Susan Mendus

Is toleration a requirement of morality or a dictate of prudence? What limits are there to toleration? What is required of us if we are to promote a truly tolerant society? These themes--the grounds, limits, and requirements of toleration--are central to this book, which presents the W.B. Morrell Memorial Lectures on Toleration, given in 1986 at the University of York. Covering a wide range of practical and theoretical issues, the contributors--including F.A. Hayek, Maurice Cranston, and Karl Popper--consider the philosophical difficulties inherent in the concept as well as the practical problems of implementing a policy of toleration. Although the contributors differ in their conclusions about the grounds of toleration, they all share a belief in the importance of the concept both historically and in modern society.

ABSTRACT Recent writings in feminist ethics have urged that the activity of caring is more central to women's lives than are considerations of justice and equality. This paper argues that an ethics of care, so understood, is difficult to extend beyond the local and familiar, and is therefore of limited use in addressing the political problems of the modern world. However, the ethics of care does contain an important insight: if references to care are understood not as claims about women's nature, but as reflections on the extent to which moral obligations are both unchosen and conflicting, then an ethics of care can supplement an ethics of justice, and can also provide a more realistic account of both men's and women's moral life.

I begin with two quotations: one from Anthony Crosland's Socialism Now, the other from Thucydides' account of the Peloponnesian War. Crosland says:experience shows that only a small minority of the population wish to participate [in politics]. I repeat what I have often said—the majority prefer to lead a full family life and cultivate their gardens. And a good thing too … we do not necessarily want a busy, bustling society in which everyone is politically active and fussing around in an interfering and responsible manner, and herding us all into participating groups. The threat to privacy and freedom would be intolerable.

I begin with the story told by Herman Melville in his short novel, Billy Budd.The year is 1797. Britain is engaged in a long and bitter war against France, and the British war effort has been threatened by two naval mutinies: the Nore Mutiny and the mutiny at Spithead. The scene is His Majesty’s Ship, the Indomitable, and the central character is Billy Budd, sailor. Billy Budd is a young man of exceptional beauty, both physical and moral, whose only flaw is a stammer. He is loved by all his fellow sailors except the master-at-arms, John Claggart. The incarnation of evil, Claggart recognises in Billy the incarnation of goodness, and is consumed by a jealousy which leads him to accuse Billy (falsely) of inciting the crew to mutiny. Alone with Claggart and the ship’s Captain, Edward Vere, Billy hears the lying charge against him. He is enraged, but his stammer prevents him from responding in words. He strikes Claggart, and the blow is fatal. Billy Budd, sailor, has killed the master-at-arms of one of His Majesty’s ships on active service, and the penalty for this is death.

Recent writings in philosophy of education have expressed pessimism about the possibility of educating students to think for themselves. Similarly, recent writings in political philosophy have expressed pessimism about the possibility of attaining democracy. In this paper, I suggest that such pessimism is premature and may be alleviated, if not removed, by interpreting both educational enlightenment and the democratic ideal as processes, rather than end states. They are, moreover, processes which exist in symbiotic relationship with one another. Thus educational practices may improve the prospects of attaining democracy, and political practices may strengthen education.

In his book Terror in the Mind of God Mark Juergensmeyer writes: ‘Perhaps the first question that came to mind when televisions around the world displayed the extraordinary aerial assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th 2001, was why anyone would do such a thing. When it became clear that the perpetrators’ motivations were couched in religious terms, the shock turned to anger. How could religion be related to such violent acts?’. That question – ‘how can religion be related to violent acts?’ – is the question Susan Mendus addresses in this article. She discusses the concept of toleration; the specific problems associated, historically, with religious toleration and the differences between modern and historical understandings of religious belief. Her overall aim is to see whether the history of religious tolerance and intolerance can offer some lessons to us, now, in our attempts to secure political peace in the face of religious conflict and religious violence.

The debate between impartialists and their critics has dominated both moral and political philosophy for over a decade. Characteristically, impartialists argue that any sensible form of impartialism can accommodate the partial concerns we have for others. By contrast, partialists deny that this is so. They see the division as one which runs exceedingly deep and argue that, at the limit, impartialist thinking requires that we marginalise those concerns and commitments that make our lives meaningful. This book attempts to show both that the dispute between impartialists and their critics runs very deep, and that it can nonetheless be resolved. The resolution begins by asking how impartialist political philosophy can defend the priority of justice when it conflicts with people's commitments to their conceptions of the good. It is argued that priority can only defended if political impartialism has a moral foundation, and that moral foundation must not be a foundation in the ideal of equality (as is often thought), but a foundation in the partial concerns we have for others. In short, impartialist moral philosophy must take our partial concerns as central if it is to gain allegiance. However, if it does take our partial concerns as central, then it can generate a defence of political impartialism which shows why justice must take priority, but which also acknowledges that pluralism about the good is permanent.