Read this passage below. When you have done so, answer these three questions, writing a paragraph for each question. Your three questions are:

1. What premises is the author using?

2. What conclusions does the author come to?

3. Does the passage follow an identifiable, logical pattern of development?

Either one thinks that there is no reason for believing any political doctrine or one sees some reason, however shaky, for the commitment of politics. If a person believes that political doctrines are void of content, that person will be quite content to see political debates go on, but won't expect anything useful to come from them. If we consider the other case, that there is a patriotic justification for a political belief, then what? If the belief is that a specific political position is true, then one ought to be intolerant of all other political beliefs, since each political “position” must be held to be false relative to the belief one has. And since each political position holds out the promise of reward for any probability of its fixing social problems, however small, that makes it seem rational to choose it over its alternatives. The trouble, of course, is that the people who have other political doctrines may hold theirs just as strongly, making strength of belief itself invalid as a way to determine the rightness of a political position