Forst: Toleration (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
January 21, 2008 3:10 pm TolerationRainer Forst, Toleration (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), 2007
The term “toleration” — from the Latin tolerare: to put up with, countenance or suffer — generally refers to the conditional acceptance of or non-interference with beliefs, actions or practices that one considers to be wrong but still “tolerable,” such that they should not be prohibited or constrained. There are many contexts in which we speak of a person or an institution as being tolerant: parents tolerate certain behavior of their children, a friend tolerates the weaknesses of another, a monarch tolerates dissent, a church tolerates homosexuality, a state tolerates a minority religion, a society tolerates deviant behavior. Thus for any analysis of the motives and reasons for toleration, the relevant contexts need to be taken into account.
* 1. The Concept of Toleration and its Paradoxes
* 2. Four Conceptions of Toleration
* 3. The History of Toleration
* 4. Justifying Toleration
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