In situations where we ought to tolerate what we morally disapprove of we are faced with the following moral conflict: we ought to interfere with X, we ought to tolerate X, we can do either, but we cannot do both. And the aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between toleration as a value commitment and value pluralist and value monist approaches to moral conflict. Firstly, value monists side-step the moral conflict at the heart of toleration. (...) Nonetheless, secondly, it is not the case that toleration as a value commitment is entailed by value pluralism. Rather, the value pluralist line of argument that can be defended is that toleration is simply one value among others, that there is no general rule showing that it has priority over other values, but also that it cannot be excluded altogether as a value. (shrink)

Presents John Locke's seventeenth-century classic work on political and social theory; and includes a history of the text, as well as notes and a bibliography.

This article is the revised and annotated version of a lecture given at the German Historical Institute in London on 16 February 1982. I have discussed aspects of the same topic in other articles, e.g. ‘Wandel der Argumente für religiöse Toleranz und Glaubensfreiheit im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, in H. Lutz . Zur Geschichte der Toleranz und Religionsfreiheit , pp. 455–481, and ‘Parität, Neutralität und Toleranz’, to be published in Zwingliana 15.

'Man being born...to perfect freedom...hath by nature a power...to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate.'Locke's Second Treatise of Government is one of the great classics of political philosophy, widely regarded as the foundational text of modern liberalism. In it Locke insists on majority rule, and regards no government as legitimate unless it has the consent of the people. He sets aside people's ethnicities, religions, and cultures and envisages political societies which command our assent because they meet (...) our elemental needs simply as humans. His work helped to entrench ideas of a social contract, human rights, and protection of property as the guiding principles for just actions and just societies.Published in the same year, A Letter Concerning Toleration aimed to end Christianity's wars of religion and called for the separation of church and state so that everyone could enjoy freedom of conscience. In this edition of these two major works, Mark Goldie considers the contested nature of Locke's reputation, which is often appropriated by opposing political and religious ideologies. (shrink)

Civility is often treated as an essential virtue in liberal democracies that promise to protect diversity as well as active disagreement in the public sphere. Yet the fear that our tolerant society faces a crisis of incivility is gaining ground. Politicians and public intellectuals call for "more civility" as the solution--but is civility really a virtue? Or is it something more sinister--a covert demand for conformity that silences dissent? Mere Civility sheds light on this tension in contemporary political theory and (...) practice by examining similar appeals to civility in early modern debates about religious toleration. In seventeenth-century England, figures as different as Roger Williams, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke could agree that some restraint on the wars of words and "persecution of the tongue" between sectarians would be required; and yet, they recognized that the prosecution of incivility was often difficult to distinguish from persecution.--. (shrink)

Scientific pluralism is the view according to which there is a plurality of scientific domains and of scientific theories, and these theories are empirically adequate relative to their own respective domains. Scientific monism is the view according to which there is a single domain to which all scientific theories apply. How are these views impacted by the presence of inconsistent scientific theories? There are consistency-preservation strategies and inconsistency-toleration strategies. Among the former, two prominent strategies can be articulated: Compartmentalization and (...) Information restriction. Among the inconsistency-toleration strategies, we have: Paraconsistent compartmentalization and Dialetheism. In this paper, I critically assess the adequacy of each of these four views. (shrink)

Recently, scholars have disputed whether Locke's political theory should be read as the groundwork of secular liberalism or as a Protestant political theology. Focusing on Locke's mature theory of toleration, the article raises a central question: What if these two readings are compatible? That is, what would be the consequences if Locke's political philosophy has theological foundations, but has also given shape to secular liberalism? Examining Locke's theory in the Letter Concerning Toleration , the article argues that this (...) is indeed the case. The liberal model of toleration is a secularization of the theology of Christian liberty and its division of society into a temporal political kingdom and the spiritual kingdom of Christ. Therefore, when liberal toleration travels beyond the boundaries of the Christian West or when western societies become multicultural, it threatens to lose its intelligibility. (shrink)

This paper rereads David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion as dramatising a distinctive, naturalistic account of toleration. I have two purposes in mind: first, to complete and ground Hume's fragmentary explicit discussion of toleration; second, to unearth a potentially attractive alternative to more recent, Rawlsian approaches to toleration. To make my case, I connect Dialogues and the problem of toleration to the wider themes of naturalism, scepticism and their relation in Hume's thought, before developing a new (...) interpretation of Dialogues part 12 as political drama. Finally, I develop the Humean theory of toleration I have discovered by comparison between Rawls's and Hume's strategies for justification of a tolerant political regime. (shrink)

