The (Soluble and Insoluble) Paradoxes Of Toleration

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present three paradoxes involved in the notion of toleration and to analyze its possible solutions, using the results of this discussion to describe a possible fourth paradox, related to the value attributed to the toleration by the agents involved, which is considered as constitutive and therefore insoluble. For this, a structural notion of toleration as a moral ideal will be presented, discussing its elements. Then, from the relation with the specific components of this notion, the three paradoxes mentioned will be analyzed, two very well-known and a third little discussed and still without a name, and their possible solutions, that will require, respectively, the presentation of arguments in favor of toleration, the discussion of its limits and a demanding interpretation of the component of moral disapproval of that structure. Finally, starting from the discussion of the previous paradoxes and its solutions, a possible fourth paradox will be proposed, not explicitly formulated as such in these discussions, but whose constitutive elements have already been indicated since the eighteenth century, as well as the reasons for its insolubility.