180057 VO-L Toleration (2011S)

Today, toleration is one of the most widely used banners in a pluralistic world where diversity of all kinds has become the norm. "Be more tolerant!" or, perhaps more poignantly, "Don't be so intolerant!" are calls we have grown used to hear in a variety of contexts. The virtue of tolerance is widely considered a crucial element of a democratic civic culture. However, tolerance is far from being an uncontroversial virtue. Is merely tolerating something or someone really the right kind of response we want citizens to develop? Perhaps we hope for something more solid than toleration when we ponder how an internally diverse polity should organize the relations between its citizens. Those on the right of the political spectrum often think toleration is an attitude characteristic of relativistic, rootless individuals. Those on the left regularly point to the problematic superiority assumed by those who tolerate. Toleration is, thus, depicted as an attitude that is necessarily based on power inequalities. This observation has lead some to conclude that toleration, an idea predicated on a pre-Enlightenment notion of dealing with difference, is actually at loggerheads with the essentially modern notion of respect. Respect, some have added, expresses the mutual recognition of equality and is, therefore, radically dissimilar from the power-ridden structure of toleration.
In the face of this complexity, the proposed lecture shall aim to achieve two goals: On the one hand, we will discuss some of the most influential texts in the (mainly European) history of philosophy that have tolerance as their main topic. On the other hand, we will explore contemporary conceptualizations of tolerance so as to determine their potential for grappling with the pressing problems of internally diverse societies. These two goals will help the students get acquainted with the multi-layered evolution of the notion of toleration against the backdrop of specific political developments before and in the aftermath of the Reformation period. Furthermore, we will encourage the students to reflect critically on public practices of toleration in their everyday lives. In more detail, we will structure the course in three large section. Section I introduces four authors that have shaped our understanding of the virtue of tolerance: Augustine, Luther, Calvin, John Locke, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, and Marx. The purpose of this part of the lecture is to lay the historical groundwork for the upcoming reflections. Section II focuses on contemporary appropriations of the concept. Here, we shall present, amongst others, the recent work done by Michael Walzer, Rainer Forst, Wendy Brown and Catriona MacKinnon. Finally, section III takes on the issue of public practices of toleration. Here, we will concentrate on religious and cultural differences as contested occasions for the implementation of such practices. The guiding question in this regard is whether religious and cultural differences are best engaged with by fostering the virtue of tolerance or whether other responsibilities should be encouraged.