh believes, “that the oath of supremacy may be taken with a good conscience by Roman Catholics,” the entire, “Roman Catholic Church belives, and tells vs the contrary,” thus Walsh has, “no reason to be angry with Catholics, if they do not rely upon [his] word in any point that concerns their conscience or religion.”[76] By describing Walsh as a Protestant, Talbot attempts to unite all Catholics against him and avoid afracturing Catholic unity; Walsh is no Catholic. Yet unlike Walsh, Talbot is not attempting to create unity. He is attempting, like the author of A Narrative or himself in The Duty and Comfort of Suffering Subjects, to justify its existence. As such, he isolates Peter Walsh as a lone figure in a defunct movement attempting to combat centuries of Catholicism. By what authority, he asks, may Catholics subscribe to the Remonstrance? None but your own authority; nothing but your saying, that the Roman Catholic Church hath err'd rashly and obstinately for these 600. last years, because it admitted not a Spiritual Supremacy in temporal Soueueraigns. Really Mr. Walsh, I do not believe your sole authority is a sufficient argument to prove the Church hath erred. To proue so rash an assertion you would fain make us mistrust the testimonies of holy and learned Authors of the Church History, as Baronius, Bellarmin, and others…[77] Talbot invokes the concept of nationhood to counteract Walsh’s ability to create a separatist Church. He even explicitly refers to it; he asks whether Walsh would “disgrace [his] own nation” by “promoting protestancy... and dividing...Catholics by his Remonstrance.”[78] Thus his crime extends beyond religious heresy into the secular sort; it also consists of attempting to divide his version of the Catholic nation. This division is a conditional one, however, in the subjunctive tense. It does not exist, of course; it is only the foolish attempt of a deranged traitor. Yet it is not enough to deny Walsh the privilege of support. To claim a united nation in opposition to Walsh, Talbot needs to deny his blatant persecutions of remonstrants. As we have seen, Talbot, in his position as Archbishop of Dublin, gleefully tormented the few remonstrant clergy remaining in his diocese. Yet he instead baldly lies about it: “I neuer persecuted, him nor any of his...Friars Remonstrants, in whose behalf he petitioned.”[79] Talbot, then, uses memory to controvert and invalidate Walsh’s construction of identity and instead articulates an iteration of Catholic identity that he claims as not only a viable alternative, but perhaps more importantly, already the reality. *** How did the Gaels perceive the remonstrance? Clues can be discerned from poetry. As we examined in the last section, the land settlement produced a wealth of tracts chronicling a collective set of experiences for all of Ireland; yet the question of who is included is left rather ambiguous. That question will be answered in this section. In his 1670 poem “O God of the Universe,” Ó Bruadair laments, Dark is the light of the sun and the heavenly elements, And rent is the covering surface of earth's grassy countenance, I deem it no wonder that they should then wholly extinguished be, Seeing that clerics transgressing their oaths into treason fall.[80] The decidedly critical outlook of the remonstrants – or rather, “The corrupt and un-Irish conceits of this renegade forger-clique” – finds a scapegoat in Peter Walsh.[81] In his 1670 tract “‘Tis Sad for Erin’s Fenialí Bands,” Ó Bruadair condemns Walsh as “guilty of the wounds inflicted on the land of Fál, Whicli lies to-day beneath his hand all powerless to act or stir.”[82] Yet such criticisms raise important questions. If the remonstrant clergy and Walsh are traitors, who are they betraying? The Catholic religion, or Ireland itself? Either way, the implications are massive. If Walsh is betraying Catholicism, then Ó Bruadair is claiming the existence of another vision of Irish Catholicism more in line with Talbot’s thinking. If the answer is Ireland, then by consequence all Catholics must be counted as Irish. In examining Ó Bruadair’s treatment of Catholicism as it relates to his already-discussed perception of a Gaelic Ireland, a mostly coherent, yet at times contradictory, vision of who Ó Bruadair considers Irish emerges. His 1680 work “Those Who Once Knewest The Law” sheds some light on these queries. The poem is written in response to the news that one Master Verling, a lower Gaelic nobleman, converted to Protestantism for admittance to Trinity College, Dublin.[83] The poet writes: Those who once knewest the law of the flock that cleaved closest to Christ, And who therefore have let themselves be by the cruellest slavery oppressed, Reflect in thy mind on thyself and observe how accursed the deed To yield to the heart's base desires and sell heaven for a short spell of life.[84] Verling’s treachery is not to Gaeldom but to Catholicism as a whole, and the oppressed peoples mentioned are all Catholics, not just ones of a certain ethnic persuasion. These few short lines reveal a startling conclusion: what Joseph Leerssen mistakenly considers an exclusive, Gaelic identity developing in the Restoration period should really be understood as an Irish Catholic identity.[85] Yet still, this issue is complicated by the fact that the culture and history of Ireland Ó Bruadair espouses is very much a Gaelic one. It is thus necessary to examine his perception of Old English eligibility for this collective memory. Paradoxically, in his rather exclusionary language which separate Gauls from Gaels, he lumps Catholics of all persuasions into a de-ethnicized confessional identity. As reverend Mac Erlean notes, Gauls is a complicated term. It may designate Gauls, Vikings, Normans, or English. Until the seventeenth century, Gauls were characterized and distinguished by different physically descriptive terms such as “fair,” or “bright.” Yet, as the social upheaval of the seventeenth century introduced various new settlers into Ireland, words such as “old” or “new” began to be used, and physical descriptions such as “fair” or “black” became transmuted so as to solely convey moral judgements.[86] Thus “Gall” by Ó Bruadair’s time was a decidedly ambiguous term. As such, we find various pieces praising them, even though they are not Gaels: Many daring soldiers, many swords and volumes, Many masts and currachs, Did that fleet's crew bring across the sea from Britain, Everlasting radiance. The diploma of these Galls is Christ's religion And their prince's patent, The prescription of five hundred years' possession. 'Tis no living falsehood.[87] Thus, the Anglo-Irish conquerors of the twelfth century are distinguished from the Cromwellians of the 1640’s because of their religion. Though their religion does not make them “Gaels,” it does establish a bond with them, symbolized in this particular poem by the marriage between the “Choicest wheat of Erin's Gaels and Galls.”[88] Catholic Gauls are included in the land of Erin, and as we have seen in the previous section, are also included in the land’s Gaelic past which was founded for this united island. The most important Gaelic-language work in forging a discursive Catholic union between Gaels and Gauls is Ó Bruadair’s poem “Love of Sages,” written in praise of John Keating, the Old English Chief Justice of Ireland who acquitted the Gaelic noblemen accused of complicity in the supposed 1682 “Popish Plot.”[89] In the poem, Ó Bruadair identifies two types of Galls. One includes the, Royal champions for the king’s cause murdered Made these sons of malediction proud; Soon the frauds of sullen, hateful scoundrels Flourished fierce without a spark of shame.[90] This classification refers to the Protestant English officials who poisoned the king’s ear with fantasies of Catholic rebellion. The other group – or as Ó Bruadair writes, it, “Galls like these” – including Keating, “shield of our protection/Against the wicked tramp’s perfidious snares.”[91] This second category comprises the Catholic Galls of Ireland, or the Anglo-Normans, to whom the Gaels “owe allegiance.”