Debate about the proper realm of individual freedom often centres upon the idea of toleration. How far should we tolerate the actions of our neighbours, and when, if ever, are we justified in constraining what they might do, think or say? By the same token, what kind of behaviour, opinions and beliefs should society be prepared to put up with? Toleration is both an ethical ideal and a social principle. On the one hand, it represents the goal of personal autonomy, but on the other hand, it establishes a set of rules about how human beings should interact with each another. In neither case, however, does toleration simply mean allowing people to act in whatever way they please. Toleration is a complex principle, whose meaning is often confused with related terms such as ‘permissiveness’ and ‘indifference’. However, like freedom, the value of tolerance is often taken for granted; it is regarded as little more than a ‘good thing’. What is the case for toleration, what advantages or benefits does it bring either society or the individual? Nevertheless, toleration is rarely considered to be an absolute ideal: at some point a line must be drawn between actions and views that are acceptable and ones that are simply ‘intolerable’. What are the limits of toleration? Where should the line be drawn?
Toleration and Difference
In everyday language, tolerance, the quality of being tolerant, is often understood to mean a willingness to ‘leave alone’ or ‘let be’, with little reflection upon the motives that lie behind such a stance. Indeed, from this point of view, toleration suggests inaction, a refusal to interfere or willingness to ‘put up with’ something. Toleration, however, refers to a particular form of inaction, based upon moral reasoning and a specific set of circumstances. In particular, toleration must be distinguished from permissiveness, blind indifference and willing indulgence. For example, a parent who simply ignores the unruly behaviour of his or her children, or a passer-by who chooses not to interfere to apprehend a mugger, cannot be said to be exhibiting ‘tolerance’.
Toleration has been closely associated with the liberal tradition, though it finds support among socialists and some conservatives. Toleration implies a refusal to interfere with, constrain or check the behaviour or beliefs of others. However, this non-interference exists in spite of the fact that the behaviour and beliefs in question are disapproved of, or simply disliked. Toleration, in other words, is not morally neutral. In that sense, toleration is a form of forbearance: it exists when there is a clear capacity to impose one’s views on another but a deliberate refusal to do so. Putting up with what cannot be changed is clearly not toleration. It would be absurd, for example, to describe a slave as tolerant of his servitude simply because he chooses not to rebel. Similarly, a battered wife who stays with her abusive husband out of fear can hardly be said to tolerate his behaviour.
Although toleration means forbearance, a refusal to impose one’s will on others, it does not simply mean non-interference. The fact that a moral judgement is made leaves the opportunity open for influence to be exerted over others, but only in the form of rational persuasion. There is undoubtedly a difference, for example, between ‘permitting’ a person to smoke and ‘tolerating’ their smoking. In the latter case, the fact that smoking is disapproved of, or disliked, may be registered, and an attempt made to persuade the person to stop or even give up smoking. However, toleration demands that forms of persuasion be restricted to rational argument and debate, because once some form of cost or punishment is imposed, even in the form of social ostracism, the behaviour in question is being constrained. It is difficult, for instance, to argue that smoking is being tolerated if it could lead to the loss of friendship or to damage to career prospects, or if it can only take place in a restricted area. In fact, these are better examples of intolerant behaviour.
Intolerance refers, quite obviously, to a refusal to accept the actions, views or beliefs of others. Not only is there moral disapproval or simple dislike, but there is also some kind of attempt to impose constraints upon others. However, the term intolerance undoubtedly has pejorative con-notations. Whereas ‘tolerance’ (the quality of being tolerant) is usually thought to be laudable and even enlightened – a tolerant person is patient, forgiving and philosophical – ‘intolerance’ suggests an unreasoned and unjustified objection to the views or actions of another, bringing it close to bigotry or naked prejudice. Intolerance suggests an objection to that which should have been tolerated. Thus laws which discriminate against people on grounds of race, colour, religion, gender or sexual preference, are often described as intolerant. The apartheid system which developed in South Africa is clearly therefore an example of racial intolerance; while the imposition of dress codes upon women and their exclusion from profes-sional and public life in fundamentalist Islamic states can be described as sexual intolerance. On the other hand, there is also a sense in which tolerance can imply weakness or simply a lack of moral courage. If something is ‘wrong’, surely it should be stopped. This aspect of tolerance is conveyed by the term ‘intolerable’, meaning that something should no longer be accepted and, indeed, can no longer be accepted. There are, quite simply, no grounds for tolerating the intolerable. In certain circumstances, therefore, intolerance may not only be defensible – it may even be a moral duty.
