Principle for a Free Socieity TOLERATION

[William M. Finley]

Principles for a Free Society

By Nigle Ashford

Toleration

“All men are liable to error.”

John Locke

What is toleration?

Toleration is the belief that one should not interfere with behaviour or

actions of which one disapproves. It has two essential characteristics:

disapproval of particular behaviour and a refusal to impose one’s views

on others. Someone cannot be described as tolerant of something of

which he approves. It must be distinguished from moral indifference,

when one has no interest in the moral consequences of the actions of

others, or moral relativism, a belief that one morality is as good as any

other. Parents who ignore the misbehaviour of their children would not

be displaying tolerance. Neither is someone refusing to condemn the

mistreatment of women, such as the forced binding of feet to make

them smaller, on the grounds that to do so would be ‘western cultural

imperialism.’ Toleration requires some moral principles, in order both to

disapprove of actions and to justify forbearance from interfering.

Because toleration still involves disapproval, minority groups, such as

gays, often feel that toleration is not enough, but seek acceptance that

there is nothing wrong with their actions. Some forms of interference

may be legitimate, such as moral persuasion and the use of reason and

argument, but not coercion or force. For example, one may try to

encourage a friend to stop smoking, but one would not call for a ban on

smoking or steal his cigarettes. Toleration may take a passive form, a

reluctant necessity in order to enable people to live in harmony with

each other, while a more positive toleration may revel in the benefits of

diversity. It is one of the foundations of a civilised society; that one can

live with others of very different values and beliefs.

Threats to toleration come in two forms. From totalitarians of the

extreme left and right, who are fundamentalists in their beliefs. They

entertain no doubts about the truth of their convictions and therefore

feel no compunction in using power to suppress immorality. The second

threat comes from political correctness, which believes that many views,

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whether true or not, cause offence and pain to others, such as racial, religious

and sexual minorities, and therefore should be banned.

Philosophers on toleration

The concept of toleration is relatively new as a guiding principle for society.

Most societies in the ancient world and the middle ages believed that a

society in order to function and maintain order required a high degree of

homogeneity. Heretics and minorities had either to be converted or

expelled. The history of Europe was one of religious wars where it was

thought necessary that all should worship God in the same way. Even

when the authority of the Catholic church was challenged by Protestantism,

it was often done by religious dissenters who wished to replace the

church’s authority with a new one arising from their own beliefs.

Freedom to write

One of the earliest philosophical calls for tolerance was by the English

poet John Milton, who protested against censorship in his pamphlet

Areopagatica in 1644. He was opposed to a parliamentary bill to require

every printing press to be licensed by the government. Censors could

refuse to licence a press which published unorthodox or subversive material.

They had the power to ban “false, forged, scandalous, seditious,

libelous and unlicensed papers, pamphlets and books to the great

defamation of religion and government.” Milton was one of the first

thinkers to provide a principled defence of the freedom to write and

publish.

Milton argued against print censorship on a series of grounds. Firstly, in

order to be virtuous, one must know vice. Secondly, one cannot trust

censors to make such decisions unless they are incapable of error, and no

person is. Thirdly, truth is stagnant if belief is justified solely by claims

to authority. Fourthly, one should refute and not silence wrong opinion.

Fifthly, the government may censor the truth by mistake.

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Religious toleration

Freedom from persecution in the area of religion was the theme of John

Locke in his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). His argument was

essentially that if the role of the state was to protect life, liberty and

property, then it had no right to meddle in the area of men’s souls. “The

toleration of those that differ from others in matter religion” is both consistent

with, and required by, Christian teaching based on love and charity.

Religious beliefs cannot be secured by coercive means. Coercion operates

on a person’s will through penalties, but belief and understanding are not

subject to a person’s will and therefore one cannot acquire it by pretending

to believe. “What is gained in enjoining by law what a man cannot do,

however much he may wish to do it? To believe this or that to be true is

not within the scope of our will.” He made it clear that his call for toleration

was not based on skepticism or doubts about the existence of God or

the true method of worship. He held no subjective view of morality.

