The Ethics of Catholicism and the Consecration of the Intellectual

Dominique Marshall is an associate professor of history at Carleton
University in Ottawa.

The “intellectuals” examined in this book are a specific Weberian
ideal type, individuals who invoke their ability to use reason in one
field of thought, transfer their concern to the public place, and open
it to general issues on behalf of others. The author, a political
scientist at l’Université de Montréal, locates these individuals in
periods ranging from the Middle Ages to the 1990s, in places that
include France, Britain, the United States, Latin America, and Canada.

The role of intellectuals is explored mainly through an examination of
social philosophy texts. Bélanger suggests that most intellectuals can
be understood as occupying the position left vacant in public
institutions by the demise of Catholic priests. They consider themselves
interpreters of what they believe to be the pre-existing ethical
principles guiding a society. Bélanger identifies a remarkably constant
set of beliefs held by this elite of lay guides. In secularizing
cultures, the presence of intellectuals is almost always accompanied by
a belief in natural justice, in the primacy of reason over emotion, in
the existence of an “enlightened minority” among citizens, and in
the universality of morality as opposed to the Protestant reliance on
individual conscience.

Bélanger’s call for a history of “cultural traits” to analyze
the identity and status of the main authors of social philosophies is,
in the end, most compelling.