In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Kevin Vallier, professor of philosophy at the University of Toledo, where he is associate director at the Institute of American Constitutional Thought and Leadership and affiliate scholar at the Acton Institute. They discuss his new essay, “The Fusionist Manifesto,” published in the Summer 2025 issue of Religion & Liberty. Do critics of the fusionist tradition in American conservatism have a point? In what ways is American conservatism’s fusionist tradition undertheorized? What are the traditional arguments for the compatibility of freedom and virtue, and how might they be improved? How can new intellectual blood best be infused into the fusionist tradition?

American Fusionism | Acton Institute

In Defense of Freedom and Related Essays | Frank S. Meyer

Free Persons and the Common Good | Michael Novak

The Liberty-Virtue Dance | Kevin Vallier, Religion & Liberty Online

Fusionism and the Problem of Order | Kevin Vallier, Religion & Liberty Online

Dignitatis humanae | Pope Paul VI

The ‘man of public spirit’: Politics as art, not science | Dan Hugger, Religion & Liberty Online

The Roman Question | The Rambler (1860)

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In defense of freedom

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