TY - JOUR
T1 - Rescuing toleration
AU - Elisabetta Galeotti, Anna
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Toleration has been recently attacked both on practical and on theoretical grounds. On practical grounds, confronting religious terrorism, many commentators have asked whether toleration can remain the general policy toward cultural and religious diversity. Theoretically, toleration has been questioned as to its analytical capacity in the realm of partisan politics. This paper aims at countering such criticisms, by means of a conceptual clarification especially focused on the notion of intolerance, intolerable and response to intolerance. The controversial cases arising in contemporary democracy are usually focused on the limits of toleration, hence on the intolerable, by stretching the interpretation of the self-defense and of the harm principle. The author argues that the stretching is often excessive and the resulting interpretations too contentious to provide solid grounds for the intolerable. Alternatively, issues of toleration can be examined from the point of view of tolerance/intolerance. This viewpoint can clarify issues at the descriptive level, sorting out who was tolerant and who was intolerant and what was intolerable, while disagreement may persist at the normative level, according to the favored justification of toleration.
AB - Toleration has been recently attacked both on practical and on theoretical grounds. On practical grounds, confronting religious terrorism, many commentators have asked whether toleration can remain the general policy toward cultural and religious diversity. Theoretically, toleration has been questioned as to its analytical capacity in the realm of partisan politics. This paper aims at countering such criticisms, by means of a conceptual clarification especially focused on the notion of intolerance, intolerable and response to intolerance. The controversial cases arising in contemporary democracy are usually focused on the limits of toleration, hence on the intolerable, by stretching the interpretation of the self-defense and of the harm principle. The author argues that the stretching is often excessive and the resulting interpretations too contentious to provide solid grounds for the intolerable. Alternatively, issues of toleration can be examined from the point of view of tolerance/intolerance. This viewpoint can clarify issues at the descriptive level, sorting out who was tolerant and who was intolerant and what was intolerable, while disagreement may persist at the normative level, according to the favored justification of toleration.
KW - Toleration
KW - harm principle
KW - intolerable
KW - intolerance
KW - self-defense
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85065756146&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13698230.2019.1616882
DO - 10.1080/13698230.2019.1616882
M3 - Article
SN - 1369-8230
VL - 24
SP - 87
EP - 107
JO - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
JF - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
IS - 1
ER -