1. Introduction
Toleration remains an important topic in contemporary political philosophy (see, for example, Bejan Reference Bejan2017; Brown and Forst Reference Brown and Forst2014; Leiter Reference Leiter2014; Nussbaum Reference Nussbaum2012). However, the role that toleration plays in Kant’s practical philosophy is simultaneously largely ignored and strongly contested. That role has been interpreted as everything from underdeveloped and impoverished (Israel Reference Israel2010), of marginal importance (Heyd Reference Heyd2008; Abellan Reference Abellan, Laursen and Villaverde2012), to being of central importance to his entire Critical project (O’Neill Reference O’Neill1986). Some see toleration as primarily a political concept in Kant’s work (O’Neill Reference O’Neill1986), whereas others see it as a moral one (Heyd Reference Heyd2008) or a mix of the moral and political (Forst Reference Forst2013). One likely reason for this divergence is that Kant wrote relatively little directly about toleration.Footnote 1 We argue that these interpretative disagreements emerge, in part, from a failure to look at all the instances of Kant’s explicit use of the language of toleration. We attempt to rectify that failure here by identifying all 125 passages in Kant’s work where he uses various German terms which carry the meaning of toleration or significantly related concepts (for a full listing, see the Appendix), as well as by considering other relevant passages that seem to be about toleration but which do not directly invoke any of the relevant terms. On this basis, we argue that Kant offers a nuanced, relatively consistent, and largely unappreciated approach to toleration in the three normative realms of individual virtue, moral interpersonal relationships and politics (or right).
2. Kant and the Language of Toleration
There are several major lines of disagreement in the relevant secondary literature on Kant’s understanding of toleration. Before exploring these differences in detail, we need first to look at what Kant says about toleration. One promising way to do this is to follow the lead of Oliver Sensen’s (Reference Sensen2011: 177–80) analysis of Kant’s use of the term ‘dignity’ (Würde), in which he systematically explores all 111 occurrences of that term in Kant’s work. We will be employing this same method here, but we will also extend it by considering some relevant passages where the theme of toleration seems to be present but the direct language of toleration is absent.
However, an issue that applies specifically to a study on toleration, which is less of an issue for a concept such as Würde, is the presence of many relevant cognate terms. There are several German terms which carry the meaning of what we would normally regard as ‘toleration’ and are commonly translated into English as such. To resolve this difficulty, we first identified all the German terms that might reasonably be translated as ‘tolerate’ or ‘toleration’. We included relevant instances of Aushalten, Duldsamkeit, Dulden, Erdulden, Erduldet, Ertragen, Geduldet, Toleranz and Verträglichkeit in our analysis. We excluded Erlaubt, Lassen and Leiden as these terms are too common and less relevant to our focus. Tolerieren is often used in modern German to refer to toleration, but it does not appear in Kant’s works. In a small number of places Kant uses the terms Auszuhalten, Geduld (and Gedulden), Gelitten and Zulassen, which can carry the sense of toleration. However, these terms do not normally carry this meaning, and so we have only included significant and relevant instances. Using this method, we identified 125 relevant references (for a full listing, see the Appendix).Footnote 2 We will discuss the most relevant of these references by word-group (Toleranz, Dulden, Verträglichkeit, Ertragen, Duldsamkeit, Aushalten, Erduldet, Erdulden and Geduldet, in that order), and within each word-group, in chronological order where appropriate. We then expand our approach by considering other relevant passages, primarily from Kant’s texts on religion, which seem to be about toleration but where these specific words are absent.
Focusing for now on Kant’s texts which contain significant use of the above terms, the most notable are his 1784 essay What is Enlightenment? (WA), together with several moral and political works produced in the 1790s in the context of the political turmoil occurring in the wake of the French Revolution: Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason 1793 (RGV), On the Common Saying 1793 (TP), Toward Perpetual Peace 1795 (ZeF), and The Conflict of the Faculties 1798 (SF). Of Kant’s major presentations of his practical philosophy, we will just concentrate on The Metaphysics of Morals 1797 (MS) as this is the only such text which contains any significant direct use of toleration language. It is notable that, apart from Kant’s well-known use of toleration language in WA, all of the significant uses occur roughly in the middle of the 1790s.
As a method, our approach has strengths and weaknesses. Weaknesses include the inclusion of passages where the term is used only incidentally, and the combining of isolated passages from different works within Kant’s corpus. We deal with these weaknesses by including incidental passages for the sake of completeness but mentioning them only briefly or merely noting them in the Appendix, and we deal with the inclusion of isolated passages from different works by examining texts in chronological order and by noting shifts that occur over time. A further issue is the exclusion of passages that seem to be about toleration but where the language of toleration in any form is not actually used. We deal with this issue by extending our analysis to include such passages.Footnote 3 A key strength of our approach is that it avoids the problem of selective quotation and bias which plagues approaches that merely pick and choose relevant passages rather than deal with every single passage. This allows us to identify relatively unappreciated aspects of Kant’s understanding of toleration, such as toleration’s role in developing virtue.
