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)

Rawls’s account of international toleration in The Law of Peoples has been the subject of vigorous critiques by critics who believe that he unacceptably dilutes the principles of his Law of Peoples in order to accommodate non-liberal societies. One important component in these critiques takes issue specifically with Rawls’s inclusion of certain non-liberal societies (‘decent peoples’) in the constituency of justification for the Law of Peoples. In Rawls’s defence, I argue that the explanation for the inclusion of decent peoples (...) in the constituency of justification is not, as is standardly assumed, that they are the kind of societies that ought to be tolerated in that way on some prior conception of which kinds of societies ought to be tolerated in that way. The real explanation appeals to a methodological principle underlying Rawls’s approach to political justification, according to which liberals owe justification, as a matter of liberal principle, to those who comply with liberal principles for political institutions that apply to them. If such liberal principles can be complied with by agents who nevertheless cannot accept fully liberal justifications for those principles, then liberalism itself requires liberals to seek justifications which they can accept. This approach gives us a new way to view decent peoples: as just such agents, who are therefore owed a justification for the Law of Peoples that they can accept. Decency is thus a concept that is internal to liberal political justification at the international level. Reading Rawls in this way permits a coherent and attractive defence of his strategy of toleration and of his international theory as a whole. (shrink)

Philosophical Commentary on the Words of the Gospel 'Compel Them to Come In', written by the Protestant philosopher Pierre Bayle in 1686-88, was a classic statement of the case for toleration at a time of extreme persecution. This collection of Kilcullen's writings on Bayle's work examines a wide range of 17th-century religious and philosophical issues, including Bayle's arguments, Arnauld's attack on Jesuit moral theories similar to Bayle's, the uses and limitations of "reciprocity" arguments, the "ethics of belief," and questions (...) of moral responsibility and free will. (shrink)

This article clarifies Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s understanding of toleration, a topic that has become controversial in the last few decades. For the purpose of brevity and exactness, only his writings and letters dating from the beginning of his philosophical thought (1668 to 1676) are analysed, while the main focus is on Leibniz’s understanding of political toleration, or the relation of the state towards the existence of confessions (i.e., churches or denominations) different than the ruler’s. The article investigates the (...) understanding of toleration in the 17th-century Holy Roman Empire, which turns out to be the sufferance of difference rather than its affirmation or celebration, as well as the historical context of tolerating different confessions in various states of the 17th-century Empire. While indirect evidence is shown that Leibniz favoured toleration in confessionally mixed German states, the main point of the article is that young Leibniz cannot be counted among the proponents of toleration only if his vision of politically and ecclesiastically united Empire didn’t tolerate further existence of differing confessions. Based on the analysis of the memorandum Securitas Publica from 1670, it is conclusively shown that Leibniz was in favour of toleration of differing confessions even in the united Empire that he envisioned. The last part of the article explains Leibniz’s attitude towards “atheism” on the cases of celebrated philosophers which were widely perceived as atheists in the learned world of the time, namely Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza. It is concluded that the relation of young Leibniz to them and their work cannot be characterized as intolerant or censorious. (shrink)

Care theorists have yet to outline an account of how the concept of toleration should function in their normative framework. This lack of outline is a notable gap in the literature, particularly for demonstrating whether care ethics can appropriately address cases of moral disagreement within contemporary pluralistic societies; in other words, does care ethics have the conceptual resources to recognize the disapproval that is inherent in an act of toleration while simultaneously upholding the positive values of care without (...) contradiction? By engaging care ethics with John Locke’s influential corpus on toleration, I answer the above question by building the bases for a novel theory of toleration as care. Specifically, I argue that care theorists can home in on an oft-overlooked aspect of Locke’s later thought: that the possibility of a tolerant society is dependent on a societal ethos of trustworthiness and civility, to the point where Locke sets out positive ethical demands on both persons and the state to ensure this ethos can grow and be sustained. By leveraging and augmenting Locke’s thought within the care ethical framework, I clarify how care ethics can provide meaningful solutions to moral disagreement within contemporary pluralistic societies in ways preferable to the capability of a liberal state. (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)

ABSTRACT Pierre Bayle developed an expansive theory of toleration in his Commentaire philosophique by arguing that tolerance is a universal principle of natural law. However, by situating toleration in natural law rather than positive law, Bayle was brought into theoretical conflict with the Old Testament injunction that the state should punish idolatry. To resolve this conflict, Bayle drew upon the work of early modern Hebraists, particularly the Catholic biblical scholar Richard Simon. Bayle adapted Simon’s idea that theocracy uniquely (...) shaped the institutions of ancient Israel to argue that prohibitions against idolatry should be exclusive to the Hebrew republic. Bayle argued that the Mosaic Law did not punish someone for their sincerely held religious beliefs but only prohibited treason, and these circumstantial laws should not be emulated by other states. This allowed Bayle to contend for the moral veracity of the Old Testament and the notion that toleration is an unconditional principle of natural law. Bayle’s use of Simon displayed the revolutionary potential of textual critical scholarship in the early modern period, as he adapted Simon’s critical ideas to his own aims of promoting religious toleration within the ecclesiastical and civic spheres of his own confessional context. (shrink)

To fully respond to the demands of multiculturalism, a view of toleration would need to duly respect diversity both at the level of the application of principles of toleration and at the level of the justificatory foundations that a view of toleration may appeal to. The paper examines Rainer Forst’s post-Rawlsian, ‘reason-based’ attempt to provide a view of toleration that succeeds at these two levels and so allows us to tolerate tolerantly. His account turns on the (...) view that a constructivist requirement of generality and reciprocity provides a suitable criterion of toleration since a commitment to this requirement is part of what defines people as reasonable. But it is neither plausible nor coherent to build such a requirement into an idea of reasonableness from which an account of toleration starts. Thus, constructivism cannot provide a tolerant criterion of toleration, if such criterion, in order to overcome the ‘paradox’ of intolerant toleration, must escape reasonable disagreement. (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)

Through a glass darkly / Joshua Mitchell -- Skepticism, self, and toleration in Montaigne's political thought / Alan Levine -- French free-thinkers in the first decades of the Edict of Nantes / Maryanne Cline Horowitz -- Descartes and the question of toleration / Michael Gillepsie -- Toleration and the skepticism of religion in Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus / Steven B. Smith -- Monopolizing faith / Alan Houston -- Skepticism and toleration in Hobbes' political thought / Shirley Letwin (...) -- John Locke and the foundations of toleration / Nathan Tarcov -- Pierre Bayle's atheist politics / Kenneth R. Weinstein -- Of believers and barbarians / Diana Schaub -- Tolerant skepticism of Voltaire and Diderot / Patrick Riley. (shrink)

Here, I reply to three commentaries on my recent book, Promoting Justice Across Borders: The Ethics of Reform Intervention. The main topics include the scope of the category “reform intervention,” to what extent it is appropriate to evaluate economic activity using moral criteria, the meaning of collective self-determination and its relationship to democracy, and the limits of toleration as a moral ideal.

The author identifies four possible attitudes of tolerance toward groups with different ways of life: resignation, indifference, curiosity and enthusiasm. He explores the potential for these attitudes and concludes by discussing the role of boundaries within communities in modernism and postmodernism. The author is not going to focus on toleration of eccentric or dissident individuals in civil society; he is interested in individual rights primarily when they are exercised in common—in the course of voluntary association or religious worship or (...) cultural elaboration—or when they are claimed by groups on behalf of their members. (shrink)

SUMMARYDue to his famous conflict with John Stuart Mill, James Fitzjames Stephen is often assumed to have been an opponent of toleration and intellectual freedom and a defender of authoritarian or reactionary principles. These assumptions are misleading. Stephen was, and was known in his time to have been, a champion of toleration. This essay provides a comprehensive overview of his writing on these themes, drawing from a wider array of texts than is usually considered in the study of (...) the Stephen-Mill controversy. Contrary to popular belief, Stephen had a deep and multi-faceted argument in favor of toleration. As a critic of contending theories of toleration and freedom of discussion, Stephen was concerned to defeat what he saw as the resurgence of a priori principles in Victorian political philosophy and to combat the expansion of a proper notion of toleration to include a cluster of beliefs and attitudes of which he disapproved. In his approach to these issues Stephen was, arguably, as representative of Victorian thinking as the author of On Liberty. (shrink)

Sexual activism (for, e.g., participants in the LGBT+ or BDSM communities) is prima facie commendable, at least for the liberal. However, it is unclear whether the end goal of such activism is toleration or recognition. The argument of this paper is that, on the level of authoritative political and social-moral rules, toleration is the only justifiable goal, while recognition may be pursued as an ideal outside the sphere of political and social-moral rules, that is, in civil society. The (...) argument builds on a Gausian public reason understanding of justifiability, emphasizing reasonable disagreement and a diversity of viewpoints. (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 (1689), 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)

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.

