Toleration Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Modern definition=== Historian Alexandra Walsham notes that the modern understanding of the word "toleration" may be very different from its historic meaning.<ref name="Walsham06-233">{{Cite book |last=Walsham |first=Alexandra |title=Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England, 1500β1700 |year=2006 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=978-0-7190-5239-2 |location=Manchester |page=233 |oclc=62533086}}</ref> Toleration in modern parlance has been analyzed as a component of a liberal or [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] view of human rights. Hans Oberdiek writes, "As long as no one is harmed or no one's fundamental rights are violated, the state should keep hands off, tolerating what those controlling the state find disgusting, deplorable, or debased. For a long time, this has been the most prevalent defense of toleration by liberals... It is found, for example, in the writings of American philosophers [[John Rawls]], [[Robert Nozick]], [[Ronald Dworkin]], [[Brian Barry]], and a Canadian, [[Will Kymlicka]], among others."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Oberdiek |first=Hans |title=Tolerance: Between Forbearance and Acceptance |year=2001 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |isbn=978-0-8476-8785-5 |location=Lanham, Md. |page=vi |oclc=45604024}}</ref> [[Isaiah Berlin]] attributes to [[Herbert Butterfield]] the notion that "toleration{{nbsp}}... implies a certain disrespect. I tolerate your absurd beliefs and your foolish acts, though I know them to be absurd and foolish. Mill would, I think, have agreed."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Berlin |first=Isaiah |title=Four Essays on Liberty |date=1969 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-500272-0 |location=London |oclc=15227}}</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2023}} [[John Gray (philosopher)|John Gray]] states that "When we tolerate a practice, a belief or a character trait, we let something be that we judge to be undesirable, false, or at least inferior; our toleration expresses the conviction that, despite its badness, the object of toleration should be left alone."<ref>{{Cite book |last=John |first=Gray |title=Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age |publisher=Routledge |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-138-17022-3 |oclc=941437450}}</ref> However, according to Gray, "new liberalism β the liberalism of Rawls, Dworkin, Ackerman and suchlike" β seems to imply that "it is wrong for government to discriminate in favour of, or against, any form of life animated by a definite conception of the good".<ref>Gray (1995), p. 20.</ref> [[John Rawls]]' "theory of 'political liberalism' conceives of toleration as a pragmatic response to the fact of diversity". Diverse groups learn to tolerate one another by developing "what Rawls calls 'overlapping consensus': individuals and groups with diverse metaphysical views or 'comprehensive schemes' will find reasons to agree about certain principles of justice that will include principles of toleration".<ref name="auto">{{Cite web |first=Andrew|last=Fiala|title=Toleration| website = Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/tolerati/ |access-date=2 January 2023 |language=en-US}}</ref> [[Herbert Marcuse]], in the 1965 book ''[[A Critique of Pure Tolerance]]'', argued that "pure tolerance" that permits all can favor [[totalitarianism]] and [[tyranny of the majority]], and insisted on "repressive tolerance" against them.{{cn|date=September 2023}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page