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The Case for Tolerance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

George P. Fletcher
George P. Fletcher
Affiliation:
Jurisprudence, Columbia University School of Law
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Extract

For people to live together in pluralistic communities, they must find someway to cope with the practices of others that they abhor. For that reason, tolerance has always seemed an appealing medium of accommodation. But tolerance also has its critics. One wing charges that the tolerant are too easygoing. They are insensitive to evil in their midst. At the same time, another wing attacks the (merely) tolerant for being too weak in their sentimentsof respect. “The Christian does not wish to be tolerated,” as T. S. Eliot said; and by this he meant to claim, presumably, that the Christian desires respect and acceptance, and not merely the forbearance suggested by “tolerance.”

To make the case for tolerance, we must engage in a three-front campaign: first, against intolerance; second, against the moral failing of indifference; and third, against the desirability of respecting and accepting everyone. The central claim in making this case will be that unlike these three competing sentiments, tolerance is a complex attitude toward the behavior and beliefs of others. Its complexity consists in both moral disapproval (or atleast cultural rejection) and the avoidance of interference. If there is a case to be made for tolerance, it must derive from this peculiar complexity. After surveying its alternatives, I will argue that the complex sentimentof tolerance is more readily praised than its alternatives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Winter 1996 , pp. 229 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1996

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References

1 International Herald-Tribune, August 8, 1994, p. A5.

2 See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah, 113 S.Ct. 2217 (1993).

3 Locke, John, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. John, Horton and Susan, Mendus (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 17.Google Scholar

4 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 212.Google Scholar

5 For a general study of the problem, see Feinberg, Joel, Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984).Google Scholar

6 The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception holds that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was born without original sin.

7 See Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, p. 23.

8 See Leibowitz, Yeshayahu, Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State, ed. and trans. Eliezer, Goldman (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992).Google Scholar

9 On this point, see Dan-Cohen, Meir, “In Defense of Defiance” (unpublished manuscript).Google Scholar

10 See Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration.

11 Kant, Immanuel, Fundamental Principles of theMetaphysics of Morals, trans. Abbott, Thomas K. (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1949).Google Scholar

12 This connection is more obvious in other languages. The same root generates both tolerance and patience in German (Geduldsamkeit and Geduld), Hebrew (sovlanut and savlanut), and Russian (terpimost' and terpenie).