Since the late twentieth century, however, some political thinkers have gone beyond liberal toleration and endorsed the more radical idea of difference. Difference goes further than toleration in endorsing forms of diversity, in that it is based upon the idea of moral neutrality. Whereas liberals have traditionally sought to uncover a set of fundamental values that allow personal autonomy to coexist with political order, modern pluralist thinkers have been more concerned to create conditions in which people with different moral and material priorities can live together peacefully and profitably. Such a view is based upon the belief, expressed most forcibly in the writings of Isaiah Berlin, that conflicts of value are intrinsic to human life. People, in short, are bound to disagree about the ultimate ends of life. The pluralist stance has been upheld in one of two ways. The first of these accepts moral relativism, the idea that there are no absolute values or standards, implying that ethics is a matter of personal judgement for each human being. From this point of view, for example, homosexuality, smoking, abortion or female dress codes can be regarded as morally correct in that the freely chosen behaviour of the people concerned makes it so. The alternative position regards large areas of life as being morally indifferent. In this case, the acceptance of homosexuality, smoking, abortion or female dress codes may simply reflect the belief that there is nothing morally wrong with these practices; they are not matters about which moral judgements should be made. The politics of difference thus implies what John Gray (1996) termed a ‘post-liberal’ position in which liberal values, institutions and regimes no longer enjoy a monopoly of legitimacy. This, in turn, undermines any attempt to discourage or forbid beliefs or practices on the grounds that they are intolerant or illiberal.
The Case for Toleration
Toleration is one of the core values of Western culture and may even be its defining one. Indeed, it is commonly believed that human and social progress is tied up with the advance of toleration and that intolerance is somehow ‘backward’. For example, it is widely argued that as Western societies have abandoned restrictions upon religious worship, ceased to confine women to subordinate social roles, and tried to counter racial discrimination and prejudice, they have thereby become more ‘socially enlightened’. As the climate of toleration has spread from religious to moral and political life, it has enlarged the realm of what is usually taken to be individual liberty. The cherished civil liberties which underpin liberal-democratic political systems – freedom of speech, association, religious worship and so forth – are all, in effect, guarantees of toleration. Moreover, although it may be impossible to legislate bigotry and prejudice out of existence, the law has increasingly been used to extend toleration rather than constrain it, as in the case of legislation prohibiting discrimination on grounds of race, religion, gender and sexual preference. What this does not demonstrate, however, is why toleration has been so highly regarded in the first place.
The case for toleration first emerged during the Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a time when the rising Protestant sects challenged the authority of the Pope and the established Catholic church. Preaching the new and radical doctrine of ‘individual salvation’, Protes-tantism generated a strong tradition of religious dissent, reflected in the work of writers such as John Milton (1608–74) and John Locke. In A Letter Concerning Toleration ([1689] 1963), Locke advanced a number of arguments in favour of toleration. He suggested, for instance, that as the proper function of the state is to protect life, liberty and property, it has no right to meddle in ‘the care of men’s souls’. However, Locke’s central argument was based upon a belief in human rationality. ‘Truth’ will only emerge out of free competition among ideas and beliefs and must therefore be left to ‘shift for herself’. Religious truth can only be established by the individual for himself or herself; it cannot be taught, and should not be imposed by government. Indeed, Locke pointed out that even if religious truths could be known, they should not be imposed upon dissenters because religious belief is ultimately a matter of personal faith.
Locke’s argument amounts to a restatement of the case for privacy, and has been widely accepted in liberal democracies within which the distinc-tion between public and private life is regarded as vital. Toleration should be extended to all matters regarded as ‘private’ on the grounds that, like religion, they fall within a realm of personal faith rather than revealed truth. Many would argue, therefore, that moral questions should be left to the individual to decide simply because no government is in a position to define ‘truth’, and even if it were it would have no right to impose it upon its citizens. In ‘public’ affairs, however, where the interests of society are at stake, there is a clearer case for limiting toleration. Locke, for example, was not prepared to extend the principle of toleration to Roman Catholics, who, in his view, were a threat to national sovereignty since they gave allegiance to a foreign Pope.
