Benjamin Franklin
1706-1790 · American Philosophy · Household name
A printer, experimenter and diplomat, Franklin wanted a religion answerable to results: one God who takes an interest in the world, a soul judged by its conduct, and doing good to God's other children as the highest form of worship. God forbids an act because it harms, he held, and private property is a creature of society. He owned enslaved people and died president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.
Signature
The position Franklin is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ignorance
- leans Bliss
- Highest Good
- Service
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Society
- mildly between Collectivism and Individualism (44 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- mildly leans Transcendence (63 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Nature
- leans Mastery (25 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- War
- mildly leans Pacifism (33 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- leans Bliss (75 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (14 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Franklin refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Representative Democracy
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Service
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Natural Emergence
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Primary Bond
- Humanity
What is your primary bond and loyalty?