[92] To further complicate this conception, Ó Bruadair makes several bold statements in his praise of Keating which seem to contradict the notion that these Gauls are even foreigners. First, he lauds the “the chivalrous blood of that generous true Irish Gall,” a seemingly blatant linguistic paradox.[93] Several lines later, he similarly praises him for bringing “comfort to your oppressed Countrymen.”[94] Thus, the distinction between Gael and Gall persists, yet the Galls seem to count as Irish. How so? Catholicism, of course, unites them. The Irish nation conceived by Ó Bruadair and the other Gaelic poets reviewed in the Restoration period is one not of Gaels, as Joseph Leerssen maintains, but of Catholics. As we have seen, Gaelic language, culture, and history were touted with characteristic fervor in these thirty volatile years. Yet these were defined not in opposition to the Old English, but to the English Protestant invaders. The memories that were drawn upon were indeed Gaelic, yet they were memories to which all Catholics could subscribe; thus his praising of Keating for appreciating the Gaels for who they were.[95] In uniting them in the present as one Catholic force, Ó Bruadair further implies that they also should subscribe to this history, as all of Ireland increasingly became united as one single geographic, religious entity. Thus, just as the Old English pamphleteers attempted to resolve economic and ecclesiastical animosities by professing some sort of unified Irish Catholic identity (implicitly surmounting ethnic differences), the Gaelic poets, in their quest to comprehend the transformed society around them, smoothed over ethnic differences and the complexities of recent experience to articulate a coherent version of Ireland. This Ireland which was Gaelic in culture, language, and history, was now also available to Catholic Gauls as a result of supposedly shared recent experiences. Like those of the Old English writers, such affirmations had little grounding in reality. Yet their existence is vital to understanding how Irish nationalism, in the eighteenth century, took place within a context of “cultural-political osmosis” wherein even the English-speaking, Protestant population adhered to this vision of Ireland in direct opposition to England. In conclusion, an Irish Catholic nation did form in the Restoration period, insofar as it appeared in discourse as an appealing alternative to confusing and oftentimes depressing social realities. It transcended ethnic, economic, and theological bounds, yet never appeared in the same form more than once. Irish Catholic identity can only really be described as a rhetorical chameleon, used constantly – in many more works than just the above discussed – yet changing to adapt to the circumstances of the propaganda. Gaelic poetry and the remonstrance discourse, more or less devoid of ulterior motives other than asserting the continued role of the poet in society and formulating a remonstrant versus anti-remonstrant identity, respectively, came the closest to articulating a clear, ideologically-founded Catholic nation. Yet all of the tracts examined, and several more which I have not had the space to assess here, have one common theme: the discourse is massively disconnected from reality. Any development of Irish Catholic identity in this period was purely rhetorical and was not reflected by any actual events. This is not to say these tracts have no importance in posterity. They certainly do. Nationhood as defined by the parameters set out in this particular essay, is inherently both rhetorical and practical; it must originate in articulations of experience and a call for unity before this actually happens. Rhetorical unity is necessarily anticipatory of actual nationhood; Restoration articulations of nationhood may be considered, with the benefit of historical hindsight, to have anticipated what Tom Garvin deems, “Irish separatist nationalism as a popular political creed,” that originated in the eighteenth century.[96] The seventeenth century provided the rhetorical framework and memorial precedent; the eighteenth century, with its mass persecutions of all Catholics and economic and political imperialization of Ireland, provided the immediate impetus to subscribe to the memory.[97] We should be careful not to rely too heavily on hindsight, however, and should focus equally on the immediate impact of the discourse within the context of the Restoration era. The literature of the 1660s, 70s, and 80s had the immediate effect of enforcing the image of Ireland as a Catholic nation, and in describing Ireland in opposition to English Protestantism, it became an inherently, if unwittingly, subversive entity. This discourse also offers one more important revelation, alluded to earlier in this essay: given that Irish unity was employed in such a myriad of tracts from this period, one may assume it was an effective rhetorical tool and appealed to broad swaths of the Catholic population. Thus, though they could not agree on how they should unite, it appears that many Irish Catholics did agree that indeed they should. Given the Protestant ascendancy, increasing imperialization, and marginalization of Catholics in political life, the fact that this was the case is not surprising. Yet it is also not surprising that unity did not happen: the brunt of this oppression was not felt by the entire population. The Stuarts did not perfect the art of confessional, economic, and political persecution in Catholic Ireland. The Hanovers, however, did. Endnotes [1] Nicholas French, The bleeding Iphigenia or An excellent preface of a work unfinished, published by the authors frind, [sic] with the reasons of publishing it.] 1675. 2, 3, 6 [2] Tim Harris, “Restoration Ireland: Themes and Problems” in Restoration Ireland: Always Settling, Never Settled, edited by Coleman A. Dennehy (Hampshire, England, 2008). 13 [3] Danielle McCormack, The Stuart Restoration and the English in Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016). 35-8 [4] Danielle McCormack, The Stuart Restoration and the English in Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016). 11-14 [5] Tim Harris, “Restoration Ireland: Themes and Problems” in Restoration Ireland: Always Settling, Never Settled, edited by Coleman A. Dennehy (Hampshire, England, 2008). 13 [6] Tim Harris, “Restoration Ireland: Themes and Problems” in Restoration Ireland: Always Settling, Never Settled, edited by Coleman A. Dennehy (Hampshire, England, 2008). 10 [7] Danielle McCormack, The Stuart Restoration and the English in Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016). 87 [8] Ann Creighton, “Grace and Favour: The Cabal Ministry and Irish Catholic Politics, 1667-1673” in Restoration Ireland: Always Settling, Never Settled, edited by Coleman A. Dennehy (Hampshire, England, 2008). 152 [9] Raymond Gillespie, Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Making Ireland Modern (Gill and MacMillan: Dublin, 2006). 235 [10] Raymond Gillespie, Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Making Ireland Modern (Gill and MacMillan: Dublin, 2006). 237-8; Danielle McCormack, The Stuart Restoration and the English in Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016). 98 [11] Peter Walsh, P. W's Reply to the Person of Quality's Answer: Dedicated to His Grace, the Duke of Ormond. Paris: [s.n.], 1682. 88-80 [12] Raymond Gillespie, Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Making Ireland Modern (Gill and MacMillan: Dublin, 2006). 238-9 [13] Raymond Gillespie, Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Making Ireland Modern (Gill and MacMillan: Dublin, 2006). 239 [14] Danielle McCormack, The Stuart Restoration and the English in Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016). 96-98; Raymond Gillespie, Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Making Ireland Modern (Gill and MacMillan: Dublin, 2006). 239 [15] Ann Creighton, “Grace and Favour: The Cabal Ministry and Irish Catholic Politics, 1667-1673” in Restoration Ireland: Always Settling, Never Settled, edited by Coleman A. Dennehy (Hampshire, England, 2008). 