Toleration In Liberalism
Liberalism is difficult to define in a simple sentence. Liberalism has several branches from its various founders that all fall under said term. To be liberal is to at minimum believe in personal freedom, limited government, equality of right, and consent of the governed. However, this does not apply to all members who define themselves as liberal, hence the reason for why it is difficult to define liberalism. To be able to have an entire community, country and nation believe in an ideology unanimously and abide by its principles it requires a great level of toleration. Toleration is important in liberalism because to be considered liberal is to value the freedoms of an individual as each person holds an equal moral worth and everyone should therefore be granted the same rights as others. It is vital that society must be comfortable with everyone’s choice of lifestyle, given that there is no harm to another individual by such actions or choices.
The main reason of tolerance is to respect, accept and appreciate the diversity of our world's cultures, our forms of expression and our ways of being human. With this reason being said, toleration is visible and stated in an obvious way across the views of liberalisms founders and the many of the leading important moments in history, which show that toleration is a central commitment to liberalism. Universal agreement is very unlikely, this is what carves the pathway for liberal social orders to create ideals, and values that let people be able to negotiate, convey and barter their differences in an unharmful way.
Even though liberalism is still an evolving concept, there are two main types of liberalism and toleration which formed from the opinions of religion. The two divisions primarily focused are classical and modern forms of liberalism. Thomas Hobbes is a famous liberal philosopher from the early 1600s who theorized the concepts of classical liberalism, while John Locke is a 17th century philosopher of modern liberalism. Both philosophers have a different concept of toleration and they explain why it became one of liberalisms main commitments. Thomas Hobbes stated when it comes to toleration in terms of religion, it is sometimes thought that toleration arises when people are convinced that there is no way of knowing what the truth is in matters of religion, and that toleration is the fruit of skepticism. (Ryan,1993, p. 292) Many other classic liberals agreed on Hobbes idea of toleration because it is meant for people to protect themselves from each other and that the main purpose of government should be to minimize conflicts between individuals which would otherwise arise in a state of nature.
Hobbes' position on this matter leaves room for a large measure of toleration because his argument for imposing equality is essentially a realistic and political one. There are certain opinions in religion which are dangerous to the peace and order of society because they may encourage individuals to rebel against their government, or because they may cause conflict among the people themselves. Therefore, the government should strongly understand and accept the expression of those opinions, given that it does not affect or cause harm to another. Also, what people think of in private shouldn’t be taken into consideration as long as they keep it to themselves and do not act anti-socially upon it. This means that liberals are willing to tolerate any beliefs from such individuals if there is no harm to the society from such beliefs.
John Locke on the other hand when it comes to toleration regarding religion believed that human nature is characterized by reason and acceptance and that God made every man equally. He thinks that human beings should therefore enjoy the choice of acceptance and that the government has a right to respect the freedoms of understanding and educating people on matters of religion. Locke thinks our understanding is a direct result of our personal experiences and according to him we should all have the freedom of our minds. Locke’s views were different in a sense they were unlike Hobbes, yet they were not objective because of his religious beliefs and practices which weighed heavily on his teachings causing it to be overly bias towards the church. However, because Locke believes that there are no distinctive beliefs, morals must be gained through experience which for most people happens through religious teachings.
Locke preached about the church vs state being that he defended the church and believed that it was impossible that there might be a valid religious reason for a group to do anything that might come into conflict with the ordinary criminal law. (300) In defense liberals themselves state how only the very wicked or very deluded minds could fail to be liberals. (292) This in a way is true because in order to not be liberal is to not appreciate another human and their beliefs. If people do not want to accept, let alone be neutral on one’s opinion, and would rather rebel against it just because they do not agree is in a sense being problematic to a society. It is also mentioned that for many liberalists, they are skeptical of the average humans’ ability to make useful developments. (293)
Tolerance is needed in all scopes of natural life because it plays a vigorous role to create peace from the lowest unit up to the uppermost unit of society. Though there are many benefactors that come from this idea, many believe liberalism and its toleration to free will is considered unattractive due to it being built on social falsehood and moral autisms. (292) Universal tolerance is impossible and to put stresses and boundaries to maintain social steadiness is necessary in order to have people not harm one another. This is where toleration comes into play, even if you do not agree on somebody’s way of life or choices, just accept it and move on, if they are not harming you or anyone else in their lifestyle choices or cultural practices.
Bibliography
- Ryan, Alan. 1993. “Liberalism. ” In A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, edited by Robert E. Goodin and Philip Pettit, 291–311. Malden, MA ; Oxford: Blackwell Pub.
