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Justifying Tolerance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Richard Vernon
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
Samuel V. LaSelva
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario

Abstract

Arguments for tolerance, and criticisms of it, regularly produce paradoxes and other kinds of conceptual difficulty. We seek to show that these paradoxes are unnecessary, and that they arise from misconceptions of what a theory of tolerance is required to justify. Imagined as a “virtue,” tolerance is simply confused with other concepts; understood in the framework of a theory of “rights,” the element of choice essential to the concept is wholly neglected; explaining the concept in terms of some theory of fallibilism leads to a confusion of pragmatic with cognitive standards. Moreover, such mistaken approaches often arise from an equation of tolerance with liberalism or pluralism: the authors maintain, however, that justifications of tolerance do not rest on a commitment to any political theory or ideology, but imply only a recognition of the political situation itself.

Résumé

Les diverses conceptions de la tolérance, de même que leurs critiques, présentent souvent des paradoxes et d'autres difficultés d'ordre conceptuel. Notre objectif est de montrer que ces paradoxes pourraient être évités puisqu'ils proviennent d'une conception fausse de ce qu'une théorie de la tolérance doit justifier. Présentée comme une « vertue », la tolérance est simplement confondue avec d'autres concepts; intégrée dans une théorie des « droits », l' élément fondamental de choix est totalement négligé; insérée dans une théorie de la faillibilité, la confusion est apparente entre les caractéristiques pragmatiques et cognitives. De plus, ces approches partent souvent d'une équation établie entre la tolérance et le libéralisme ou le pluralisme. Nous soutenons que l'on ne peut trouver les justifications de la tolérance dans les théories ou les idéologies politiques, mais dans la compréhension de la situation politique en elle-même.

Type
Sommaire
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association Canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1984

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References

1 Quoted in Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness (New York: Scribner's, 1960), 130.Google Scholar See also Laslett, Peter, “Political Theory and Political Scientific Research,” Government and Opposition 6 (1971), 219–23;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Tinder, Glenn, Tolerance: Toward a New Civility (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976), 138:Google Scholar “A tolerance that primarily expresses indifference... is tolerance as Locke and Mill... conceived it.” Tinder's view is especially surprising, as Locke and Mill plainly viewed tolerance as a reduction of coercion coupled with a profound concern for the promotion of truth and human well-being. See, for example, Locke, , A Letter Concerning Toleration (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955), 19:Google Scholar “Every man has commission to admonish, exhort, convince another of error, and, by reasoning, to draw him into truth”; and Mill, , On Liberty (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), 142:Google Scholar “There is need of a great increase of disinterested exertion to promote the good of others” by advice, warning, and so on. The equation of tolerance with indifference is well criticized by Lucas, J. R., The Principles of Politics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), 296:Google Scholar “One can tolerate only when one cares, when one believes oneself to be right, and the other man to be wrong. Else there is no problem.” See also footnote 39 below.

2 See Cranston, Maurice, “Toleration,” in Paul Edwards (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York and London, 1967), vol. 8, 142–46;Google Scholar also Bernard Crick, “Toleration and Tolerance in Theory and Practice,” Preston King, “The Problem of Tolerance,” and Raphael, D. D., “Toleration, Choice and Liberty,” Government and Opposition 6 (1971), 144207, 229–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the question of terminology, we find no common or consistent basis in usage for a distinction between “tolerance” and “toleration.” The distinction would be important if the former were dispositional, the latter behavioural in reference; but see our discussion of “dispositions” below.

3 Wolff, R. P., “Beyond Tolerance,” in R. P. Wolff et al., A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 4.Google Scholar

4 MacIntyre, Alasdair, Secularization and Moral Change (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 24.Google Scholar

5 Niebuhr, , The Children of Light, 134.Google Scholar

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7 Laslett, “Political Theory and Political Scientific Research,” 219, 222.

8 See Geach, P. T., The Virtues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 119.Google Scholar

9 “Tolerant-seeming” would mean, presumably, that the policy was not tolerant in its (actual or intended) consequences; or, if it is taken to mean “not springing from tolerance,” the next objection in the text above applies at once.