Toleranz
The best-known reference that Kant makes to toleration (Toleranz) appears towards the end of WA. It is also this reference which forms the focus of O’Neill’s (Reference O’Neill1986) seminal account which inaugurated the contemporary discussion of Kant and toleration. Here Kant writes:
A prince who does not find it beneath himself to say that he considers it his duty not to prescribe anything to human beings in religious matters but to leave them complete freedom, who thus even declines the arrogant name of tolerance (Toleranz), is himself enlightened and deserves to be praised by a grateful world and by posterity as the one who first released the human race from minority, at least from the side of government, and left each free to make use of his own reason in all matters of conscience. (WA, 8: 40)
There are several features of this reference which are noteworthy.
First, regarding the scope of what is being tolerated. Kant’s concern in this passage is with state prescription in relation to religious matters (WA, 8: 41). However, Kant is also concerned here with the operation of public reason, and therefore it might be argued that his thoughts about toleration extend beyond matters of religion to include the use of public reason more generally. For Kant, the public use of reason involves the expression of views by citizens who are exercising practical reason without having their reasoning constrained by their official social role (8: 36–7). Kant contrasts this with the private use of reason, which involves citizens expressing ideas in their capacity as an officer of the state, a clergyman, a teacher or in other social roles (8: 37–8). For example, it is a private use of reason when a military officer speaks to his troops about war strategy, but it is a public use of reason when the same officer writes about warfare addressing the wider world of scholars. Tolerating the public uses of reason is, of course, consistent with not tolerating unorthodox private uses of reason.
Secondly, Kant’s criticism of toleration is that it is arrogant in not allowing ‘complete freedom’ for subjects in relation to religion. While the prince in question does not actively circumscribe the religious beliefs of his subjects, in merely tolerating some beliefs while enthusiastically supporting others, he both arrogantly implies the inferiority of the former and fails to give full freedom to citizens in matters of conscience. Further, in a context such as Prussia in the 1780s, even the mere opinions of a prince could hold considerable weight and were often expressed in state policies and postures which give less actual freedom to merely ‘tolerated’ groups such as the Mennonites (Klassen Reference Klassen2010: 180). Further, the negative attitude expressed toward the merely ‘tolerated’ group is itself arrogant insofar as the state is not, and should not set itself up to be, an authority that judges its citizens in such matters.Footnote 4 Toleration thus sits between, on the one hand, the disallowing of offending views and, on the other hand, state neutrality toward differing views.Footnote 5
Thirdly, we should note the limits to Kant’s criticism of toleration. While arrogant, tolerance is portrayed as superior to other freedom-damaging possibilities (such as censoring), and therefore constitutes a step in the direction from infantile tyranny over the conscience (i.e. minority) to fully free adulthood (i.e. majority). Kant’s comments immediately prior speak of his own time as being not an enlightened age, but an age of enlightenment, in which the road ahead to full freedom for the individual in religious matters is being travelled but there is a long way to go (WA, 8: 40). Given that toleration for Kant is superior to other options that fall short of the goal of enlightenment, such as a prescribed state religion or state interference in the internal affairs of minority faiths, Kant’s criticism of toleration as a state policy must be understood as a criticism relative to his ideal standard. In the absence of the realization of such an ideal, the implication is that toleration, while still arrogant, is preferable to other alternatives and is thus a positive step on the road toward an enlightened age. But toleration is only a step in the right direction and not the end goal. States need to move beyond toleration as a posture towards their own citizens by achieving the neutral and impartial enforcement of a sphere of right in which the state does not arrogantly judge its citizens in matters outside of its proper sphere.
Outside of WA, Toleranz also appears in a small number of places in Kant’s unpublished works on anthropological topics (Refl, 15: 580, 974). Along with his reflections on Herder’s anthropology in 1785 (RezHerder, 8: 57), these references describe how different human races might ‘tolerate’ different climatic conditions in a way that is difficult in the short term, but over a long period of time might lead towards greater but still imperfect acclimatization. This use of the term by Kant, although in a different context, suggests that he regards Toleranz as conceptually containing the idea of limited compatibility between persons and their surroundings alongside that of gradual improvement. In this way it is analogous to Kant’s discussion of toleration in WA.
At one point in Opus Postumum (OP), Kant uses Toleranz in an ethical sense, preceded by the related term Dulden to which we shall turn shortly:
The greatest danger to people as they interact amongst themselves is that they may wrong others. To suffer injustice is the opposite of this and does not devalue respect, and to tolerate (Dulden) it is often even meritorious if one expects that such tolerance (Toleranz) may not offend the mind. (OP, 22: 302)
Here Kant indicates that to ‘tolerate’ or ‘to put up with’ perceived injustices or wrongs is an antidote to the human tendency to wrong others and presumably helps prevent cycles of revenge. This is why personal toleration of being wronged by others is meritorious, so long as it does ‘not offend the mind’.Footnote 6 This important comment indicates that in the moral (as opposed to the political) sphere Kant does not view toleration as necessarily arrogant. Indeed, it can be meritorious insofar as it can help to promote moral progress and social amity. We can further clarify what Kant means here by setting this comment alongside his discussion of servility in MS (6: 435), where he indicates that we must do nothing that undermines the dignity of humanity within us. If we read the comment in OP as being consistent with MS on this point, Kant holds that personal toleration of injustices or wrongs is constructive and even meritorious in the current imperfect social order, provided that it is limited to not tolerating anything which strikes at human dignity itself.
