Abstract
The introductory chapter presents the theoretical and conceptual framework of Tolerance: Experiments with Freedom in the Netherlands. The book concentrates on experiments with freedom and toleration in the Netherlands, which in the 1960s took the lead in a worldwide emancipation process. It was the first country to legalize euthanasia, soft drugs and gay marriage, albeit not always in a fully liberal way. In its analysis of political and social practice, the book views Dutch society as a social laboratory in which the political philosophy of liberalism is put to the test. This approach is based on the assumption that mankind can learn from both historical and current experience.
The Introduction provides an analysis of the liberal concepts of tolerance, freedom, harm and offence, and expounds the principles of political liberalism and public reason. Next it specifies how this theoretical framework is applied to political practice in the subsequent chapters, which discuss the history of modern freedom and toleration; sexual morality; incest; drugs policy; euthanasia; the position of marginal groups like human ‘freaks’; public reason and slavery; group rights of cultural minorities; freedom of discriminatory speech; state neutrality and head scarves; and the endangered future of tolerance.
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Notes
- 1.
This claim requires two qualifications. First, it presupposes the—contested—thesis that a liberal constitution is better than the alternatives, at least in modern times. The following chapters provide arguments to this effect. Second, progress in political institutions does not imply an overall moral progress of mankind.
- 2.
In order to distinguish tolerance from weakness, an additional defining element requires that the tolerant person is in a position to interfere.
- 3.
The Edict of Nantes (1598-1685), introduced to protect the Huguenots and revoked by Louis XIV , was a manifestation of a tolerant undercurrent in France. See Greengrass (1995). On the other hand, both the Calvinist Huguenots and the Catholics were predominantly intolerant.
- 4.
As Mill noted over 150 years later in On Liberty: ‘Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realized, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale’ (Mill, 1977, p. 133).
- 5.
Which extends Rawls’ formula of freedom (Rawls 1971, § 32). Also see MacCallum (1967).
- 6.
‘A powerful case can be made to show that other acknowledged values have self-government as their precondition, in particular that dignity, self-esteem, and responsibility are impossible without it’ (Feinberg 1973, p. 16).
- 7.
See Chap. 2 on the history of Dutch tolerance and liberty.
- 8.
Most liberals accept a ‘soft’ or ‘weak’ version of paternalism: the authorities may protect someone against dangers that he incurs involuntarily, especially in cases where he is not aware of them, as this is no real encroachment on his freedom of choice. Mill gives the example of stopping someone from crossing a bridge that is likely to collapse when you do not have time to warn him. Also see Chap. 5 on drug policy, and Chap. 6 on euthanasia.
- 9.
For Mill’s mix of liberalism and utilitarianism, see Chap. 3 on Sex, Morality and Law.
- 10.
For Rawls’ view of neutrality, see Rawls (1996), pp. 190-195.
- 11.
I take just to refer to political justice as expounded above. I follow Larmore’s definition of ‘right’ and ‘good’ as the two basic terms of moral evaluation: morally right refers to what is morally obligatory; morally good is what is worth having or doing and enhances the life of those who possess it (Larmore, Right and Good, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online). Larmore (1990) adds that in the ancients’ view the good has priority over the right. The ancients saw the cosmos as a harmonious whole, so that the individual good—self-fulfilment of the individual—coincides with the universal Good. The focus is on a virtuous life; what is right follows from this. The moderns give priority to the right over the good. They acknowledge that the world is plural rather than harmonious; as a consequence, what is good for me may conflict with what is good for you. Therefore the core of ethics must consist of moral imperatives that all rational or reasonable agents endorse from an impartial point of view (the categorical imperative of Kant’s moral law, the universalizability principle, etc.). Note that Rawls’ version of the priority of the right over the good, expounded above, appears to equate the right with the just (political justice). Also see Rawls (1988).
- 12.
Sex and Eros can be seen as an area where Rawls’ goodness as rationality and the fact of reasonable pluralism manifest themselves in an intensified form. For Rawls, to be rational means to be able to form one’s own conception of a morally and non-morally good life. This will lead to a plurality of plans of life, since, among other things, ‘citizens’ total experiences are disparate enough for their judgments to diverge (…) on many if not most cases of any significant complexity’ (Rawls 1996, p. 57). I argue that, as a consequence of the highly personal character of erotic love, it is an individual matter to decide what is good sex. The only constraints are those posed by the priority of the right: the principles of justice that reasonable people will accord—in this case the consent criterion.
- 13.
I borrow the term ‘thin theory of the good’ from Rawls, but use it for my own purposes. My claim is that, in the area of sexuality and erotic love, moral rightness and goodness do not involve more stringent demands than liberal justice, notably the consent criterion that is implied in the harm principle. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls contrasts the thin theory of the good with the full theory of the good. The thin theory is related to the primary goods of his liberal justice as fairness. The full theory gives ‘a more comprehensive account of the good’ (Rawls 1973, p. 397), which encompasses the whole of morality. Alongside the principles of justice, it includes general moral values such as love of mankind, beneficence and benevolence: ‘The love of mankind is more comprehensive than the sense of justice and prompts to acts of supererogation, whereas the latter does not’ (id., p. 192). Another major difference is that love of mankind and beneficence are not suitable for legal enforcement. The full theory of the good also covers non-moral goods that one may rationally pursue, such as friendship, knowledge and beauty. According to Rawls, justice and goodness (in the full sense) are congruent (id., p. 395). He wants to enhance the respectability of his doctrine of justice as fairness with the argument that ‘the contractarian idea can be extended to the choice of more or less an entire ethical system’ (id., p. 17). For instance, one’s sense of justice is supported by one’s moral virtue of benevolence. In Political Liberalism, the full theory has disappeared; Rawls does no longer claim that justice and ethical goodness are congruent. He now maintains that his freestanding theory of justice is respectable because it is supported by an overlapping consensus from the perspectives of diverse comprehensive religious, philosophical and moral doctrines.
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Maris, C. (2018). Introduction. In: Tolerance : Experiments with Freedom in the Netherlands. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 124. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89346-4_1
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