144-6 [16] Ernest Renan, What is a Nation? (Lecture at Sorbonne, 11 March 1882 in Discours et Conferences, Paris, Caiman-Levy, 1887). 277-310 [17] Danielle McCormack, The Stuart Restoration and the English in Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016). 87 [18] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland: Whereby the Just English Adventurer Is Much Prejudiced, the Antient Proprietor Destroyed, and Publick Faith Violated : to the Great Discredit of the English Church, and Government, (if Not Re-Called and Made Void) As Being Against the Principles of Christianity, and True Protestancy. Lovain: [s.n.], 1668 [19] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 1 [20] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 1 [21] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 1-2 [22] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 7, [23] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 12 [24] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 11-12 [25] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 17 [26] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 5-6 [27] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 8-9 [28] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 10 [29] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 16 [30] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 25 [31] Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland, 25 [32] Talbot, Peter, The Duty and Comfort of Suffering Subjects. 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Received by His Majesty Anno 1661 ..: In Several Treatises : with a True Account and Full Discussion of the Delusory Irish Remonstrance and Other Papers Framed and Insisted On by the National Congregation At Dublin, Anno 1666, and Presented to ... the Duke of Ormond, but Rejected by His Grace : to Which Are Added Three Appendixes, Whereof the Last Contains the Marquess of Ormond ... Letter of the Second of December, 1650 : In Answer to Both the Declaration and Excommunication of the Bishops, &c. At Jamestown. (London, 1673). [59] Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary. ii [60] Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary. ii [61] Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary. ii [62] Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary. xiii [63] Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary. xvii-xviii [64] Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary. xvi [65] Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary. iv-v [66] Raymond Gillespie, Seventeenth-Century Ireland: Making Ireland Modern (Gill and MacMillan: Dublin, 2006). 265 [67] Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary. xi-xii [68] Peter Talbot, The Friar Disciplind, Or, Animadversions On Friar Peter Walsh: His New Remonstrant Religion : the Articles Whereof Are to Be Seen In the Following Page : Taken Out of His History and Vindication of the Loyal Formulary .... 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JOHN C. MAC ERLEAN, S.J. (London, 1913).264 [90] Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Poems of Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Part II, CONTAINING POEMS FROM THE YEAE 1667 TILL 1682, Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Notes by REV. JOHN C. MAC ERLEAN, S.J. (London, 1913).271 [91] Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Poems of Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Part II, CONTAINING POEMS FROM THE YEAE 1667 TILL 1682, Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Notes by REV. JOHN C. MAC ERLEAN, S.J. (London, 1913).277, 281 [92] Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Poems of Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Part II, CONTAINING POEMS FROM THE YEAE 1667 TILL 1682, Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Notes by REV. JOHN C. MAC ERLEAN, S.J. (London, 1913). 283 [93] Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Poems of Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Part II, CONTAINING POEMS FROM THE YEAE 1667 TILL 1682, Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Notes by REV. JOHN C. MAC ERLEAN, S.J. 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(London, 1913). 283 [96] Tom Garvin, The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics (New York), 14 [97] Tim Harris, “Ireland,” from his Revolution: The Great Crisis of the British Monarchy, 1685-1720 (2006), 500-12 References Works Cited: Anonymous, A Narrative of the Settlement and Sale of Ireland: Whereby the Just English Adventurer Is Much Prejudiced, the Antient Proprietor Destroyed, and Publick Faith Violated : to the Great Discredit of the English Church, and Government, (if Not Re-Called and Made Void) As Being Against the Principles of Christianity, and True Protestancy. Lovain: [s.n.], 1668 Ann Creighton, “Grace and Favour: The Cabal Ministry and Irish Catholic Politics, 1667-1673” in Restoration Ireland: Always Settling, Never Settled, edited by Coleman A. Dennehy (Hampshire, England, 2008). 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Leerssen, Mere Irish and Fíor-Ghael: Studies in the Idea of Irish Nationality, its Development and Literary Expression prior to the Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1986). Danielle McCormack, The Stuart Restoration and the English in Ireland (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2016). Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Poems of Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Part I, CONTAINING POEMS DOWN TO THE YEAR 1666, Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Notes by REV. JOHN C. MAC ERLEAN, S.J. (London, 1913) Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Poems of Daibhi Ó Bruadair, Part II, CONTAINING POEMS FROM THE YEAE 1667 TILL 1682, Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Notes by REV. JOHN C. MAC ERLEAN, S.J. (London, 1913). Ernest Renan, What is a Nation? (Lecture at Sorbonne, 11 March 1882 in Discours et Conferences, Paris, Caiman-Levy, 1887). 277-310 Peter Talbot, The Duty and Comfort of Suffering Subjects. Represented by Peter Talbot In a Letter to the Roman-Catholiks of Ireland, Particulary Those of the City and Diocese of Dublin. [Douai: s.n., 1674. Peter Talbot, The Friar Disciplind, Or, Animadversions On Friar Peter Walsh: His New Remonstrant Religion : the Articles Whereof Are to Be Seen In the Following Page : Taken Out of His History and Vindication of the Loyal Formulary .... Printed at Gant: [s.n.], 1674. Peter Walsh, P. W's Reply to the Person of Quality's Answer: Dedicated to His Grace, the Duke of Ormond. Paris: [s.n.], 1682. Peter Walsh, The History & Vindication of the Loyal Formulary, Or Irish Remonstrance ... Received by His Majesty Anno 1661 ..: In Several Treatises : with a True Account and Full Discussion of the Delusory Irish Remonstrance and Other Papers Framed and Insisted On by the National Congregation At Dublin, Anno 1666, and Presented to ... the Duke of Ormond, but Rejected by His Grace : to Which Are Added Three Appendixes, Whereof the Last Contains the Marquess of Ormond ... Letter of the Second of December, 1650 : In Answer to Both the Declaration and Excommunication of the Bishops, &c. At Jamestown. (London, 1673). Works Consulted: Jim Smyth, “Republicanism before the United Irishmen: The case of Dr. Charles Lucas” in Political Discourse in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-century Ireland edited by D. George Boyce, Robert Eccleshall, and Vincent Geoghegan (2001). 240-253 Tyrconnel, Richard Talbot, Earl of, 1630-1691: Tyrconnel's speech to his Privy Council made upon the (expected) landing of the late King James in Ireland : with remarks upon it. 1680 French, Nicholas, The Vnkinde Desertor of Loyall Men and True Frinds [sic]. [Paris]: Superiorum permissu, 1676. Jason McHugh, “Catholic Clerical Responses to the Restoration: The Case of Nicholas French” in Restoration Ireland: Always Settling, Never Settled (Hampshire, England, 2008). 108-120 Michael Perceval-Maxwell, “The Irish Restoration Land Settlement and its Historians” in Restoration Ireland: Always Settling, Never Settled (Hampshire, England, 2008). 19-29 A Vindication of the Present Government of Ireland, under his Excellency Richard Earl of Tirconnell (1688)