Dulden and Verträglichkeit
Dulden and its relative Duldung appear in Kant more often than Toleranz. However, a considerable number of these references appear incidentally when Kant asks his readers to ‘tolerate’ him, in the sense of ‘bear with him’, or describes ‘putting up’ with different kinds of people (e.g. in TP, 8: 276; Br, 12: 142; Anth, 7: 171, 257). The term also appears in several of his earlier anthropological and geographical works, mostly with similar meanings described above regarding Toleranz, in terms of how different races will tolerate various physical conditions or how people tolerate trying circumstances (e.g. in PäD, 9: 453; Refl, 15: 313, 558, 652, 19: 556; HN, 15: 974).
Several of Kant’s other uses of Dulden are more notable, particularly in his writings in the mid-late 1790s when toleration is a focus for him. One such example appears in ZeF (8: 357–60; cf. VAZeF, 23: 160) where Kant applies cosmopolitan right to the case of travellers (in this case, Europeans) who arrive in foreign (particularly non-European) lands. The cosmopolitan right to hospitality that such travellers have is, however, a limited right to visit and to seek commerce or human interaction (Verkehr) without being treated with hostility (Kleingeld Reference Kleingeld1998: 75–7). It is distinct from the right to be a guest, in the sense of being accepted into the household or society which is being visited. Kant’s use of Dulden in this context is to state that ‘this right [to visit], to present oneself for society, belongs to all human beings by virtue of the right of possession in common of the earth’s surface on which, as a sphere, they cannot disperse infinitely but must finally put up (Dulden) with [or tolerate] being near one another’ (ZeF, 8: 358; cf. V-Anth/Fried, 25: 530, 610). Here the concept of mutual human toleration is based upon the original common possession of the earth’s surface held by all humanity before the creation of states, together with the fact that the earth is of limited spatial extent (Anderson-Gold Reference Anderson-Gold, Baiasu, Philström and Williams2011: 237). This necessitates a principle of toleration of one another’s physical presence and of the right to seek interaction. This is primarily a moral or interpersonal form of toleration. The state itself should merely enforce a right to visit, not adopt a posture of toleration. In contrast, it is the inhabitants themselves who will have to put up with or tolerate visitors. The toleration which human beings are required to extend to one another is primarily a constructive right for Kant in that it allows humans to seek interaction with those in distant places, but not to demand it. This leads Kant to understand the actions of European traders and colonists who travel to other countries and behave coercively towards the local inhabitants as inhospitable (ZeF, 8: 358–9).Footnote 7
In On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy (VT, 1796), Kant observes that one of the characteristics of the ‘new’ philosophy which he is criticizing is a boldness which attracts considerably more attention. It is this degree of attention which the audacious ‘philosopher of vision’ is able to attract which ‘the police in the kingdom of science cannot permit [or tolerate] (Dulden)’ (VT, 8: 403–4).Footnote 8 Kant is writing at a time of increased anxieties in the wake of the French Revolution, and also in a context where the claims of philosophers have been regarded as potentially excessive and inappropriately invasive of their domains by other university faculties. Kant is keen to discourage philosophers from unnecessarily attracting criticism through overblown claims which might not be tolerated, while noting the limits of philosophical reasoning.
Two years afterward in SF (1798), Kant asks regarding ‘mystical’ sects, that is religious groups whose teachings are fatal to the development of reason, whether it is better that ‘the government confer on a mystical sect the sanction of a church, or could it, consistently with its own aim, tolerate (Dulden) and protect (Schützen) such a sect, without giving it the honour of that prerogative?’ (SF, 7: 59). The distinction between sanctioning and tolerating is significant. Kant argues that the state should not give official sanction as a ‘public ecclesiastical faith’ to any faith which does not serve the goal of supporting subjects in their effort to become ‘tractable and morally good’, and that publicly supported or sanctioned religious teachers must be bound by the state to an orthodoxy which supports the ends of reason (7: 60). But Kant also notes that ‘it is not the government’s business to concern itself with the future happiness of its subjects’, and ‘mysticism has nothing public about it and so escapes entirely the government’s influence’ (7: 60). The state should protect such mystical sects, without sanctioning them, and recognize that it is incapable of making laws with respect to the relevant area (in this case, the future happiness of subjects). For the state to presume to judge its citizens in such matters is arrogant. A further implication for Kant is that the state should not tolerate or protect any religions which seek to operate within the sphere that concerns the state by making citizens behave intractably or badly.Footnote 9 The state’s business is the law-abiding behaviour of its citizens, and it is arrogant of the state to stray beyond this limit, even if only in its attitudes and not its actions.
