Abstract
Toleration has a very special place in the liberal tradition. Liberals identify themselves as valuing autonomy and the toleration necessary for pluralism. John Rawls identifies the Reformation and religious toleration following in its aftermath as the historical origins of political liberalism.1 Both Rawls and Joseph Raz argue that toleration is a moral virtue for a liberal constitutional order.2 Moreover, they claim that a politically liberal state may promote toleration without compromising its neutrality. In recent years some philosophers studying toleration as a virtue have made progress in analyzing it apart from its traditional place in the ‘lens’ or ‘frame’ of political liberalism.3 These analyses suggest some difficulties for political liberalism. In particular, when properly understood as a truly moral virtue, toleration is not at all the same as Rawls’s and Raz’s political notions of toleration as a virtue. Moreover, far from being neutral, ‘liberal toleration’ may paradoxically endorse hostility (‘intolerance’) towards the persons, values, and beliefs others are said to be tolerating.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Reference
Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University, 1996), xxiv-xxx
Rawls, 190–195; Raz, Morality of Freedom ( Oxford: Clarendon, 1986 ), 401–407
P. Nicholson, “Toleration as a Moral Ideal”, S. Mendus and J. Horton, eds., Aspects of Toleration (London: Methuen, 1985), 158–73; J. Horton, “Toleration as a Virtue”, D. Heyd, ed., Toleration: An Elusive Virtue (Princeton: Princeton University, 1996), 28–43; R. Churchill, “On the Difference between Non-Moral and Moral Conceptions of Toleration: The Case for Toleration as an Individual Virtue” in M. Razavi and D. Ambuel, eds., Philosophy, Religion, and the Question of Intolerance, (Albany: State University of New York, Press 1997 ), 189–211
Churchill, “On the Difference between Non-Moral and Moral Conceptions of Toleration”
There is some question over the proper distinction between ‘tolerance’ and ‘toleration’ and the majority practice seems to be to treat them as synonyms. In this discussion I try to use ‘tolerance’ when the primary subject of discussion is the complex of beliefs, feelings, motives, and attitudes leading to the actions usually ‘behind’ actions. I will use ‘toleration’ to refer to actions (usually of forbearance) and the (largely political) conditions in which tolerant attitudes and motives are manifest publicly. I am grateful to Stephen Barker for clarifying this distinction.
I shall not attempt to answer the question ‘why should we cultivate toleration as a moral virtue?’ Rather, I assume that toleration as a virtue is good and desirable. In addition, here I do not attempt to defend the logical coherence of the concept of toleration as a virtue from a paradox some believe to be unavoidable. See D. D. Raphael, “The Intolerable”, Mendus, ed., Just)ing Toleration, p. 139 for a formulation of the paradox and Churchill, p. 206 for my response.
J. Jordan adapts this term for use in discussions of toleration in “Concerning Moral Toleration”, Razavi and Ambuel, eds., Question of Intolerance, at 216. Those preferring something similar to a unitary thesis include Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism (London: Macmillan, 1989), 18–21; and Nicholson, “Toleration as a Moral Ideal”, 158–173.
On the Differences between Non-Moral and Moral Conceptions of Toleration”
Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism, 8. B. Williams says of indifference that it negates toleration [tolerance] as an attitude but that it is a type of toleration in political action. See “Toleration: An Impossible Virtue”, Heyd, ed., Toleration, p. 20.
B. Latane and J. Darley, The Unresponsive Bystander (New York: Appleton, Crofts, 1970 ); D. Jones, Moral Responsibility in the Holocaust, ( Lanham: Rowman Littlefield ), 199–226
Clarity would be well served in discussing such cases by the consistent replacement of ‘toleration’ with ‘moral indifference’, but conceptual confusion will persist, I fear, just because ‘toleration’ is available as a euphemism and the morally indifferent will prefer to mask their failure of concern behind the more positive connotations of ‘toleration’.
I have been greatly aided in making the distinctions between permissiveness and endurance by T. Heams, Jr., “On Tolerance”, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 8 (1970)
Horton, “Toleration as a Virtue”, p. 29
Mendus, Toleration, p. 8; Nicholson, “Toleration as a Moral Ideal”, pp. 158–173; Horton, “Toleration as a Virtue”, pp. 28–41.
Horton, p. 29
Nicholson, “Toleration as a Moral Ideal”, pp. 160–161 “Mendus, Toleration, pp. 16–17 and pp. 149–150
C. Lannore, Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1987), pp. 53–59; Raz, Morality of Freedom, pp. 114ff.
Rawls, p. 60 [emphasis added]
Altman, “Toleration as a Form of Bias”; R. Dees, “The Justification of Toleration”, Question of Intolerance, pp. 134–156; Jordan, “Concerning Moral Toleration”; J. Schneewind, “Bayle, Locke, and the Concept of Toleration”, Question of Intolerance, pp. 3–15; B. Williams, “Toleration: An Impossible Virtue?”, pp. 18–27. Rawls himself sometimes thinks of the value of toleration resulting from a contractual process. See, for example, Political Liberalism, p. 62, note 17.
Heyd suggests that “toleration might prove in the future to have been ‘an interim value’…” See Toleration, p. 5.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Churchill, R.P. (2003). Neutrality and the Virtue of Toleration. In: Castiglione, D., McKinnon, C. (eds) Toleration, Neutrality and Democracy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0241-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0241-6_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6492-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0241-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive