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How Far Can Tolerance Go?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Monique Canto-Sperber
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Extract

How define tolerance? Tolerance consists in abstaining from intervening in the actions and opinions of other persons when these opinions or actions appear disagreeable, frankly unpleasant or morally reprehensible to us. But each will feel that there exists a real difference between that which is disagreeable or unpleasant and that which is morally repugnant. To respect this intuition, I would propose to distinguish between a narrow sense of tolerance - I tolerate that which appears displeasing or disagreeable to me, but I do not tolerate that which I judge to be morally wrong - and a broad sense in which I tolerate even that which I disapprove of morally. If we adopt the narrow sense, we have at our disposal a first answer to the question of knowing how far to tolerate: I tolerate that which relates to displeasure or to annoyance, but not that which I believe to be wrong.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 44 , Issue 176 , December 1996 , pp. 175 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

Notes

1. An earlier version of this article was published under the title "Les Limites de la tolérance," in: R.-P. Droit (ed.), Jusqu'où tolérer?, Paris, 1996, pp. 131-45.

2. See Spinoza, Oeuvres II, Paris, 1965.

3. See, for example, P. Bayle, Pensées diverses sur la comète, Paris, 1984.

4. New edition: Harmondsworth, 1964.

5. New York, 1966.

6. New York, 1993. See also C. Larmore, Modernité et morale, Paris, 1993, to indi cate the tendency of individuals in present-day societies to diverge on moral questions.

7. J. Raz, The Morality of Freedom, Oxford, 1986. See also S. Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism, London, 1989.

8. Oxford, 1969.