The very founding of the town Neuwied-am-Rhein was closely linked to policies and practices of religious toleration. It was the hope and intent of Count Friedrich of Wied (1618-1698) that a town, well planned and advantageously located, would bring economic relief and eventually prosperity to his small land, which had suffered particularly in the last years of the Thirty Years’ War. From the outset he saw that the best means of attracting residents would be to guarantee as large a (...) degree of religious freedom as possible.The Treaty of Westphalia provided a viable legal framework within which Protestants, adherents to the Augsburg Confession be they Lutherans or Reformed, and Roman Catholics could exercise their religion within the German Empire. The treaty basically defined three types of religious practice: the exercitium religionis publicum, which gave the members of the minority religion in any territorial unit full freedom to worship openly; the exercitium privatum, restricting the worship of the congregation to specific places; and finally the devotio domestica, which allowed the “individual exercise of religion by the common subject, practiced by him alone, without further ecclesiastical ceremony,... within the walls of his own living quarters.” The treaty further offered the beneficium emigrandi, and specified the conditions under which forced or voluntary emigration was to take place. (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)

This article examines Paul Guyer’s claim that we should attempt to ground the principle of religious freedom on the basis of Kant’s arguments for religious liberty. I problematise Guyer’s suggestion by investigating a hypothetical ‘dogmatic conflict’ between a scientifically and a religiously grounded belief. I further suggest that considering Christian Wolff’s philosophy might provide us with an approach which shares the benefits that Guyer identifies in Kant, while at the same time avoiding the issues Kant might run into that result (...) from the occurrence of the dogmatic conflict. I start by providing a background to Wolff’s philosophy and explaining the notion of the dogmatic conflict. Then I present a potential contemporary case of the dogmatic conflict and try to see how it would be dealt with based on Guyer’s proposal. Finally, I consider what a Wolffian solution would look like, arguing that Guyer’s project might benefit from considering Wolff. (shrink)

This work analyzes the problem of the development of John Locke’s ideas on toleration, in particular the grounds of separation of church and state. The first part examines Locke’s arguments regarding the prerogatives of the magistrate towards ‘indifferent things’ and the religious sphere. I distinguish between three stages in the development of Locke’s view on toleration: a suspicion toward the plea for it (the Two Tracts); an implicit non-verbalized distinction between church and state, and support for toleration (...) (An Essay on Toleration); and toleration as a political right (A Letter Concerning Toleration, the Two Treatises and the later letters). The second part focuses on the definition of ‘commonwealth’ in A Letter Concerning Toleration. I outline two fundamental sets of interdependent arguments that Locke uses for the separation of church and state. The third part is dedicated to the sphere of the church and the dimensions of the duty of toleration. The relation between Locke’s views on toleration and political practice explains the shift between the three stages, and is explored throughout the paper. (shrink)

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.

In this essay I situate Rawls’s conception of liberal democratic toleration within the account of political and law-making activity undertaken by free equals that he develops across his three main...

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)

The transition away from the highly intolerant and persecutory regimes of late-medieval and early-modern Europe was facilitated by four important developments. First, Europeans learned that social order and cohesion are threatened less by diversity than by intolerance of it. Second, the traditionally paternalist vision of the state’s role was called into question by a new valuation of the individual conscience and consequently of individual liberties. Third, the assumption that the meaning of symbols is objectively determined was replaced by the recognition (...) that symbols are intersubjectively determined by convention. Fourth, Europeans began to distinguish two senses of publicity: visibility and representativeness. The tenacious hold of these four assumptions is illustrated by laws of laïcité, which harken back to the medieval mindset on all four counts. (shrink)