Perhaps the most famous defence of toleration was made in the nine-teenth century in J.S. Mill’s On Liberty ([1859] 1972). For Mill, toleration was of fundamental importance to both the individual and society. Whereas Locke outlined a distinctive case for toleration in itself, Mill saw toleration as little more than one face of individual liberty. At the heart of Mill’s case for toleration lies a belief in individuals as autonomous agents, free to exercise sovereign control over their own lives and circumstances. Autonomy, in his view, is an essential condition for any form of personal or moral development; it therefore follows that intoler-ance, restricting the range of individual choice, can only debase and corrupt the individual. Mill was, for this reason, particularly fearful of the threat to autonomy posed by the spread of democracy and what he called ‘the despotism of custom’. The greatest threat to individual freedom lay not in restrictions imposed by formal laws but in the influence of public opinion in a majoritarian age. Mill feared that the spread of ‘conventional wisdom’ would promote dull conformity and encourage individuals to submit their rational faculties to the popular prejudices of the age. As a result, he extolled the virtues of individuality and even eccentricity.
In Mill’s view, toleration is not only vital for the individual but it is also an essential condition for social harmony and progress. Toleration provides the necessary underpinning for any balanced and healthy society. As with other liberals, Mill subscribed to an empiricist theory of knowl-edge, which suggests that ‘truth’ will only emerge out of constant argument, discussion and debate. If society is to progress, good ideas have to displace bad ones, truth has to conquer falsehood. This is the virtue of cultural and political diversity: it ensures that all theories will be ‘tested’ in free competition against rival ideas and doctrines. Moreover, this process has to be intense and continuous because no final or absolute truth can ever be established. Even democratic elections provide no reliable means of establishing truth because, as Mill argued, the majority may be wrong. The intellectual development and moral health of society therefore demand the scrupulous maintenance of toleration. Mill expressed this most starkly by insisting that if the whole of society apart from a single individual held the same opinion, they would have no more right to impose their views upon the individual than the individual would have to impose his or her views upon society.
Limits of Toleration
Although widely regarded in Western societies as an enlightened quality, toleration is rarely regarded as an absolute virtue. Toleration should be limited simply because it can become ‘excessive’. This is particularly clear in relation to actions that are abusive or damaging. No one would advocate, for instance, that toleration should be extended to actions which, in Mill’s words, do ‘harm to others’. However, what people believe, what they say or may write about, raises much more difficult questions. One line of argument, usually associated with the liberal tradition, suggests that what people think and the words they use are entirely their own business. Words, after all, do no harm. To interfere with freedom of conscience, or freedom of expression, is simply to violate personal autonomy. On the other hand, it is possible to argue that both the individual and society may be endangered by the failure to set limits to what people can say or believe. For example, toleration itself may need to be protected from intolerant ideas and opinions. In addition, it is possible that words themselves may be harmful, either in the sense that they can cause anxiety, alarm or offence, or in that they may foster aggressive or damaging forms of behaviour.
Political toleration is usually regarded as an essential condition for both liberty and democracy. Political pluralism, the unrestricted expression of all political philosophies, ideologies and values, ensures that individuals are able to develop their own views within an entirely free market of ideas, and that political parties compete for power on a level playing field. However, should toleration be extended to the intolerant? Should parties which reject political pluralism and which, if elected to power, would ban other parties and suppress open debate, be allowed to operate legally? The basis for banning such parties is surely that toleration is not granted automatically, it has to be earned. In that sense, all moral values are reciprocal: only the tolerant deserve to be tolerated, only political parties which accept the rules of the democratic game have a right to participate in it. The danger of failing to appreciate this point was dramatically under-lined by the example of Hitler and the German Nazis. The Weimar Republic, created in 1918, remodelled Germany on liberal-democratic lines; it introduced a highly proportional electoral system and permitted unrestricted political competition. Despite the failed Munich putsch of 1923, which demonstrated the anti-constitutional character of the Nazis, Hitler was soon able to portray himself once again as a respectable and democratic politician. This charade was, however, exposed within weeks of Hitler coming to power in 1933, as he set about banning other parties, manipulating elections and eventually constructing a one-party Nazi dictatorship. By contrast, the Federal Republic of Germany, born after the war, took steps to protect itself from excessive toleration, taking upon itself the power to ban anti-constitutional parties and by depriving parties with less than 5 per cent support of representation in the Bundestag.
