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The Paradox of Tolerance

The Paradox of Tolerance. Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk. Tolerance. We can only tolerate practices, values, and beliefs of other people when these differ from our own.

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The Paradox of Tolerance

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  1. The Paradox of Tolerance Michael Lacewing enquiries@alevelphilosophy.co.uk

  2. Tolerance • We can only tolerate practices, values, and beliefs of other people when these differ from our own. • Not minding or caring isn’t really tolerance, which involves not acting (in certain ways) on one’s opposition to the practice etc. • Restraint is not out of fear or powerlessness.

  3. Can racists be tolerant? • If tolerance is just not acting on disapproval, then racists can be tolerant. • One’s disapproval must not be based on ‘mere prejudice’, but e.g. on ‘responsible judgment’ or being ‘reasonable’ • But is there a neutral account of what is ‘reasonable’? • Tolerance as a virtue: one’s restraint is for the right moral or political reasons

  4. Tensions: psychological • What reason can there be to tolerate what you think is wrong? • If you think it is morally right to show restraint, are you still morally opposed to the other view?

  5. Tensions: political • Should a liberal society tolerate a minority culture that doesn’t respect its values? • It rejects the values of individual autonomy and tolerance in favour of the authority of tradition, and seeks to enforce its values within the cultural community. • If it were the majority culture, it would advocate legal and social sanctions against those who disagreed. • Can, or should, liberals tolerate the intolerant or intolerable?

  6. Paradox • Tolerance is most needed when one view rejects tolerance. If both agree that individual autonomy must be respected, little tolerance is needed. • If the reason for tolerance is to respect autonomy, why would we tolerate a view that did not respect autonomy? Don’t we increase autonomy by not tolerating views that do not respect autonomy? • But if a liberal society could only tolerate cultures that accept liberal values, how would this be tolerance at all?

  7. Defending tolerance • To argue that intolerant views cannot be tolerated is not intolerance. E.g. it is quite different from the intolerance of a view that tries to impose a specific way of living on people. • We cannot refuse to make any value judgment about different cultures or we lose the value judgments that favour tolerance over intolerance.

  8. Why be tolerant? • Strife • Fallibility • Autonomy • As happiness • As respect for equality • Diversity

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