At one point in his handwritten notes (undated) within the Further Reflections on Moral Philosophy, Kant uses Dulden to associate the personal characteristic of toleration in the same sentence with two less ambiguously positive characteristics. In a brief and undeveloped short comment, he writes that the ethical will is to be ‘tolerant (Dulden), mutually loving (Lieben), and respecting (Achten)’ (Refl, 19: 299). This reference is notable given that Kant also associates the same three ideas in a short phrase in 1797 in MS, in the same period as the other key appearances of Dulden discussed above, even though he uses Verträglichkeit instead of Dulden, a term which Kant uses only rarely, but which here is translated as ‘toleration’ by Gregor in the Cambridge edition.Footnote 10 The listing together of tolerance, mutual love and respect in MS occurs in Kant’s short appendix ‘On the Virtues of Social Intercourse’, where we are told that it is a duty of virtue to relate to others with ‘a disposition of reciprocity – agreeableness, tolerance (Verträglichkeit), mutual love (Liebe) and respect (Achtung)’ (MS, 6: 473). When we act in this way socially, we ‘bind others’ by inviting like responses, ‘and in so doing we promote a virtuous disposition’ (6: 474). Being tolerant, loving and respectful in interpersonal relationships thus helps to promote virtue socially. We can plausibly (but not definitively) unpack what Kant means by toleration here by looking to the immediate context of his remarks: shortly beforehand, he argues for toleration-like behaviour (without using explicit toleration-language) by saying that even when others are regarded by ourselves as ignorant, we still have ethical obligations towards them, and we are not to take offence at that which is merely unconventional but still good in some way (6: 465–9).Footnote 11 We should, Kant adds, ‘throw the veil of philanthropy’ over the perceived ‘faults’ of others and keep those negative ‘judgements to ourselves’ (6: 466). Therefore, in speaking of tolerance in his appendix, Kant appears to be calling for an openness to, or at least patience with, views or actions which are not held by ourselves and which we might find puzzling, socially inappropriate or unsettling, although still good in some way. Being open-minded toward others, through looking for the element of goodness in their views and actions by throwing a ‘veil of philanthropy’ over them, thus seems to be part of what it means, for Kant, to be tolerant in the realm of interpersonal relationships.
Ertragen and Duldsamkeit
The term Ertragen is sometimes used by Kant with meanings which carry the idea of toleration. Most of these occurrences are in his pre-Critical works of the 1760s and 1770s dealing with matters of anthropology where, as with similar cases discussed above, Kant describes the ‘toleration’ by different human races or groups of various physical conditions.Footnote 12 Also in this early period, he uses the term to refer to how individual humans will ‘tolerate’ various kinds of feelings and sense-impressions (VBO, 2: 29; HN, 20: 8, 9, 60, 74, 99, 167, 187); and in the first Critique he writes of certain conceptions the mind cannot ‘tolerate’ or hold intelligibly (KrV, 613/B641, 3: 409; cf. Prol, 4: 351).Footnote 13 In his Lectures on Pedagogy (PäD), most likely written in 1776–7,Footnote 14 tolerance functions in a positive instrumental sense: developing a tolerance – in the sense of endurance – for the challenges associated with learning, aids educational development (PäD, 9: 487; cf. Anth, 7: 258).
In terms of his practical philosophy, Kant uses Ertragen in three places in MS. In the first of these, he argues that heads of state cannot be rebelled against or attacked on the basis that they have abused their authority. Instead, ‘a people has a duty to put up with [or tolerate] (ertragen) even what is held to be an unbearable abuse of supreme authority’, because to resist the legislatively highest person in the state would be tantamount to resisting the law itself (MS, 6: 320). Toleration here is a matter of the citizens ‘putting up with’ what might seem to be intolerable behaviour by the head of state for the sake of preserving the constitutional structure itself.Footnote 15 This is the inverse of the case from WA. Rather than the state arrogantly judging the private lives of its citizens, we have the citizens tolerating poor public behaviour by the state’s office bearers.
In the two other places in MS where Kant uses Ertragen, the focus is again on the individual and not the state. In discussing one’s duty to oneself, Kant refers to ‘the duty of not needing and asking for others’ beneficence … but rather preferring to bear [or tolerate] (Ertragen) the hardships of life oneself than to burden others with them’ (6: 459). Ertragen is here used in the sense of tolerating something difficult. Kant’s third and final use of Ertragen in MS refers to the cultivation of virtue: ‘accustom yourself to put up with [or tolerate] (Ertragen) the misfortunes of life that may happen and to do without its superfluous pleasures’ (6: 484). Kant is approving of this kind of personal toleration of adversity, but within limits. The practice of virtue should, in addition to this ‘negative kind of well-being’, also incorporate an element that is purely moral and yet adds ‘an agreeable enjoyment to life’ (6: 485; cf. RVG, 6: 59). Here Kant sees the moral life as being much more than a contest between reason and natural desire as it is for the Stoics, while also emphasizing (in contrast to the Epicureans) tolerance of misfortune and a moral disinterest in pleasure for its own sake. For Kant, moral duty is something we should strive to do gladly and which, when achieved, can result in a kind of happiness (6: 485).Footnote 16 Notably, Kant presents here a concept of toleration in the personal sphere of virtue which is positive yet limited. Toleration of the misfortunes of life can promote the development of virtue, but there is much more to virtue than the toleration of misfortune.