Neti Linzer Can Pascal Convert the Libertine? An Analysis of the Evaluative Commitment Entailed by Pascal's Wager Neti Linzer While Pascal’s wager is commonly approached as a stand-alone decision theoretic problem, there is also a crucial evaluative component to his argument that adds oft-overlooked complexities. Though we can formulate a response to these challenges by drawing on other sections of the Pensées, an examination of an argument from Walter Kaufmann highlights enduring difficulties with this response, leading to the conclusion that Pascal lacks the resources to convincingly appeal to the libertine’s self-interest. I. Introduction Pascal’s wager, an argument due to the 17th-century mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, is generally analyzed as a self-contained, formalizable problem, embodying one of the first applications of decision theory (1). In short, it calculates the expected utility of believing in God against that of not believing, and concludes that, inasmuch as rationality entails maximizing expected utility, i.e. making the decision that will most likely lead to the most preferable outcome, it is rational for us to believe in God (2). This is a “wager” insofar as we cannot know with certainty that God exists, and the most we can do is gamble on the fact that He does. But what I will argue is that the wager argument presupposes a certain evaluative commitment, which Pascal’s targeted audience, the ‘libertine,’ notably lacks (3). The libertine is someone who does not believe in God, and whose value system is instead oriented towards earthly, bodily, happiness. I claim that for someone thus constituted, Pascal’s wager fails to be convincing. The wager, however, is only one part of Pascal’s never-finished apologetic project, the preliminary notes of which are organized in the Pensées, meaning ‘Thoughts.’ I will show that if we examine some of the other arguments Pascal makes throughout the Pensées, then we can formulate a response to this objection on Pascal’s behalf. As Pascal describes her, the libertine is deeply unhappy when she thinks about the contingencies of the human condition, and she therefore values activities which entertain her and divert her from these disturbing thoughts. In his description of the libertine’s condition, Pascal p erforms something of a Nietzschean style ‘revaluation’ of this approach to life: it includes a destructive phase—in which Pascal argues that the libertine’s values are based on false p resuppositions—followed by a constructive phase—in which Pascal presents the libertine with a more attractive evaluative framework. Once she is in this new cognitive space, the libertine is p repared to be persuaded by the wager. I argue, however, that inasmuch as there are alternative ways for the libertine to revalue her mortality, Pascal fails to make an argument that will necessarily appeal to her self-interest. Drawing on the work of the 20th-century philosopher Walter Kaufmann, I argue that the libertine can instead revalue her mortality by embracing it, by recognizing the way in which the fact of her death is precisely what makes her life worthwhile. And while Kaufman’s approach certainly might also fail to be convincing it at least offers a viable alternative, and has two advantages over Pascal’s: (i) it draws on known facts (our mortality) rather than theoretical possibilities (an immortal soul), and it does not require any kind of wager. The upshot is that, while thedestructive phase of Pascal’s ‘revaluation’ may have been successful, the success of the constructive phase is dubious. As an appeal to the libertine’s self-interest, the wager falls short. The first section of this paper presents the objection to Pascal’s argument, the second section develops a response on Pascal's behalf, and the final section presents enduring difficulties with Pascal’s argument by introducing Kaufmann’s alternative approach. II. The Libertine’s Objection to Pascal’s Wager Crucially, Pascal’s wager is written in a language that the libertine will understand—the language of self-interest. We can summarize Pascal’s argument by saying that the libertine’s current lifestyle can, at most, offer her finite happiness: “what you are staking is finite.” If she gambles on belief in God, however, then the libertine opens herself up to the possibility of gaining infinite reward, and, as Pascal puts it, “all bets are off wherever there is an infinity.” As long as there are not infinitely greater chances that God doesn’t exist, than that God does exist, then, Pascal urges the libertine that, “there is no time to hesitate, you must give everything.” Pascal thereby appeals to the libertine’s instrumental rationality by identifying what it is that the libertine intrinsically desires—namely, her own “beatitude” (4)—and then by arguing that in order to truly satisfy this desire, the libertine must wager on belief in God (5). But there is a catch: the infinite happiness guaranteed by God is incomparable to any form of finite happiness that the libertine now enjoys. This is certainly true after the libertine accepts the wager, since belief in God demands that the libertine radically transform her lifestyle, substituting the dictates of her own will for the dictates of God’s. But I will argue that choosing to accept the wager requires the libertine to undergo what is arguably an even more dramatic transformation: she must transform her value system. This is because the wager does not just promise the libertine more happiness, but rather, it promises her qualitatively different happiness. And the wager only works if the libertine values this sort of happiness. It is true that Pascal never specifies what he means by “an infinite life of infinite happiness,” but inasmuch as he believes that it is the result of a life of faith, we can assume that he is referring to a traditional Catholic conception of heaven. Consider, then, the following reply in the mouth of Pascal’s libertine: an infinite life with God sounds absolutely miserable! First of all, inasmuch as my happiness is derived, at least in part, from the enjoyment of bodily pleasures, I cannot imagine being happy without my body. Happiness means hunting expeditions, games of cards, lavish feasts, and good company—where can I find those in heaven? Moreover, God promises to unite with believers in heaven. But why should I want to unite with God? You are offering me something that satisfies absolutely none of my desires. My life would not be better if God existed, even, (and this is crucial), if God rewarded me as a believer! Pascal’s wager works by presenting the libertine with a gamble: if God exists, there will be infinite happiness for those who believe and infinite misery for those who do not. This is because God promises to reward believers by uniting with them in heaven, and punishing non-believers by burning, or otherwise punishing them, in hell. But from the libertine’s perspective, there is no gamble: the prospects of heaven and hell are both unattractive, and since we are dealing with infinite amounts of time, they are both infinitely distressing prospects. There is therefore nothing worth gambling on. We might try to assure the libertine that once she is a believer, she will desire eternal life in heaven. We often persuade people to do something by promising that they might enjoy it, even if right now they cannot understand why. To take a mundane example, you might happily follow the recommendation of a friend to try a new food, even if you cannot imagine what it would be like to eat it. True, the stakes of this decision are qualitatively lower, but the same epistemic uncertainty seems to be at play: you cannot know whether you appreciate this food until you taste it, and you also cannot know whether you value a relationship with God until you attempt to build one. Inasmuch as wagering on the food does not involve any sort of evaluative transformation on your part, wagering on God might be the same way. But, there is a disanalogy