On the other hand, to ban political parties or suppress the expression of political views, even in defence of toleration, may simply contribute to the disease itself. Intolerance in the name of toleration is certainly ambiguous and may be impossible. In the first place, political intolerance of any kind can lead to witch-hunts and stimulate a climate of suspicion and paranoia. In the USA in the 1950s, for instance, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee aimed to root out card-carrying communists, whose political allegiances were to Moscow rather than Washington, and whose Marxist-Leninist principles made them sympa-thetic towards Soviet-style single party rule. However, the definition of what was ‘un-American’ expanded to encompass democratic socialists, left liberals and progressives of all kinds, and McCarthyism came to resemble the kind of political intolerance it was designed to fight. In practice, to define terms such as ‘extremist’, ‘undemocratic’, ‘anti-constitutional’ and so forth, is notoriously difficult. Moreover, it is often argued that to ban parties for the expression of bigoted, insulting or offensive views does little to combat them, but, by driving them underground, may actually help them to grow stronger. Intolerance cannot be combated by intolerance; the best way of tackling it is to expose it to criticism and defeat it in argument. At the heart of such an argument lies faith in the power of human reason: if the competition is fair, good ideas will push out bad ones. The problem is, however, as demonstrated by the history of Weimar Germany, that at times of economic crisis and political instability ‘bad’ ideas can possess a remarkable potency.
The issue of censorship raises similar questions about the limits of toleration. The traditional liberal position is that what a person reads or watches, and how a person conducts his or her personal life and sexual relationships, is entirely a matter of individual choice. No ‘harm’ is done to anyone – so long as only ‘consenting adults’ are involved – or to society. Others argue, however, that tolerance amounts to nothing more than the right to allow that which is ‘wrong’. Mere disapproval of immorality is no way of fighting evil. Such a view has been, for example, advanced in the USA since the 1980s by groups such as Moral Majority and by a growing number of neo-conservative critics, who warned that a society that is not bound together by a common culture and shared beliefs faces the likely prospect of decay and disintegration. This position, however, is based upon the assumption that there exists an authoritative moral system – in this case, usually fundamentalist Christianity – which is capable of distinguishing between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. In the absence of an objective definition of ‘evil’, society is in no position to save the individual from moral corruption. In modern multicultural and multi-faith societies it has to be doubted that any set of values can be regarded as authoritative. To define certain values as ‘established’, ‘traditional’ or ‘majority’ values may simply be an attempt to impose a particular moral system upon the rest of society.
A specific ground for censorship is sometimes suggested in the notion of offence. For example, the portrayal of sex and violence in literature, television and the cinema is sometimes regarded as an ‘obscenity’ in the sense that it provokes disgust and outrages accepted standards of moral decency. The ‘Rushdie affair’, however, has highlighted the particular importance of religious offence, and raised questions which strain the conventional understanding of toleration. In 1989 the Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa or religious order sentencing to death the UK author Salman Rushdie for the publication of his book The Satanic Verses. The basis for the fatwa was that the book offends against the most cherished of Islamic principles, the sacred image of the Prophet Mohammed. From the traditional liberal viewpoint, this action amounts to a gross violation of both Rushdie’s rights as a human individual and the principle of tolerance. It is no more defensible to forbid the criticism of religious ideas than it is to enforce religious views upon others.
However, although liberals firmly believe that to prohibit a book, speech or idea on the grounds that it is ‘wrong’ is unacceptable, they may nevertheless not be insensitive to the offence which has been caused. There is little doubt in this case, for instance, that, regardless of its contents, the book is regarded by Muslims in many parts of the world as a threat to the very foundation of Islamic culture and self-respect. Some have suggested, as a result, that when offence goes to the core of a community’s identity it may provide grounds for limiting toleration. At the same time, of course, what Islamic fundamentalists have called for offends against the most fundamental principles of Western culture. What this conflict perhaps highlights, therefore, is the incompatibility of the liberal-democratic principle of tolerance and any form of religious fundamental-ism.
A final argument in favour of censorship is based upon the belief that what people read, hear or think is likely to shape their social behaviour. In the case of pornography, for example, an unlikely alliance has been forged between feminist groups concerned about violence against women, and neo-conservatives who support what has been called the ‘New Puritanism’. Both groups believe that the debased and demeaning portrayal of women in newspapers, on television and in the cinema has contributed to a rise in the number of rapes and other crimes against women. Such a link between the expression of views and social behaviour has long been accepted in the case of racism. The incitement of racial hatred has been made illegal in Britain and many other liberal democracies on the grounds that it encourages, or at least legitimizes, racist attacks and creates a climate of genuine apprehension within minority communities. However, unlike racist literature which may openly call for attacks upon minority groups, the link between the portrayal of women in the media, in advertising and throughout popular culture, and the abusive or criminal behaviour of men, may be more difficult to establish. The processes at work in the latter case are largely insidious and unconscious, not easily susceptible to empirical investigation.
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