The three occurrences of Duldsamkeit within Kant’s works function in a similar way to the instances of Ertragen in MS. In the one place in MS where Kant uses Duldsamkeit, he does so to emphasize that while persons must be forgiving, ‘this must not be confused with meek toleration (Duldsamkeit) of wrongs … for then a human being would be throwing away his rights and letting others trample on them’ (6: 461). While in personal affairs we should be tolerant, there is also a limit to the bad behaviour of others that we should not tolerate. A similar association between toleration and forgiveness occurs in RGV (6: 160), where Duldsamkeit is presented as the opposite of the feeling of revenge. In PäD (9: 499), Kant refers to the value of ‘contentedness with external circumstances, endurance [or tolerance] (Duldsamkeit) … and moderation in pleasures’, a comment which closely parallels that made regarding the Stoics and Epicureans in MS about the role that tolerating hardships can play in promoting virtue.
Aushalten, Erdulden, Erduldet and Geduldet
Aushalten is also a term which sometimes carries the sense of ‘tolerate’. It is used on a small number of occasions in RGV, including once (6: 69) to refer to a capacity to endure or tolerate (Aushalten) something difficult but finite (purgatory, in this case), and the example of a proudly religious person not being able to ‘withstand’ or tolerate (Aushalten) comparison with the honest moral individual (6: 202; cf. 6: 10). But Kant mostly uses the term with the more precise meaning of ‘to bear’, ‘to endure’ or ‘to persist’, with most instances appearing in relation to matters well-removed from the focus of this study. However, in all these cases (for details, see the Appendix), the term is used in the same sense as in the examples described above to refer to human endurance or tolerance of unpleasant, difficult or challenging contexts or stimuli. To tolerate (Aushalten) often means, like Toleranz, to put up with something which is unpleasant, annoying or inferior. This once again emphasizes the negative aspect of toleration. We do not need to tolerate good or pleasant things.
Most references to Erdulden and Erduldet point to this same aspect of toleration, namely the endurance of that which is unpleasant or difficult (e.g. KpV, 5: 19, 88; RGV, 6: 81).Footnote 17 One significant example appears in a draft of SF, where Kant observes that no one should voluntarily ‘endure [or tolerate] (Erdulden) more difficulties [from others] than is compatible with the principles of freedom’ (VASF, 23: 141). In GSE, Kant says of the person who grasps human dignity rightly that ‘he does not tolerate (Erduldet) abject submissiveness and breathes freedom in a noble breast’ (2: 221, 253). Toleration as a concept has utility here in helping to articulate that there are limits, in terms of compatibility with human freedom or dignity, to what should be tolerated.Footnote 18
Geduldet can also carry the sense of toleration, although normally with the more precise sense of ‘putting up with’ something unpleasant (e.g. Refl, 19: 481). In GSE Kant observes about a certain kind of person that ‘as long as he is only vain, i.e., seeks honour and strives to be pleasing to the eye, then he can still be tolerated (Geduldet), but when he is conceited even in the complete absence of real merits and talents, then he is … a fool’ (2: 224; cf. SF, 7: 114; V-Anth/Fried, 25: 628). In this example, the person who is tolerated is viewed negatively but as not without some merit. When we tolerate others, we look for the good in them, even if we see some bad too.
Relevant Indirect Passages
There are several other important passages in Kant’s works where he seems to indirectly discuss toleration, but without explicitly invoking the language of toleration in any of the forms explored above. While a systematic examination of all such passages is not possible here,Footnote 19 they are clearly relevant to our study, and so we shall focus on the most important example, namely Kant’s discussion of the relationship between the state and organized religions in RGV. As we shall see, this reinforces the view of toleration that has emerged above.
In RGV, intolerance in the form of censorship is a key concern given Kant’s own interactions with the censors at this time. Kant strongly argues for what we might call ‘toleration’ of opposing views between the faculties, provided that they remain within the domain of their disciplines’ knowledge-capacities (6: 6–8). Similarly, he argues that the state should not compel religious communities to hold particular beliefs and it should allow them to be internally self-governing, provided that this does not ‘contradict’ the ‘duty of its members as citizens of the state’ (6: 96).Footnote 20 This point largely mirrors the earlier discussion of Dulden in SF, 7: 60. Further, Kant argues that the state cannot give partial privileges to a merely ‘tolerated’ minority while giving full privileges to others, as had occurred with England’s Toleration Act of 1689. This is because offering or withdrawing civil advantages based on religious affiliation exposes consciences to the temptation to act out of motives of gain, and this ‘can hardly produce good citizens’ (6: 134).
But the state interfering with religious freedom is not the only problem to be avoided. A related problem is that spiritual authorities can hinder individual freedom by using dogmas to instil ‘pious terror’ in the minds of their followers, which is also inimical to the progress of reason (RGV, 6: 134n.). However, Kant’s solution to this is not to urge the state to act intolerantly towards religions which might teach such doctrines, but to leave the external expression of faith unrestricted. This is because the key to social progress, and to individuals no longer being in thrall to such ecclesiastical-religious notions, is for the citizenry to become better able to think for themselves. As this occurs, and citizens become more enlightened, coercion carried on via religious fear will become less effective. Further, if the state refrains from restricting public expressions of faith, it engenders respect for duty by creating more space for autonomous reason, since ‘external coercion hinders all spontaneous advances in ethical communion of the believers’ (6: 133). Religious ‘toleration’ thus creates a space for discussion, experimentation and self-growth, while protecting the conditions for civil peace and reasoned discourse, and this indirectly helps to lead toward enlightenment.