between the two cases. Pascal is presenting the libertine with a certain decision matrix in which Pascal assigns an infinitely positive value to heaven and an infinitely negative value to hell (6). In order for the libertine to assign the same values to the given outcomes in the matrix, she must transform her evaluative framework, so that this-worldly happiness is no longer her highest value. The case of the new food, however, does not require a transformation of this sort. You know that you will either like or dislike the food, and you know that you value eating food that you like and disvalue eating foods that you do not like. Of course, there is still a gamble involved in trying the food since it is impossible to know how you will feel about its taste (7).But crucially, this puts you in a position that is analogous to the libertine considering Pascal’s wager only provided that she has already made the necessary evaluative transformation. It does not put you into the position of a standard libertine, who values her current happiness above all else, and therefore does not see anything to gamble for. Let’s describe a case that would be more analogous to the wager. Henrietta is a principled ascetic, meaning that she values abstention from earthly pleasures to whatever extent possible. As such, she adheres to a strict diet of only bread and water. She has sworn off earthly pleasures and adheres to a strict diet of bread and water. Suppose that her cousin, Henry, a food connoisseur, wants to convince her to try some caviar. He knows that he has never tasted caviar before, but he argues that, given her expected utility calculations, those who eat caviar enjoy it so much that he stands to gain more than lose from trying the caviar. But of course, even if Henrietta thought that Henry’s calculations were correct, they would be meaningless to her. As a matter of principle, she does not value the sensual pleasure provided by eating delicious food. Therefore, the experience of enjoying the food might be even more negative for Henrietta than the experience of disliking it, inasmuch as she has moral disdain for sensual pleasure. Henry’s calculations will only be persuasive if Henrietta abandons her current ascetic values and adopts a more hedonistic lifestyle. This is similar to the situation that the libertine finds herself in when presented with Pascal’s wager. Just as it would be meaningless to convince Henrietta to eat caviar by convincing her to abandon her ascetic lifestyle, to suggest that the libertine will desire heaven if she is a believing Christian is to reformulate the challenge rather than to address it. By formulating the libertine’s challenge this way, we realize just what Pascal’s wager requires: before the libertine can decide to wager on God’s existence, she must first revolutionize her evaluative framework, performing what the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche would refer to as a “revaluation of values,” i.e. a complete reversal of her normative commitments. At present, a religious lifestyle is not in the libertine’s self-interest; the libertine’s conception of happiness is tethered to her physical existence in this world, and therefore she will not be moved by promises of her soul being rewarded in another world. Now that we have established that the libertine must be induced to reassess her values before she can be persuaded to wager on God’s existence we must ask: does Pascal present the libertine with such an argument? III. Pascal’s Revaluation There is an inherent challenge in trying to influence someone to “revalue their values”: namely, identifying which values one can appeal to in formulating the argument. Generally, pragmatic arguments like Pascal’s wager take the agent’s values as a starting point, and then proceed to demonstrate that a certain action will do a better job at furthering the agent’s values. But if we use values as a starting point, how can we cogently provide someone with practical reasons to adopt a wholly new evaluative framework, without invoking the very values that they do not yet possess? To see how we might formulate a “revaluation” without recourse to other values, we can draw inspiration from Friedrich Nietzsche, whose philosophical undertaking was just that: a revaluation of all values. In his work, Nietzsche’s Revaluation of Values: A Study in Strategies, contemporary Nietzsche scholar, E.E. Sleinis, analyzes the various strategies that Nietzsche uses to achieve his evaluative revolution. One strategy that he discusses, “destruction from within,” undermines a certain value by revealing that it is internally inconsistent (8). This undermines the value on its own terms. There are a few different permutations of this strategy. One, which Sleinis refers to as “false presuppositions,” aims to show that “the value requires a fact to obtain that, as it turns out, fails to obtain.” In attacking the factual, rather than the evaluative component of the value system, Nietzsche is able to undermine it from within, without recourse to other values. For example, Nietzsche devalues “disinterested contemplation as the ideal of aesthetic contemplation” by arguing that humans are simply incapable of disinterested contemplation. We cannot disengage from our passions, emotions, and other interests when we contemplate works of art. “We can put this point in more graphic terms,” explains Sleinis, by arguing that “the pure aesthetic contemplator is a fiction" (9). In what follows, I will demonstrate how Pascal launches a similar attack on the libertine’s value system by arguing, in a parallel manner, that the happy libertine is a fiction. As mentioned, the wager is merely a part of Pascal’s broader apologetic project, and it is within this broader project that Pascal employs this Nietzschean revaluation strategy. There are many notes in the Pensées devoted to bemoaning the wretchedness of the libertine’s condition, and arguing that man simply cannot be happy without God. And while we do not know where Pascal would have placed these ideas (if at all) in his final work, we can still argue that, Pascal’s intentions aside, they do an excellent job preparing the libertine to be receptive to the wager. Once Pascal convinces the libertine that her approach to life was premised on a false presupposition, he is able to urge her to gamble on a new one. Pascal undermines the libertine’s approach to life—happiness derived from entertainment or diversions as the ideal of happiness—in the same way that Nietzsche undermines disinterested contemplation as the ideal of aesthetic contemplation: he shows that humans are incapable of achieving happiness through their diversions (10). While traces of this argument are evident throughout the Pensées , Pascal’s most sustained argument for it appears in his section “Diversions.” After examining this argument, we will turn to the possibility of an alternative response on behalf of the libertine in the spirit of philosopher Walter Kaufmann. Pascal presents us with an imagined dialogue, presumably between a believer and a libertine, in which the libertine explains her approach to life: “is not happiness the ability to be amused by diversion?”