10 Locke, A Letter, 29.

11 Milton, John, Areopagitica, in his Prose Writings (London: Dent, 1958), 166.Google Scholar

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16 Popper, Karl, “Utopia and Violence,” in his Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Basic Books, 1965), 356–57.Google Scholar Here there appears to be a confusion between impartiality and neutrality. See Montefiore, Alan, Neutrality and Impartiality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 430.Google Scholar There is no reason for the person who proceeds impartially to reach neutral conclusions. As Popper himself stresses elsewhere, an impartial process of investigation may culminate in decisive victory for one claim, and the proponent of the other “perishes with his false beliefs” (Objective Knowledge [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972], 122).Google Scholar For that reason, the model of scientific impartiality can be employed just as plausibly (or no more implausibly) by critics of tolerance. See, for example, Moore, Barrington, “Tolerance and the Scientific Outlook,” in Critique of Pure Tolerance, especially 63, 79;Google Scholar and Kendall, Willmoore, The Conservative Affirmation (Chicago: Regnery, 1963), 118–20.Google Scholar

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18 See Dworkin, Ronald, “Liberty and Moralism,” in his Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), 240–58Google Scholar (especially 254–55), where Dworkin criticizes Devlin, and develops what a moral position involves.

19 Lukes, “Social and Moral Tolerance,” 225. Compare Ritchie, A. D., Natural Rights (London: Unwin, 1894), 157Google Scholar: “In itself [toleration]... has the advantage, rare in controversy, of being neutral.”

20 Cranston, “Toleration,” 143; and see Harrison, “Relativism and Tolerance,” 135: “in common parlance... we should not be happy about describing behaviour of which we disapprove as ‘tolerant.’”

21 Ritchie, , Natural Rights, 157. In “Crick on Tolerance,” Government and Opposition 6 (1971), 210Google Scholar, Cranston himself commends Marcuse for his forthrightness in describing what he advocates as “intolerance,” but this too, of course, casts doubt upon the strength of the linguistic conventions appealed to in Cranston's “Toleration.”

22 On tolerance and choice, see Raphael, “Toleration, Choice, Liberty,” 232.

23 Popper, , “Utopia and Violence,” 357, and The Open Society and Its Enemies (London: Routledge, 1966)Google Scholar, vol. 1, 265. For a similar claim, see Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1971), 218Google Scholar. The view is accepted by Tinder, Tolerance, 159Google Scholar.

24 Here we must distinguish between the case which Popper discusses, in which one faces a choice between being “tolerant” and being “destroyed,” and the case sometimes attributed to him, for example, by Schauer, Frederick, Free Speech: A Philosophical Enquiry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 162Google Scholar: “Popper... is consistent.... If we allow people to question the assumption that more speech leads to more knowledge, then we risk having the whole system toppled.” But the difference between allowing oneself to be “destroyed” and allowing one's assumptions to be “questioned” is enormous, and while issues of tolerance may arise in the latter case, they do not arise in the former. For the same reason, not only is it not “intolerant” to permit one's own destruction, it cannot be called “indiscriminately tolerant” either; see Newman, , Foundations of Religious Tolerance, 21Google Scholar.

25 Devlin, Patrick, The Enforcement of Morals (London: Oxford University Press), 16Google Scholar. For relevant discussions of Devlin's views, see Wollheim, Richard, “Crime, Sin, and Devlin, Mr. Justice,” Encounter 13 (November 1959Google Scholar), 34–40 (especially 38–39); Hart, H. L. A., “Immorality and Treason,” in Wasserstrom, R. A.(ed.), Morality and the Law (Belmont: Wadsworth, 1971), 4954;Google Scholar Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, 240–58. The point at issue here is also made by Ten, C. L., Mill on Liberty (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980), 91Google Scholar: “The critical issue which divides Devlin from Mill's supporters turns on the apparently factual claims with which Devlin tries to back up his thesis.”

26 See Allport, Gordon, The Nature of Prejudice (New York: Anchor, 1958), 398412Google Scholar. Allport claims that “an individual who is on friendly terms with all sorts of people is a tolerant person.... It is unfortunate that the English language lacks a better term to express the friendly and trustful attitude that one person may have toward another...” (398).

27 Figgis, J. N., Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 132Google Scholar.

28 Natural rights are mentioned, slightly obliquely, in A Letter, 52. But to the extent that Locke introduces a rights argument, it is cast in terms of equal rights, or equal consideration, rather than in terms of nature. See A Letter, 53, 55. For the most part, however, Locke's argument proceeds without reference to rights of either kind, and the case for rights should be distinguished from the case for tolerance, even though both, in different ways, may serve to establish liberty.