One of the questions raised by this important and thought-provoking collection of essays on torture is how and why the consensus that torture is wrong - a consensus enshrined in international law for decade - has become so fragile. As Scott Anderson writes in the introduction to this volume, "[h]ow did abusing and torturing prisoners suddenly become so popular?” The chapters in this volume offer insights into this question from the perspectives of history, psychology, law, philosophy, and sociology. This interdisciplinary (...) approach highlights important and often overlooked aspects of the torture debate. Yet, the questions that the authors take to be important (for example, about whether the justification of torture should even be contemplated) reflect different and sometimes incompatible normative assumptions about what torture is and about what matters in the torture debate. These assumptions, I shall argue, are shaped by, and play a role in shaping, the moral, political, and social narratives that contribute to or resist the toleration of torture in the US and elsewhere. Thus, while the disparate nature of the contributions (perhaps inevitably) undermine the cohesiveness of the volume as a whole, it illuminates, even if it does not resolve, larger questions about the place and function of academic debate in the history and use of torture. (shrink)

The diversification of the world has given us the opportunity to live with different people. This kind of diversification brings not only adventure and excitements but also interaction with people and their habits that we do not agree with. In response, toleration has become the common sense of people in modern society. However, what is the meaning of the word toleration? What moral emotions underlie the practice of toleration? This article puts forward a morally defensible concept of (...) toleration inspired by ancient Chinese thinking. I first discuss the etymology of the word toleration from Anglophone and Chinese perspectives, and then analyse three problematical emotional attitudes towards others and critique the spirit of exclusion in the dominant Anglophone understanding of toleration. Finally, I analyse a morally defensible concept of toleration based on the ‘the dao of zhong and shu’ that also served as the ideal underpinning political unity and a... (shrink)

Remer offers the surprising conclusion that humanist thinking on toleration was actually founded on the classical tradition of rhetoric.

Although the Essay Concerning Human Understanding is considered Locke's magnum opus, its relation to his political philosophy has been a perennial puzzle for scholars. Scholars have typically focused on the question of Locke's natural law doctrine in the Essay and the Two Treatises. This article takes a different approach to uncovering the political significance of the Essay by relating the theological importance of its epistemology to Locke's doctrine of religious toleration as found in the Letter Concerning Toleration. Crucial (...) arguments supporting Locke's case for religious toleration are to be found, not in the Letter, but in the Essay, which seeks to elevate a limited but relatively uncontroversial natural theology above the disputed uncertainties inherent to revealed theology. Though not on the surface a political work, the Essay is fundamental to Locke's political theology of toleration. (shrink)

This paper argues for a new perspective on Locke's account of toleration by looking at a set of important but neglected arguments for toleration. Standard accounts which view Lockean toleration as justified solely on considerations of conscience fail to explain Locke's preferred form of toleration, the process by which he overcame his earlier objections to toleration, and the importance of considerations regarding the practicability of religious toleration. The paper argues that attention to Locke's political (...) arguments provides a more complete account of his toleration, which integrates his views on toleration with his wider political theory. These political arguments arise from, and are intimately related to this theory of consent and his epistemological views. The political arguments allow Locke to formulate a response to the then prevailing problematique of toleration exemplified by Samuel Parker's objections. These arguments not only establish toleration as a natural right, but also a necessary condition for maintaining legitimate political society. They also explain his intolerance of atheists and Catholics on grounds other than prejudice. (shrink)

This paper rereads David Hume'sDialogues Concerning Natural Religionas dramatising a distinctive, naturalistic account of toleration. I have two purposes in mind: first, to complete and ground Hume's fragmentary explicit discussion of toleration; second, to unearth a potentially attractive alternative to more recent, Rawlsian approaches to toleration. To make my case, I connectDialoguesand the problem of toleration to the wider themes of naturalism, scepticism and their relation in Hume's thought, before developing a new interpretation ofDialoguespart 12 as (...) political drama. Finally, I develop the Humean theory of toleration I have discovered by comparison between Rawls's and Hume's strategies for justification of a tolerant political regime. (shrink)

Complicity as toleration of wrong is deeply rooted in Western language and narratives. It is based on assumptions about the self, our relationship to the world and personal accountability that differ from the Common Law's and moral theology's standard doctrines. How we blame others for tolerating wrong depends upon the moral force of public discourse and upon the meaning of censure as exhortation. Censure as blame is usually retrospective, while censure as exhortation is forward-looking and stresses moral maturity and (...) flourishing. (shrink)

In this short essay, I respond to Brian Leiter’s Why Tolerate Religion. I focus on two criticisms. First, I argue that Leiter’s own theory depends on an unacknowledged ideal of equality, and that equality is central to the utilitarian and Rawlsian bases for religious toleration that he draws upon in his book. Second, I argue against Leiter’s allowing, in certain circumstances, the state to establish religion and to promote religious conceptions of the good.