(11). For the libertine, to be happy is to be entertained. We can understand some of the more perplexing behaviors of people if we realize that their underlying motivation is to divert and entertain themselves: “those who philosophize about it, and who think people are quite unreasonable to spend a whole day chasing a hare they would not have bought, scarcely know our nature.” People do not hunt because they want the kill, but rather, because hunting provides them with entertainment. Pascal argues that all men, even kings who are in “the finest position of the world,” are miserable, “if they are without what is called diversion” (12). The reason that we value diversion, explains Pascal, is because it allows us to avoid confronting all of the unpleasant features of our condition. We do not seek “easy and peaceful lives,” because those would force us to think about “our unhappy condition” (13). The “unhappy” quality of our condition is delineated in the believer’s reply to the libertine; the libertine asks whether happiness is not the ability to be amused by diversions, to which the believer replies, “No, because that comes from elsewhere and from outside, and thus it is dependent, and subject to be disturbed by a thousand accidents which cause inevitable distress” (14). All of the activities with which the libertine happily amuses herself are all highly contingent, and are made easily inaccessible by any number of factors that are necessarily out of the libertine’s control. Moreover, all of the libertine’s amusements are necessarily ephemeral, so that even if they are miraculously undisturbed by illness or accident, they will inevitably be disturbed by death. This is the primary source of the libertine’s inconsolable misery in Pascal’s conception—no matter how much happiness she derives from her activities in this world, her impending death constantly threatens to rob her of everything. As Pascal puts it, man “wants to be happy, wants only to be happy, and cannot want not to be so. But how will he go about it? The best way would be to render herself immortal, but since he cannot do this, he has decided to prevent himself from thinking about it” (15). Thoughts of mortality thwart the libertine’s ability to enjoy the world around, and so the libertine blocks out these thoughts with diversions. In Pascal’s example, the libertine hunts vigorously for a hare that he would never buy, because while “the hare does not save us from the sight of death...the hunt does” (16). All of this explains how Pascal can argue, in the spirit of Nietzsche, that valuing the happiness derived from diversions as the ideal of happiness falsely assumes that humans can find happiness in diversions. Pascal demonstrates that they cannot. Our diversions are inevitably “subjected to be disturbed by a thousand accidents, and this causes inevitable distress” (17). Crucially, the distress is inevitable ; even if we spend most of our time completely amused by diversions, the fact that our source of happiness is external and contingent puts us in a constant state of instability. We are rendered eternally dependent on factors beyond our control and are therefore powerless to console ourselves in the face of adversity unless the universe conspires to offer us diversion. We might wonder if Pascal’s case is overstated. Couldn’t the libertine seek happiness through something more substantial than a mere “diversion,” like, for example, self-fulfillment? I think that for Pascal the answer is no. This is because death robs any pursuit–even the pursuit of self-fulfillment–of enduring meaning. As Pascal puts it: “the final act is bloody, however fine the rest of the play. In the end, they throw some earth over our head, and that is it forever” (18). The libertine can only be satisfied if she does not think about the “final act” that will undermine “the rest of the play,” and because of this, all of her pursuits, even those that appear most meaningful, are really attempts to distract herself from this sobering fact. Pascal suggests that if the libertine actually confronted the truth of her condition, she would desist from all of her pursuits–even her desire for self-fulfillment–because they would no longer mean anything. That the libertine seeks to distract herself from the contingency of her condition with something that is itself contingent, is, I think, sufficient to undermine the libertine’s approach to life. But Pascal goes even deeper in exposing the problems with the libertine’s approach. He writes that, “The only thing that consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is mainly what prevents us from thinking about ourselves, leading us imperceptibly to our ruin” (19). The libertine’s pursuit of diversions makes genuine self-knowledge impossible—if she is always distracting herself, she will never take the time to understand herself and her condition, and search for a more reliable and stable form of happiness. How can we say that someone is happier the more diverted they are, if someone who is diverted is also wholly alienated from herself? (20). It is this consideration that motivates Pascal’s famous observation that, “man’s unhappiness arises from one thing alone: that he cannot remain quietly in his room” (21). As Pascal sees it, diversion as source of true happiness–much like Nietzsche’s detached contemplation–is, indeed, a fiction. Pascal has induced a value crisis in the libertine by rendering what she previously valued—the amusements of earthly life—fundamentally meaningless. So what now? Left to live without diversion, Pascal explains, “we would be bored, and this boredom would lead us to seek a more solid means of escape” (22). I will argue that Pascal asking the seeking libertine to consider the possibility of an immortal soul is, in a certain sense, similar, to Nietzsche’s imagined demon presenting the possibility of eternal recurrence–i.e the doctrine that our live will be repeated infinitely many times into the future. Nietzsche presents this as a mere possibility , the consideration of which is nonetheless capable of inspiring an evaluative transformation in his readers (23). Entertaining the possibility of eternal recurrence hopefully inspires us to seek meaning in the lives that we are living on earth, rather than placing all of our hopes on a life after death. Analogously, before the wager, Pascal does not expect the libertine to believe in the immortal soul as a metaphysical fact , but he nonetheless presents it to her as an attractive possibility, powerful enough to reorient her life. If the possibility of an immortal soul isn’t even on her radar, then the wager argument cannot even get off the ground. But Pascal believes that considering this possibility will induce the libertine to seek God, the wager will then point out that doing so maximizes her expected utility, and eventually she will be certain of God’s existence (24). What makes the libertine’s condition so unhappy are all of the external threats that face her at every moment, the most debilitating of which is her own death (25). The libertine’s old approach was to avoid confronting this reality. As Pascal puts it, “as men are not able to fight against death...they have it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.”What Pascal offers the libertine is a solution that is truly sustainable: instead of valuing distractions from our mortality, we can value that which denies it altogether . We can reject that part of us that gets piled with dirt, since it can only make us unhappy, and instead we can embrace our immortal soul (26). Pascal presents this as a dazzling, metamorphic possibility, writing that “the immortality of the soul is something so important to us, something that touches us so profoundly, that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent to knowing the facts of the matter” (27). Inspired by the possibility of an immortal soul, we are primed to be receptive to the wager, which tells us that if we want to maximize the expected outcome for our soul, we must gamble on God’s existence (28). If we now believe that it is through taking care of our immortal soul that we can transcend the misery of our bodily condition, the wager will indeed have a powerful pull on us. Inasmuch as the libertine’s challenge is escaping the misery of her contingent condition, Pascal presents the possibility of the immortal soul as a powerful alternative to the use of amusements and diversions. But is this alternative persuasive? The weakness in Pascal’s argument is noted by Sleinis in his analysis of Nietzsche’s parallel argument: “pure possibilities may have some capacity to exert pressure on our choices, but this capacity can in no way be equal to that of known actualities” (29). There is, however, a limit to how influential a mere possibility can be. If you know that a certain consideration that is motivating you to act, is only possibly true, then you won’t feel like you have a decisive reason to act. Pascal is confident that if we take the possibility of an immortal soul seriously, then we will eventually