We see this point echoed in the central idea of Kant’s philosophy of religion that there is ‘one (true) religion’ but several ‘kinds of faith’ (RGV, 6: 107–8). For Kant, religion is simply ‘the observance in moral disposition of all [moral] duties as his [God’s] commands’ (6: 105). Since there is only one moral law for all rational beings, it follows for Kant that there can only be one religion. This implies that so-called religious conflicts are really ‘squabbles about ecclesiastical faiths’, not religion. ‘Statutory religion’ or faiths are the ‘means to its [i.e. religion’s] promotion and propagation’ (6: 105). ‘Thus in the molding of human beings into an ethical community, ecclesiastical faith naturally precedes pure religious faith’, although ‘morally speaking it ought to happen the other way around’ (6: 106). That is, people are not led to religion via morality (as Kant’s own arguments in, for example, the second Critique attempt to do), but to morality (and so religion) via ecclesiastical faiths. Beyond a morality (and religion) based in reason itself, the contingent elements of different ecclesiastical faiths are ‘based on faith in a particular revelation which, since it is historical, can never be demanded of everyone’ (6: 108; our italics). It follows that, for Kant, all legitimate faiths are historically contingent means toward a single true religion. This explains why he is critical of any ‘church [that] passes itself off as the only universal one’ and which calls some people ‘unbelievers’, ‘erring believers’ or ‘heretics’ who disagree with it (6: 108).
Kant’s understanding of religion has important implications, in terms of toleration, for both politics and morality. Politically, it speaks against a state giving any faith a special place as this is unfair to some citizens since it tries to give the force of law, which can be demanded of all since it something that everyone could consent to, to something (i.e. historical revelation) that cannot (unlike the law itself) be demanded of everyone. However, this seems to require, not a form of political tolerance, but a critique of political tolerance, since it is a challenge to the arrogance of a political tolerance which takes one faith as superior to others but magnanimously tolerates the lesser faith. Instead it points toward the need for an impartial administration of right that is neutral between different faiths, provided that those faiths seek to morally improve rather than hinder their followers. Morally, it is another challenge to arrogance and a reminder to be open-minded to differences of faith, since different faiths are different means of promoting and promulgating the one true religion of morality itself. This suggests that we should be personally open-minded and tolerant of different ways of achieving the same moral goal.
3. Kant’s Understanding of Toleration
While Kant’s usage of the language of toleration is relatively limited in proportion to the overall size of his corpus, there are still numerous rich uses of the language of toleration and, notably, these mostly occur in Kant’s writings of the mid to late 1790s, with the main exception being his 1784 discussion in WA. Across a variety of texts and time periods, the various terms we have examined are used fairly consistently. Toleration, for Kant, refers to the enduring of or patience with objects or contexts which we normally do not find agreeable, but which we determine to not resist or to oppose but instead ‘put up with’. The point of doing so is usually, for Kant, to promote some further ideal and bring about progress.
Importantly, we have seen that Kant develops conceptions of toleration across three distinct spheres: the political sphere, the moral or interpersonal sphere and the ethical or personal sphere of virtue. His assessment of toleration varies across these three spheres. Politically, it is better for the state to be tolerant rather than intolerant. But even so, toleration implies a negative attitude on behalf of the state toward its citizens’ lawful behaviour that is arrogant. The state has no business judging its citizens negatively in this way, provided they act lawfully, and if they act unlawfully, it has no business tolerating rather than punishing such behaviour. The job of the state is to protect rights and enforce justice, not to be tolerant or intolerant. Interpersonally or morally, we must sometimes tolerate the presence of others, including their bad behaviour, but we should not do so to the extent that we become servile or excuse affronts to dignity. We should also be tolerant by being open-minded and looking for the good in others. Being tolerant in this way helps promote virtue socially and avoid cycles of revenge. Citizens also need to tolerate the bad behaviour of their state’s office holders to the extent necessary to maintain a constitutional order. In the personal sphere of virtue, we need to learn to tolerate hardships to build our character and our ability to follow through with moral principles in the face of difficulties.
Where toleration appears in a more constructive light, it often does so in relation to some other substantive positive ideal. Most commonly this is with reference to the idea of hope, with toleration occupying the role of a midwife in relation to some better Kantian future. Toleration in this way functions as an intermediary concept. For example, in WA toleration functions as a step, although still problematic because it implies state arrogance, on the road to an enlightened society. In some of his anthropological writings, toleration is a step towards acclimatization to new circumstances. Personal toleration of injustices and wrongs is a meritorious response, so long as our dignity is not undermined or affronted, to being treated poorly in a world that currently falls well short of Kant’s ideals.
Toleration in a political sense is presented more negatively as a ‘putting up with’ or cautiously permitting of activities which the state does not enthusiastically support or sanction. Politically, toleration possesses value as an appropriate stance compared to intolerance, while having serious limitations due to its arrogance and highlighting the need for something better in the future. However, in none of these cases where toleration is spoken of politically does the practice of toleration serve more constructively to promote the development of virtue or constitute part of an ideal political situation.