He had three main arguments. Firstly, intolerance is unchristian. No one

can be a true Christian who does not practice charity. To persecute others

because of their heretical beliefs is necessarily uncharitable, so such

persecution is unchristian. Secondly, he accused them of inconsistency.

The persecutors proclaim their goal is to save souls, but there are many

worse sins-Locke identified “whoredom, fraud and malice”–which are

not prosecuted with the same zeal. In a contemporary example, gays

note that their opponents frequently portray them as a threat to the

family, but the threat comes from young single parents and divorce. Yet

much less effort is directed towards these issues, which may lead one to

doubt that ‘pro-family’ campaigners are indeed motivated by concern

about the family. Thirdly, he saw it as based on irrationality. Beliefs cannot

be changed at will as they are based on one’s conception of what is

true of reality, which cannot be changed by force, as the Catholic

Inquisition sought to do.

Experiments in living

John Stuart Mill in On Liberty sought to obtain toleration for a greater

range of speech and lifestyles than religion, as part of his wider defence

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of freedom. He defended what he called “experiments in living” which

would allow competing ideas of the good life to be lived and compared.

In particular he provided a famous defence of free speech. Like Locke, as

it was beyond the ability of force to change people’s genuine convictions,

he doubted the rationality of those who would even seek to try.

The case for toleration

First, toleration is one important expression of a commitment to individual

freedom, where one follows one’s own vision of the good life,

which may be very different from that of most other people. Individuals

should be autonomous, exercising control over their own lives and circumstances.

Second, truth can only be discovered through the free competition

of ideas. The individual can determine truth only by listening

and considering a range of different arguments and opinions. Personal

truth cannot be imposed. This is still based on the idea that there is such

a thing as truth, but knowledge of it can only be imperfectly grasped,

and continually needs to be improved. Third, there is a vital distinction

between public and private life. Individuals should be allowed to believe

in the most absurd ideas- that they were kidnapped by aliens- provided

it does not interfere with others. Fourth, personal and moral development

requires individuals to make choices, both in order to have a better

understanding of themselves and to recognise the consequences of their

actions. Mill in particular feared the dangers of conformity in which

conventional opinion would dissuade people from experimenting with

new ideas. Fifth, economic and social progress is dependent on individuals

presenting unconventional ideas and new ways of thinking, most of

which will turn out to be foolish or mistaken, but some of which will

provide the dynamism for society. Alexander Graham Bell would have

been dismissed as totally eccentric or even mad when he first suggested

that one could talk with others through what became the telephone.

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech demands the right to print, publish, and broadcast

anything, provided it did not directly harm anyone, however offensive it

might be. Racist, sexist, revolutionary, pornographic, homophobic lan-

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guage and ideas should be allowed and, if necessary, criticised. Muslims

were deeply offended by The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie but were

wrong to seek to ban the book and execute the author. John Stuart Mill

wrote the most famous defence of free speech in On Liberty. “If all

mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more

justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would

be justified in silencing mankind…. If the opinion is right, they are

deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they

lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier

impression of truth produced by its collision with error.”

The right to freedom of speech is based on four arguments. Firstly, the

fallibility argument accepts that we might be wrong. As humans we are

all fallible in our reason and instinct. If we suppress a view it might

emerge later that the view we suppressed was true. We could only be

sure that it is not true only if we assume we can never make a mistake.

Even the fact that a view is held by the overwhelming majority of people,

or the most educated, is not sufficient to justify suppression. Views

that were held to be firmly true by almost everyone have later been

found to be incorrect. Galileo was persecuted by the church for his

claim that the earth revolved around the sun, and not the sun around

the earth as was the common belief at the time. Only later was it

demonstrated that Galileo was correct, and the Copernican theory

accepted. Secondly, even ideas that are largely false may embody partial

truths. Since opinions are rarely, if ever, completely true, the only way

we can discover what is missing is to allow largely false opinions to be

presented, from which a fuller truth may emerge.