be led to believe it as an actuality. The problem, however, is whether we can take it seriously enough for this epistemic transformation to occur. This doesn’t mean that Pascal’s argument can not work at all, it just means that its practical success will likely be limited to libertines with certain psychological constitutions (i.e. it will be more persuasive to someone with a credulous disposition than to someone with a skeptical disposition). IV. Walter Kaufmann on Our Misery So far, we have seen that Pascal’s wager requires a certain evaluative shift on the part of the libertine, and that certain sections of the Pensées can be read as making an argument for that shift. But there is a weakness to part of this argument, namely, the plausibility that a mere possibility can inspire a dramatic revaluation. What I would like to consider, therefore, is an alternative response to the libertine’s crisis of value that would allow her to retain her current theoretical framework, but nonetheless allow her to transcend the apparent miseries of the human condition. We can read Kaufmann as addressing the libertine at the same stage that Pascal is—once she has accepted the futility of her diversions but does not know how else to cope with her unhappy condition—and arguing that the libertine can embrace her mortality rather than try to escape from it. Examining Kaufmann’s argument helps us to appreciate the way in which Pascal’s wager falls short as a straightforward appeal to the libertine’s self-interest. At most, the wager offers the libertine one way to escape her misery, but the libertine may find Kaufmann’s ideas more persuasive. While for Pascal, the libertine is unhappy if she is left to ponder her mortal condition, Kaufmann argues that this is not so; in fact, it is our mortality that renders our lives here worthwhile. The libertine considers herself miserable because she will not live in this worldforever, but Kaufmann urges her to consider how miserable she would be if she did . It's true that death is frightening for those who “fritter their lives away,” but “if one lives intensely, the time comes when sleep seems bliss” (30). Meaning, that if the libertine embraces all that this-life throws at him, then she will welcome death as a much-needed rest. One cannot live intensely forever. This argument might seem a bit problematic. After all, it is not clear why a simple good night’s sleep (or two) would not suffice for the one who lives intensely—why should she crave eternal sleep? The answer to this lies in the second argument that Kaufmann makes, namely, that without an eternal deadline we would not be able to live our lives as meaningfully. Our impending death offers a perspective that would otherwise be impossible. Kaufmann describes the way in which the threat of death motivates us to live vigorously: “the life I want is a life I could not endure in eternity. It is a life of love and intensity, suffering and creation, that makes life worthwhile and death welcome.” Death “makes life worthwhile” b ecause it encourages us to carve out lives that are indeed worthwhile. For example, “love can be deepened and made more intense and impassioned by the expectation of impending death,” meaning that our desire to be with someone we love is made all the more acute by our knowledge that we cannot be with them forever. When the libertine worries about the fact that she may one day lose her beloved, she need not retreat from these thoughts—either by seeking diversion or by entertaining the possibility of an immortal soul—but rather, as Kaufmann advises, she should embrace them. The fact that she may never see her beloved again is all the more reason for the libertine to express her love more eloquently and fervently than she ever would have if she was not worried about losing her beloved. It is not just that such intensity and p assion would be impossible to sustain in an infinite life, but rather that in an infinite life we could never achieve it in the first place. Death offers a perspective on life that, contrary to what Pascal argues, makes our lives in this world vibrant and precious. Pascal writes that, “As men have not been able to cure death, wretchedness, ignorance, they have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about those things” (31). But Kaufmann argues that it is precisely by thinking about her own death that the libertine can be inspired to live in a way that makes her happy. Perhaps this is why Ecclesiastes muses that “it is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting”—proximity to death provides the living with an invaluable lesson to truly “take to heart” (32). The libertine desperately avoids confronting her mortality, when in fact, thinking about death makes her life better right now: “one lives better” says Kaufmann, “when one expects to die,” and takes advantage of the time she has (33). This is not to deny the tragic reality that death often visits too early, but rather, to suggest that inasmuch as this is not always the case, we are, as philosopher Bernard Williams puts it, “lucky in having the chance to die” (34). Pascal might still counter that even if contemplating our death imbues our lives with urgency and significance, belief in the Christian afterlife also accomplishes this inasmuch as our conduct in this life determines how we fare in the next. But this argument will have no sway over the libertine at the stage of the argument at which we are now encountering him—when she does not yet believe in God. And what Kaufmann’s argument has demonstrated is that the libertine does not need to wager on God’s existence in order to live life meaningfully and passionately. While the Wager asked the libertine to revalue her values–which, as we have seen, is a non-trivial requirement–Kaufmann speaks directly to the evaluative commitments that the libertine already has. In a way, Kaufmann uses mortality in the same way that Pascal uses immortality: to redeem us from our misery by impressing upon us the urgency and significance of our lives. It’s true that Kaufmann and Williams don’t consider the possibility of an afterlife that is equally as exciting–if not more exciting–than earthly existence. There is, after all, no reason to assume that when we die we lose our ability to exercise agency. But the point is simply that they offer a way of seeing life on earth as meaningful regardless of what comes afterward. This is in sharp contrast with Pascal’s picture in which life on earth is miserable unless it is redeemed by belief in the afterlife. This is not to say that Pascal is wrong per sé; it is possible that Kaufmann would have lived a better life had he sought God and embraced religion. It is possible that he is currently b urning in the depths of hell, wishing his philosophical reasoning had taken a different turn. But this is of no consequence. What I am arguing is that Pascal is wrong to assume that the libertine’s mortality leaves her irredeemably miserable; Kaufmann offers an alternative perspective, whereby the libertine’s mortality is precisely what redeems her life and makes it worthwhile. Crucially, Kaufmann’s argument does not ask the libertine to entertain any theoretical p ossibilities like Pascal’s does, and it never requires that she make a wager of any sort. The libertine might still prefer Pascal’s argument, and therefore choose to see “the final act” as “bloody.” But as we have seen, she might choose to welcome death as a “blissful sleep.” And if Pascal cannot convince the libertine that mortal life is miserable, then he cannot get her into the evaluative mindset to be receptive to the wager. V. Conclusion The success of Pascal’s wager as an appeal to the libertine’s self-interest depends on his ability to convince the libertine to change her evaluative framework. At least at the outset, the possibility of an infinite life with God in heaven will repel rather than attract the libertine, giving her no reason to “wager all she has” (35). If we study the wager against the backdrop of Pascal’s broader apologetic project, however, we find the resources to persuade the libertine to “revalue her