The limits of toleration are at the limits of trust. Without a minimal level of trust between different groups, any accommodation will quickly break down (Dees 1999). In many ways, the point here is obvious: people have to trust one another enough to make toleration possible. In other words, they have to feel that their fundamental moral interests are not threatened if they accept toleration. If that trust breaks down, then civil war—in either the hot or the (...) cold variety—will break out. A society built on toleration, then, requires a delicate balance between the practices within it that sustain toleration and those that build the trust between disparate groups. I explore these issues by looking at two groups--the non-Trinitarian Socinians in the 17th century and homosexuals in the 21st--to understand where those boundaries should be. (shrink)

This innovative collection points to the need for a reevaluation of the origins of toleration theory. Philosophers, intellectual historians, and political theorists have assumed that the development of the theory of toleration has been a product of the modern world, and John Locke is usually regarded as the first theorist of toleration. The contributors to Difference and Dissent, however, discuss a range of conceptual positions that were employed by medieval and early modern thinkers to support a theory (...) of toleration, and question the claim that Locke's theory of toleration was as original or philosophically adequate as his adherents have asserted. (shrink)

SummaryThe toleration gained by Protestant Dissenters, the Toleration Act of 1689, was far from comprehensive. It insisted that Dissenting authorities should subscribe to the doctrinal articles of the Church of England. It suspended anti-Dissent legislation rather than repealing it and the sacramental requirement for civil officials remained in place. The situation of Dissent under the law was ambiguous and, at least in theory, the freedom of worship gained under the act was incomplete. This article examines Dissenter attempts to (...) clarify their situation under the law and to be free from the Anglican subscription requirement for minsters, schoolmasters and tutors. It focuses on those aspects of their campaigning propaganda which accorded with natural law theory and particularly on the relationship between concerns for the well-being of the community and the assertion of the natural rights of conscience. It finds that pragmatic considerations competed with theoretical prescriptions. Although the language of natural rights was increasingly to the fore in the late eighteenth century, even the more radical Dissenters did not entirely abandon claims for wider toleration based on natural law considerations. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century that natural rights trumped natural law. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell said more than once that he was uncomfortable about a conflict, as he saw it, between two things: the strength of the conviction with which he held his ethical beliefs, and the philosophical opinions that he had about the status of those ethical beliefs—opinions which were non-cognitivist, and in some sense subjectivist. Russell felt that, in some way, if he did not think that his ethical beliefs were objective, he had no right to hold them so passionately. This (...) discomfort was not something that Ayer noted or discussed in his account of Russell's moral philosophy and ethical opinions, at least in the book that he wrote for the Modern Masters series . Perhaps this was because it was not a kind of discomfort that Ayer felt himself. His own philosophical views about the status of ethics were at all periods at any rate non-cognitivist, and I think that he did not mind them being called ‘subjectivist’. He did indeed argue that the supposed difference between objectivism and subjectivism in ethics did no work, and that philosophers who took themselves to be objectivists could not achieve anything more than those who admitted they were subjectivists. Ayer based this mainly on the idea that the claims made by objectivists for the factuality, objective truth, and so forth of moral judgments added nothing to those judgments—so far as moral conclusions were concerned, the objectivist was saying the same as the subjectivist but in a louder voice. (shrink)

J. R. and Philip Milton present the first critical edition of John Locke's Essay concerning Toleration, based on all extant manuscripts, and a number of other writings on law and politics composed between 1667 and 1683. Although Locke never published any of these works himself they are of very great interest for students of his intellectual development because they are markedly different from the early works he wrote while at Oxford and show him working out ideas that were to (...) appear in his mature political writings, the Two Treatises of Government and the Epistola de Tolerantia. With authoritative contextual guidance from the editors, this will be an invaluable resource for all historians of early modern philosophy, of legal, political, and religious thought, and of 17th century Britain. (shrink)

pierre bayle’s treatise on tolerance is a landmark in the birth of the modern mind. Written shortly before Locke’s Letter on Toleration, it advocates full toleration of all religious beliefs, not by reduction to the lowest common denominator, but rather because of the moral evilness of persecutions and forced conversions.However, many commentators believe that there is a flaw in Bayle’s theory: the so-called “conscientious persecutor aporia.”1 In order to show the wickedness of persecution, Bayle holds up conscience as (...) an apparently absolute, inviolable principle. As we shall see, the primary ethical imperative is to obey the “dictates” of one’s conscience, that is, to do what conscience shows us to.. (shrink)