Tradition and Prudence in Locke's Exceptions to Toleration

Why did Locke exclude Catholics and atheists from toleration? Not, I contend, because he was trapped by his context, but because his prudential approach and practica ljudgments led him to traditiona ltexts. I make this argumentfirst by outlining the connections among prudential exceptionality, practical judgments, and traditional texts. I then describe important continuities betweenc onventional English understandings of the relationship between state and religion and Locke's writings on toleration, discuss Locke's conception of rights, and illustrate his use of prudential exceptions and distinctions. I conclude by arguing that Locke's problems are relevant to assessingc ontemporary liberal discussions of tolerationa nd the separation of state and religion that lean heavily on practical justification

Religion and Discrimination: A Review Essay of <i>Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom</i>

Noel D. Johnson and Mark Koyama’s book examines the links between religion, state action and the development of liberalism in medieval Europe. It discusses a model of ‘conditional toleration’; how the interaction between religion and state influences per

A European issue of toleration: why purposer-built mosques are so contested.

The first section of this paper tries to demonstrate that the mosque conflict is a veritable issue of toleration within contemporary pluralism. This argument requires a preliminary reassessment of the theory of toleration concerning: (a) the reassessment of the private/public divide as a useful boundary for toleration; (b) the intersection of the horizontal and the vertical notions of toleration, namely the social attitude and the political dimension; (c) the politicization of cultural issues by the democratic process, which tends to transform the cultural dialectic between majority and minority into a political one. In the case of mosques, the author argues that the problematic difference engendering the conflict is not the Muslim religion per se, nor its practices of worship which are allegedly incompatible, offensive and unacceptable by democratic society. It is rather that the Muslim religion provides a unifying label to group together many immigrant communities whose growing number and presence are perceived as threatening the orderly stability of the social standards of the cultural majority. This argument is pursued through the analysis of some comparable European cases concerning mosque building. Showing that resistance to mosques, as well as to other Muslim practices and customs, is not produced by a clash of civilization will help to fight the thesis of \u201cIslamic exceptionalism\u201d, meaning the specific difficulty tied to the reception of Islam and its manifestations in European countries

The Significance of Religious Reinterpretation to Locke's Theory of Religious Toleration

Political theorists in recent decades have largely overlooked John Locke's efforts to reinterpret theology and religion and the significance of these efforts to his theory of religious toleration. In this paper I argue that an important insight ties Locke’s writings on theology and religion with his writings on religious toleration: that religious toleration requires religious reformation. I consider four ways in which Locke reinterpreted Christian theology in his efforts to demonstrate that the Christian religion was essentially tolerant. I also argue that Locke adhered to a particular method while engaging in religious reinterpretation. Using this method, Locke was able to articulate religious arguments for toleration that could resonate with the more religiously-devout. Today, Locke's project of reinterpretation can still inform contemporary theorizing about religious toleration as well as considerations about the role of religious arguments in justifying values such as religious toleration.Master of Art

Politics of religious diversity: toleration, religious freedom and visibility of religion in public space

In France, Germany and the Netherlands, a mix of secularisation, privatisation of religion, and immigration concerns have increased social and political anxiety about the visibility of religion and religious diversity in public space. Visibility in public space is a measure of sociability: expressions of identity in public space attest to a public recognition as well as integration of this identity into cultural transcendences. This visibility is historically intertwined with genealogies of early modern toleration (ca 1500-1789). This thesis compares trajectories in the development of toleration and religious freedom in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, arguing that common frames of reference to toleration – truth, outward unity, public order, economic benefit and trust – have transformed into substrata of constitutionalism. Is it possible to fully disentangle toleration from the structures of constitutional law? Toleration emerged in conjugation with the political imaginary of the corpus christianum, which relegated minorities primarily to private spaces, based on the assumption that one could separate spaces and personae. This thesis contends that the political imaginary of the nation replaced the imaginary of the corpus christianum, and that constitutionalisation was part of a new political order which constructed a different yet similar oneness of territory, people, and teleology. This nexus creates new categories of othering inside and outside the nation based on religion, race, and origin, or combinations of those. These new categories of othering obscure that belonging is about more than integration and outward conformity alone, and that immigrants still face structural racism, even when they have fully “integrated”. Moreover, the identification of common space with a shared political identity renders minorities vulnerable to political interpretations of public order in the context of the law. Parliamentary documentation and court cases on the full face veil, the burkini, and the hijab, demonstrate this vulnerability, in particular where religious otherness intersects with race and gender.Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Programme Cambridge Trust Sint Geertruidslee

Theological themes in Ricardo’s papers and correspondence

I review evidence from published and unpublished sources on Ricardo’s theological ideas. The main focuses of interest are the existence of a natural morality independent of religious confessions, morality as the essence of religion, useless of theological speculation, justification of toleration for everybody, including atheists, and the miscarriage of any attempt at a philosophical theodicy. The paper explores also the connection between Ricardo’s interest for theodicy and his views on the scope and method of political economy and suggests that his opinion that political economy should be a secular and value-free science close to mathematics depends precisely on theological reasons

Toleration and Liberal Commitments

This essay defends the ideal of toleration as against familiar criticisms coming from opposing directions. The illiberal objection argues that toleration is too permissive. Given the choice, why should we knowingly put up with error? The ultraliberal objection, reflected among others places in current free speech and religion clause jurisprudence, complains that mere toleration is condescending and illiberal because it declines to treat ideas and persons with equal concern and respect. This essay argues that both sorts of objections are misconceived and that if the valued liberal commitments of the American constitutional tradition are to be maintained, then we will necessarily have to embrace an ideal of toleration. The essay further argues that a renewed commitment to toleration is especially imperative at the present time as we try to cope, internally, with an exhausted ultraliberal discourse reflected in increasingly ineffectual Supreme Court opinions and, externally, with a so-called clash of civilizations or cultures that calls upon us to defend our central values rather than complacently pretend to rest in an overlapping consensus that needs no more foundational justification

Defaming Muhammad: Dignity, Harm, and Incitement to Religious Hatred

The Danish cartoons controversy has generated a torrent of commentary seeking to define and defend competing conceptions of the normative implications of the affair. This Article addresses the question of how liberal democratic states ought to respond to visible manifestations of hatred, especially speech that constitutes incitement to religious hatred. Taking the publication of the Danish cartoons as its point of departure, the Article interrogates the complex historical and normative relationship between free speech and freedom of religion in the liberal democratic order and discusses the two critical questions of whether the cartoons give rise to a genuine conflict of rights and how we should understand the notion of harm. An argument is advanced which intervenes in the extant literature by suggesting two dialectical moves, each premised on the distinction between internal and external reasons in philosophical argument, which have the capacity to unsettle the static secular-religious binary and purportedly incommensurable divide between liberal and Islamic values. The Article concludes by asking what a more robust, reflexive account of toleration might look like premised on notions of mutual justification and peaceful coexistence between rival ways of life and on recognition of the need to pay close attention to how legal restrictions seem from the internal point of view of a religious tradition

#LSEreligion lecture: “Saying that we have to live together is not enough” – Tariq Ramadan

Earlier this month, Professor Tariq Ramadan gave a lecture at LSE entitled Equal Rights and Equal Dignity of Human Beings as part of LSE’s Religion and the Public sphere lecture series. Here, ISoc President Mahmoudat Sanni-Oba reviews the lecture. A secular public sphere, Ramadan argues, must foster diversity and should be informed by – amongst other things – religion. Toleration isn’t enough; to really live together we must be ‘active’ together