values.” This argument takes place in two stages. First, Pascal shows the libertine that the premium she places on amusements and entertainment falsely presupposes that they can truly make her happy. Pascal argues that they fail to do so, both because they are external—and therefore “subject to a thousand accidents”—and because they alienate the libertine from herself, making it impossible for her to discover what might truly make her happy. With the libertine’s evaluative framework thus dismantled, the inherent unhappiness of her condition becomes even more acute. Without diversions, she must confront the miserable fact of her mortality head-on. It is in this evaluative vacuum that Pascal offers her a new value that can save her from the misery of mortality: the immortal soul. At this stage of the argument, the libertine will not believe in the immortality of her soul as a metaphysical fact, but in considering this marvelous possibility, she will be encouraged to investigate it. And when Pascal tells her that her soul will fare best if she gambles on God’s existence, she will eagerly oblige. But this need not be the only way to save the libertine from the misery of mortality: Kaufmann suggests that the libertine should embrace and cherish her mortality because it is through the prism of her own death that her life becomes urgent and precious. This approach does not require an epistemic leap of faith like Pascal’s did; it simply requires the libertine to look at the fact of her life in a new light. The upshot is that for those who find themselves moved by Pascal’s polemic against diversions, but unmoved by her appeal to dubious metaphysical facts, there might be a more attractive solution. After he presents the libertine with her wager, Pascal urges that “there is no time to hesitate!” From what we have seen, however, there might be far too much of it. Endnotes: 1 This insight is due to Ian Hacking, quoted in: Hájek, Alan. “Pascal's Wager.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Stanford University, 1 Sept. 2017, plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/. 2 While, as Hajek notes in her article, Pascal actually presents three different wager arguments, for the purposes of this paper, I will not discuss the correct interpretation/presentation of the wager. This is because my paper is not so much about the mechanics of the wager, but about the wager as a general strategy to inspire pragmatic commitment to God. 3 For the purposes of this paper, I adopt Pascal’s use of the term “libertine” to refer to his intended audience. This is partially for convenience, and partially meant to underscore that Pascal’s argument is addressed to a specific target audience and is not necessarily applicable to anyone who does not believe in God. As we will see throughout this paper, Pascal’s libertine has a very specific set of values and concern, which at times may even seem unrealistic. Inasmuch as Pascal sees himself as addressing this sort of person, however, this paper will assume that his observations are accurate, and analyze whether Pascal’s argument is successful on Pascal’s own terms. 4 All quotations in this paragraph come from: Pascal, Blaise, and Roger Ariew. Pensées. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub. Co., 2005 pg. 212-13 (S680/L418). 5 Pascal actually argues that there are two things that the libertine desires: the true and the good. However, Pascal argues that we cannot know whether God exists, and therefore “your reason is no more offended by choosing one rather than the other.” Since the libertine only stands to gain in the realm of happiness, and not in the realm of truth (or at least not yet), I focus, for brevity, only on this claim. 6 This is a simplification. Pascal does not mention exactly how we ought to quantify the harm that will come to a non-believer if God exists. It is certainly possible that the harm will be infinite. And since this is the strongest way to formulate Pascal’s wager, I choose to present it this way. 7 The case of trying a new food is interesting in its own right. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to analyze this case, it is worth noting that it is unclear how one might weigh the value of trying a food and disliking it against the value of trying a food and liking it, since there are also different degrees of liking and disliking a food. But I think it is fair to assume that, having had the experience of eating foods that you’ve liked and disliked, you can have a rough sense of the maximum and minimum amount of pleasure that can be derived from eating a food. I would venture to say that trying a food that you love more than any food you have ever eaten, is still not a qualitatively different type of pleasure than eating a food that you really love. 8 Sleinis, E. E. Nietzsche's Revaluation of Values: A Study in Strategies. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994, pg. 168. 9 Ibid. 10 As Ariew notes in his translation, “the word ‘diversion’suggests entertainment, but to divert literally means: “to turn away” or to mislead.” By using this word, Pascal makes his critique implicit from the beginning. 11 Pascal, S165/L132. 12 Quotations in this paragraph come from Pascal, S168/L136. 13 Ibid. 14 Pascal, S165/L132. 15 Pascal, S166/L134. 16 Pascal, S168/L136. 17 Pascal, S165/L132. 18 Pascal S197/L165. 19 Pascal, S33/L414. 20 The libertine says something in this spirit in Pascal, S165/L132. 21 Pascal S168/L136. 22 Pascal, S33/L414. 23 In some interpretations of Nietzsche, the eternal recurrence is actually presented as a metaphysical truth that we must believe in. Inasmuch as I am looking for an example that will parallel Pascal, however, I have chosen to discuss the interpretation that sees it as a pure possibility. 24 Evidence that Pascal believes those who are inspired by the possibility of an immortal soul and genuinely seek God as a result will come to have sure knowledge of her existence can be found in S681/L427. 25 This is not intended to summarize Pascal’s nuanced account of why we are wretched, but rather to encapsulate what it is that the libertine recognizes as “unhappy” about her condition: that is, all of the external factors that threaten her ability to enjoy diversions, the most intractable of which is death. 26 This might seem almost like a pre-wager-wager: wager on belief in an immortal soul, since it provides the potential for immortality rather than on the belief in a mortal soul, since this will lead to a life of misery. 27 Pascal S681/L427. 28 Of course, it is possible that there are other belief systems which include the notion of an immortal soul in an equally attractive way. This is similar to the well-known “many Gods objection” to Pascal’s wager, and while addressing it is not the subject of this paper, it is worth noting its presence. When I argue later on that the argument can work, I mean that, leaving other considerations such as this objection aside, it can work. 29 Sleinis, pg. 173. 30 Kaufmann, Walter, and Immanuel Velikovsky. The Faith of a Heretic. [1st ed.] Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1961 , pg . 386. 31 Pascal S168. 32 Ecclesiastes 7:2. 33 Quotations in this paragraph come from Kaufmann, pg. 386. 34 Williams, Bernard. “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality.” Chapter. In Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956–1972 , 82–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. 35 Pascal, S680/L418. Bibliography: Kaufmann, Walter, and Immanuel Velikovsky. The Faith of a Heretic. [1st ed.] Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1961 . Pascal, Blaise, and Roger Ariew. Pensées. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub. Co., 2005. Sleinis, E. E. Nietzsche's Revaluation of Values: A Study in Strategies. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994. Williams, Bernard. “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality.” Chapter. In Problems of the Self: Philosophical Papers 1956–1972 , 82–100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Previous Next

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