Abstract

This paper sheds light on how religious cultural heritage influences the decision-making framework of state leaders by considering U.S. President Harry Truman through the lenses of history, political science, and religious studies. By utilizing archival data from Truman’s presidential library and museum, this paper connects his philosophical ethics, his philosophy of government, and his philosophy of human nature to a coherent decision-making framework employed by Truman for issues ranging from economics to race. This paper does not conclude that religious cultural heritage is the determining factor in Truman’s decisions. Rather, this paper demonstrates the usefulness of incorporating religious cultural heritage into analyses which explore how leaders make decisions, for religious cultural heritage can complete analyses based on competing interests, cost-benefit criteria, and other factors. By implication, the methodology applied successfully to Truman in these cases may be applied to Truman’s other decisions (for example, nuclear decisions); moreover, generally similar approaches may be applied to other leaders in future work.