29 Paine, , Rights of Man, 107Google Scholar.

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31 Lukes, “Social and Moral Tolerance,” 224. On the “moral right to disapprove,” see also Stephen, James Fitzjames, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 102Google Scholar.

32 Quoted in Ruggiero, Guido de, The History of European Liberalism (Boston: Beacon, 1967), 18Google Scholar.

33 See for example Milton, Areopagitica, 166, where he says of the parliamentary order for licensing of the press that it “cannot conduce to that end whereof it bears the intention.” More complex problems are posed by the important view that coercion is incapable of governing thought, that we have no choice but to think as we do and hence cannot be made to think otherwise by legal sanctions. See, for example, Levy, Leonard W., Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), 313–20Google Scholar. But this argument is perhaps best understood as claiming that the control of expression, which is possible, is an unsuitable means if envisaged as a means of controlling thoughts.

34 Tinder, , Tolerance, 35Google Scholar.

35 Ibid., 36, 37. See also Locke, A Letter, 25: “whatsoever any church believes it believes to be true.”

36 Locke, A Letter, 26: “if it could be manifest which of... two dissenting churches were in the right, there would not accrue thereby unto the orthodox any right of destroying the other.” In On Liberty, Mill claims that “as mankind improve, the number of doctrines which are no longer disputed or doubted will be constantly on the increase,” (106) and that even when such a consensus “be not only true, but the whole truth,” it is still necessary that it should be “vigorously and earnestly contested” (116).

37 Popper, , “ On the Sources of Knowledge and Ignorance,” in Conjecture and Refutations, 16Google Scholar.

38 Voltaire, , Philosophical Dictionary, trans, by Peter Gay, Vol. 2 (New York: Basic Books, 1962), 487Google Scholar. It is interesting to compare Gay's translation of Voltaire at page 482 with Popper's translation of the same passage in “Sources of Knowledge,” 16.

39 Among many examples, see Maitland, F. W., Collected Papers, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 95Google Scholar: “We can scarcely ask the ruler not to interfere without suggesting to him that there is a chance of his own opinion being wrong.... Scepticism or doubt is the legitimate parent of toleration”; Jouvenel, Bertrand de, Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 288Google Scholar: “One of the strangest intellectual illusions of the nineteenth century was the idea that toleration could be ensured by moral relativism”; Popper, “Sources of Knowledge,” 16: “It was this doctrine of an essential human fallibility which ... Milton... Montaigne, Locke and Voltaire and J. S. Mill and Russell made the basis of the doctrine of tolerance.” See also Stephen, , Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, 108Google Scholar; Barrington Moore, “Tolerance and the Scientific Outlook,” 60–63; Kendall, , Conservative Affirmation, 114; Lucas, Principles of Politics, 299; and Tinder, Tolerance, 39Google Scholar.

40 Some difficulties are rightly pointed out by de Jouvenel, Sovereignty, 289; Morley, John, On Compromise (London: Macmillan, 1917), 145–46;Google ScholarGallie, W. B., “Essentially Contested Concepts,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (1956), 193–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Gallie, “Essentially Contested Concepts,” 193.

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43 Kendall, , Conservative Affirmation, 106Google Scholar.

44 MacIntyre, , Secularization, 45Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., 29–30.

46 Ibid., 25.

47 Its importance is explored in MacIntyre's After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

48 Secularization, 24Google Scholar.

49 Locke, , A Letter, 1517, 29Google Scholar.

50 Laslett, “Political Theory and Political Scientific Research,” 220. Laslett's suggestion, that enthusiasm and “excessive emotional investment” lead to intolerance, should be compared with Mill's view: “ It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.... Strong impulses are but another name for energy... [and] more good may always be made of an energetic nature, than of an indolent... one” (Mill, On Liberty, 124).

51 Locke, A Letter, 14.

52 Ibid., 17–23.

53 Ibid., 19 (emphasis added).

54 Milton, Areopagitica, 165.

55 Ibid., 166.

56 See Dewey, John, Theory of Valuation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 4050Google Scholar.

57 See Schauer, , Free Speech, 7386Google Scholar.