Thirdly, even if current opinion is the truth, if it is not challenged and

criticised, the understanding of the truth will wither and die. The

reasons for its truth will be forgotten, and its acceptance based on

prejudice rather than thought. Unless ideas have to be vigorously

defended they will fall into disuse and misunderstanding. “However

unwilling a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility

that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration

that, however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly

discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma and not a living truth,”

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wrote Mill. “Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon

as there is no enemy in the field.” Fourthly, truth will not lead to action

if it not challenged. People may accept the established opinion but it

will not be a deeply held conviction and therefore will have little influence

on their actions.

Limits of toleration

However toleration should not apply to every action. When someone

else is directly harmed by another’s action that should be condemned

and perhaps punished. A demagogue calling for foreign immigrants to be

killed and their homes burned should be prosecuted for encouraging

violence. Coercive acts such as rape should be punished. Sexual acts

between adults and children, even if voluntary, should be forbidden

because young children are incapable of understanding the consequences

of their actions. There are also limits to how much forbearance is justified.

There is a considerable difference between the use of government force

and power and the personal expression of disgust and offence. It may be

appropriate to criticise someone who has failed to be faithful to their

spouse but it would be wrong to fine or imprison the faithless spouse.

One may wish to condemn boxing as a violent and inhumane sport

but as long as those who participate do that voluntarily and in knowledge

of the potential dangers, boxing should not be banned. A Roman

legal principle is particularly apposite here: “to one who consents, no

injury is done.” The same principle applies to sado-masochism.

The fundamentalist threat

One source of intolerance is fundamentalism, the assumption that one

cannot be wrong. This is at the core of the belief system of totalitarians

of the left and right, communists or fascists. This need to be intolerant

of intolerance is used to justify a ban on extremist parties in Germany.

There is a ban in both Germany and France on anyone claiming that

the Jewish Holocaust - in which 6 million Jews as well as homosexuals,

gypsies and Jehovah’s witnesses, were killed - never happened. The historical

evidence is overwhelming that it did and those who make such

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claims appear to be driven by anti-Semitism. However the principle of

free speech would defend the right of anti-Semites to express such opinions

and then demonstrate that these claims are false.

Political correctness

Political Correctness (PC) is the use of language about socially sensitive

matters, such as race and gender, in a way designed not to offend and

would seek to ban the expression of ideas that would give offence. As a

matter of politeness, one should always try to avoid causing unnecessary

offence. But PC language manages to create offence to others by restricting

their freedom of speech, so it is self-defeating. It seeks to censor

thought and expression either through the law or through a high degree

of social pressures, delegitimating as unspeakable certain ideas.

However, offending others is sometimes necessary and desirable.

Jonathan Rauch shows how political correctness is usually driven by

humanitarian considerations, but the consequence is to protect only

certain sorts of speech and actions. It can be as authoritarian in it’s own

ways as totalitarianism. In the search for increased respect for minorities

it creates a new group of the oppressed, the silenced. The search for

truth is largely conducted through criticism, which the philosopher of

scientific knowledge, Sir Karl Popper, called falsificationism. As Rauch

claimed, we have a right to offend and a responsibility to check and be

checked.

Toleration as civilisation

In order to live with others in a diverse and pluralistic society, respect

for the rights and liberties for all to lead their own lives is a necessity.

One of the central features of civilised behaviour is that one should not

use violence to solve conflicts. However that does not absolve one of the

responsibility of criticising the immoral behaviour of those with whom

one disapproves. It only limits the methods that one can use. Humility

and an acceptance of human fallibility must be combined with a search

for the truth and disdain for those who refuse to allow their ideas and

behaviour to be open to criticism.

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Reading

H.L. Hart, Law, Liberty and Morality, Oxford, Oxford University Press,

1963.

Alan Haworth, Free Speech, London, Routledge, 1998.

John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, Hague, Martinus Nijhoff,

1963 (1689).

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, London, Penguin, 1971 (1859).

John Milton, Areopagatica, London, Dent, 1993 (1644).

Jonathan Rauch, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought,

Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Questions for thought

1. Are there any forms of sexual behaviour that should be prohibited?

2. Is it ever justifiable to ban something from being published or spoken,

including racist, sexist and homophobic remarks?

3. Should boxing be abolished?