Category: Toleration
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How Far Does Religious Toleration Extend?
Suppose that there were a religion whose aim was to dominate the world and suppress every other religion. Would we who value toleration be under any obligation to tolerate such a religion? Of course not. Toleration does not extend to the toleration of the intolerant. Is there such a religion? According to Farhad Khosrokhavar, Inside Jihadism:…
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On Islam and Toleration (Peter Lupu)
In his post titled A Mosque Grows near Brooklyn Bill made the following statement: “Muslims aren't very 'liberal,' are they? They are intolerant in their attitudes and their behavior. Now the touchstone of classical liberalism is toleration. Toleration is good, but it has limits. (See the posts in the category Toleration.) So why should we…
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Locke, James, Doxastic Voluntarism and Two Bases of Toleration
The topic of doxastic voluntarism is proving to be fascinating indeed. It is interestingly related to the topic of toleration about which I have something to say in On Toleration: With a Little Help from Kolakowski, in The Danger of Appeasing the Intolerant, and in Toleration and its Limits. Let us begin today's meditation with…
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Toleration and its Limits
Henry V. e-mails: I have a question. Is there a technical philosophical term for the case when a principle, applied consistently, leads to its own negation? I have in mind the example of the principle of civic tolerance, that when consistently applied to groups such as Muslims who wish to see Sharia law instituted in the…
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The Danger of Appeasing the Intolerant
Should we tolerate the intolerant? Should we, in the words of Leszek Kolakowski, . . . tolerate political or religious movements which are hostile to tolerance and seek to destroy all the mechanisms which protect it, totalitarian movements which aim to impose their own despotic regime? Such movements may not be dangerous as long as…
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The Real Culture War
Please study the following photographs. They depict adherents of the 'religion of peace' making such statements as: Behead those who insult Islam; Freedom go to hell; Be prepared for the real holocaust. There is a sort of 'culture war' going on between liberals and conservatives in the West. But this minor culture…
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Rorty on the Idea of a Liberal Society: Anything Goes
Rorty is dead, but a thinker lives on in his recorded thoughts, and we honor a thinker by thinking his thoughts with a mind that is at once both open and critical, open but not empty or passive. In Chapter Three of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity, Richard Rorty writes: It is central to the idea…
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Hypocrisy and Other Vices of Self-Presentation
My exposure of the Dictionary Fallacy was not intended to cast doubt on the utility of dictionaries. Far from it. Some of their entries are excellent starting points for philosophical inquiry. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hypocrisy is "assuming a false appearance of virtue or goodness, with dissimulation of real character or inclination, especially…
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On Toleration: With a Little Help from Kolakowski
1. Toleration is the touchstone of classical liberalism, and there is no denying its value. Our doxastic predicament requires it of us. We have beliefs galore but precious little knowledge, especially as regards the large and enduring questions. Lacking knowledge, we must inquire. For that we need freedom of inquiry, and a social and political…