By contrast, where Kant speaks of toleration in a moral sense, in terms of interpersonal relationships and personal development, toleration possesses the more constructive and positive characteristic of promoting virtue and the goal of enlightenment. In the ethical sphere of personal relations, exhibiting toleration can help to promote virtue in two ways. First, to be tolerant as a person is to cultivate an openness to difference, as well as a willingness to look for what is good in others. While not directly calling for esteem of all difference (MS, 6: 468), we might understand toleration here as a disposition to esteem others by first trying to see the good in their views and actions, even if we do not agree with them or find them unsettling. This is not about pragmatically avoiding conflict with others. Rather it is an attitude that has a moral basis in helping to ensure self-respect in others since wanton and ungenerous fault-finding can lead to ridicule and can undermine both the respect of others and one’s own self-respect (6: 467). This also implies a degree of epistemological humbleness, which connects to Kant’s maxim on the importance of thinking ‘in the position of everyone else’ (KU, 5: 294). While this is not equivalent to virtue, in the sense of a commitment to morality that can overpower counter-moral incentives (Formosa Reference Formosa2017), it promotes virtue by helping us to improve our own views by considering what is good about the views of others and being humble enough to recognize our own limitations. Second, by cultivating an ability to tolerate misfortune, we can directly strengthen our will by helping to develop a commitment to morality that is strong enough to withstand such misfortunes. What we cultivate ourselves to tolerate is felt as less of a burden when faced, and our repeated abilities to overcome such burdens can strengthen our confidence in our ability to do as morality requires. In these ways being a tolerant person, both in the sense of being tolerant of interpersonal differences and being tolerant of personal hardships, can help to promote and support virtue.
4. The Relevant Secondary Literature
There are several broad positions represented in the relevant secondary literature on toleration in Kant’s work. First, some, most notably Israel (Reference Israel2010: 128–38), have argued that Kant’s conception of toleration is an underdeveloped and impoverished relative of those proposed by representatives of the radical Enlightenment such as Diderot and d’Holbach. In response to Israel, we have seen that, while Kant says little directly about toleration relative to the size of his corpus, there is both consistency and substance to his theorizing on toleration. Of those who agree that Kant has something substantial to say regarding toleration, a further dispute concerns whether his understanding of toleration is of central importance to his practical project or relatively marginal. O’Neill (1986; Reference O’Neill1989: 29–0) is the primary representative of the former view along with Forst (Reference Forst2013, Reference Forst and Edward2017), with Heyd (Reference Heyd2008) and Abellan (Reference Abellan, Laursen and Villaverde2012) being examples of the latter. The other major point of differentiation in the secondary literature is whether Kant’s conception of toleration is primarily moral or political. O’Neill argues that toleration for Kant is primarily political, Forst agrees but argues that this has a moral foundation, whereas Heyd suggests that it is largely a moral concept. Abellan proposes an alternative account that is largely moral but with significant political implications. Several other philosophers discuss or mention Kant’s views on toleration, such as Quinn,Footnote 21 Erlewine,Footnote 22 Tonder,Footnote 23 Benjamin,Footnote 24 SchossbergerFootnote 25 and de Vries.Footnote 26 However, these authors either repeat substantive claims similar to the authors we focus on (and hence it would be repetitive to examine them here) or discuss toleration in Kant only tangentially. We shall first address the issue of the centrality of toleration to Kant’s thought, starting with O’Neill’s work, before turning to the question of whether Kant has a moral or political conception of toleration.
O’Neill (Reference O’Neill1989: 28) argues that ‘in Kant’s writings toleration is not a derivative value’ since for Kant ‘toleration is connected with the very grounding of reason, and so in particular with the grounding of practical reason’. She also claims (p. 28) that the ‘themes of toleration and the grounding of reason are brought together in many Kantian texts’. According to O’Neill, in WA Kant argues that the exercise of public reason, where individuals address the world at large in their own voice rather than address a defined context speaking in a state-regulated authority role, ‘should always be free’Footnote 27 and therefore must be tolerated by the state to produce an enlightened society (pp. 48–50). However, toleration is not merely indifference or passive non-interference. Rather, it is actively hearing and recognizing communications from others with whom we do not agree (O’Neill Reference O’Neill1986: 526–7). But for toleration to be effective in supporting the advance of practical reason in society, it must support norms of communication which enable the development of public reason. Further, since freedom of communication is central to reasoning, toleration of this freedom must occupy a fundamental place in Kant’s practical system (O’Neill Reference O’Neill1989: 38). Toleration of public reason by the state is thus necessary to support the gradual emergence of an enlightened society guided by reason, and hence intolerance of these kinds of reason-bearing communications undermines all uses of reason. Given that reason is the basis of Kant’s entire practical project, and for O’Neill all communicative uses of reason practically depend upon toleration, it follows that on O’Neill’s (Reference O’Neill1989: 42–3) reading, toleration is the practical precondition for the grounding of Kant’s entire Critical project. Further, because toleration is an activity of the state which aims at supporting public reason, toleration is distinctly political rather than moral.
