Toleration for Today

 

An excerpt from the conclusion of my chapter contribution to Palgrave's Handbook of Toleration:

Virtue epistemology shifts the traditional focus of ethics away from the question
“how should I act?” towards the question “what should I believe?”. Virtue epistemology makes our cognitive lives (e.g., beliefs, motivations, attitudes, thought processes, etc.) a subject of moral inquiry and scrutiny. As such virtue epistemology provides the foundations for an original and compelling account of toleration as a virtue, one which makes the psychology of toleration a central focus of normative analysis. The so-called paradox of toleration arises when an agent or polity holds the following two, apparently contradictory, beliefs: (1) the belief that some belief or practice is objectionable and (2) the belief that, despite its being objectionable, the belief or practice in question should not be suppressed.
 
The virtue epistemological account of toleration advanced in this chapter attempts
to resolve this alleged tension by utilizing the “epistemic virtues” that help explain
how the introspective and flexible mind can consistently hold these two, apparently contradictory, beliefs. Such a mind possesses a cluster of intellectual virtues that Siegel describes as “mindsight” – the ability to “be aware of our mental processes without being swept away by them, . . . to get ourselves off the autopilot of ingrained behaviors and habituated responses, and moves us beyond the reactive emotional loops we all have a tendency to get trapped in” (Siegal 2010).

Mindsight requires having the ability to recognize the salient facts, intellectual
humility, insight into problems, fairness in evaluating the arguments of others, etc.
Unlike an autonomy-based account of toleration which makes respect for autonomy the central justification for exercising toleration, the virtue epistemological account advanced here emphasizes a number of distinct epistemic virtues. And the central cases of toleration examined in this chapter – the teen-parent relationship, tolerant employers and neighbors, and the censorship of hate speech – were utilized to reveal the importance, and provide some specific details, of how “mindsight” can help illuminate toleration as a virtue. Virtue epistemology can offer us an original and helpful normative lens for exploring the appeal and limits of toleration.

Cheers, 

Colin