What the Liberal State Should Tolerate Within Its Borders

Abstract

I have previously argued that toleration is best understood as an agent's intentional and principled refraining from interfering with an opposed other (or their behavior, etc.) in situations of diversity, where the agent believes she has the power to interfere (see my 2004a). Though I think this is the best available definition, it is only a definition and presents no normative claims about when toleration is warranted — i.e., about what is to be tolerated. As Peter Nicholson notes, ‘Toleration as a moral ideal cannot be value-neutral, and for this reason too it must be distinguished from the descriptive concept of toleration which can and should be valueneutral’ (1985, 161). Having previously offered a value-neutral account of the descriptive concept, I use that analysis here to discuss the moral ideal.