Philosophically, we might deem this a rather limited claim for toleration given that, for Kant, ‘public’ reason is restricted to what would be regarded today as largely ‘private’ personal expressions outside of the public sphere (Beiner Reference Beiner and Beiner1992: 123). Toleration so understood is limited to a minority of communications since it does not cover exercises of private reason or everyday social communications that are not addressed to the world at large. Further, the state is still able to restrict much expression that many contemporary liberal accounts would permit by drawing on Kant’s use of ‘security, decency and convenience’ as grounds for justified state intolerance of speech and action (MS, 6: 325). Although freedom of expression is defended by Kant in areas such as religion, he also offers an account of the state’s powers of inspection for reasons of public security, decency and convenience which, while limited in his own time, have the potential to be more intrusive and troubling in the contemporary context, given improvements in surveillance technologies.Footnote 28 Given these limitations, Kant’s conception of toleration seems ill suited to the role that O’Neill tries to give it of helping to ground reason itself.
Interpretatively, O’Neill’s claim for making toleration a central theme in Kant’s entire Critical project is based on her reading that concentrates on a brief passage in a single shorter work, Kant’s WA, before working backwards from there to argue that the three major Critiques support the conceptual apparatus of this shorter work. However, this approach has some obvious methodological limitations. The analysis offered here broadens Kant’s concept of toleration in directions not suggested by O’Neill, who through largely limiting her enquiry to the works of Kant’s Critical decade, fails to incorporate important material from the 1790s. Further, toleration does not seem to bear the weight that O’Neill gives it as the practical precondition for all public communication and reasoning. Even in the texts where Kant does write about toleration in a political sense beyond WA, he does so by referring to other functions beyond O’Neill’s focus on toleration as the precondition for public reason. For example, the role for toleration in the RGV is to grant citizens space to develop their moral insight in the sphere of religion outside of politics. Even in WA itself, although toleration has something of a constructive role, it remains a second-best and provisional alternative for Kant. This is why he is somewhat dismissive of ‘mere’ toleration and its arrogance in WA – hardly what we might expect if toleration is supposed to be, as O’Neill argues, the precondition for grounding Kant’s entire Critical system. Further, for O’Neill, Kant’s understanding of toleration has an exclusively political focus or application. However, in several works in the 1790s, Kant explicitly discusses toleration in moral or ethical terms, such as its role in promoting virtue. This significant moral role for toleration in Kant’s work is absent from O’Neill’s reading. Indeed, wherever Kant refers explicitly to toleration in a more unambiguously positive and constructive light, the applications tend to be moral rather than political.
Forst (Reference Forst2013: 327) argues, directly citing O’Neill, that Kant’s account of public reason and the role of public justification ‘implies an argument for toleration as a means of fostering an open, deliberative system of communication’. Forst (Reference Forst and Edward2017) develops an account of four types of toleration: the permission conception, where a majority or authority tolerates an inferior on pragmatic or principled grounds; the coexistence conception, where two similarly powerful groups tolerate one another for the sake of social peace; the respect conception, in which citizens respect one another as moral and political equals who must be guided by norms that all parties can accept as co-legislated; and the esteem conception where citizens mutually recognize and esteem one another’s different beliefs. Forst (Reference Forst2013: 328) reads Kant’s comments about the ‘arrogance’ of toleration in WA as an attack on the permission (or ‘authoritarian’) conception of toleration. Further, he reads Kant as playing a major role in the history of toleration as it is in his work that the respect conception is ‘fully developed for the first time’ (p. 327). However, Forst gives his political reading of toleration a moral foundation, as he understands Kant as translating the ‘moral principle of justification [and respect for dignity] into political terms’ (p. 435). According to him, toleration is both ‘a civil, interpersonal virtue’ and ‘a political virtue of the democratic lawgivers who respect one another as free and equal’, with Kant ‘transposing the respect conception from the horizontal, civil level to vertical, political toleration’ (p. 328).
While Forst includes in his discussion a wider range of Kant’s texts than O’Neill, he largely focuses on trying to spell out the conception of toleration implied by Kant’s underlying practical philosophy. While Forst might be right that we can develop an implied respect conception of toleration out of Kant’s moral and political theory and his respective accounts of dignity and right (Reference Forst2013), Kant himself does not explicitly conceptualize toleration in this way. Morally, Kant sees respect as something distinct from toleration (as we shall see below), and in a political context he retains a permissive (rather than respect) conception of toleration while buttressing this with an account of toleration’s intermediary political role in furthering historical progress. While Kant sees the political role of toleration as playing a provisional role in moving away from intolerance, he does not see tolerance, unlike right, as the political endgame itself in the way that Forst suggests. While Kant thinks citizens should respect one another as moral and political equals who must be guided by norms that all parties can accept as co-legislated, it is important that he uses the language of right and not toleration in this context. For Kant, toleration is politically a precursor to, and not equivalent to, the impartial administration of right where the state does not arrogantly overstep its boundaries by adopting an attitude of toleration toward lawful action that it disapproves of. Further, for Kant toleration in the political context is not simply a transposition from his understanding of it in the interpersonal sphere. The approaches to toleration that he articulates in the political and moral spheres are distinct, and nowhere does he explicitly indicate that one is derived from the other.
Heyd’s reading of Kant contrasts directly with O’Neill’s and Forst’s. Heyd argues that, because the political realm of juridical right is not the sphere within which public reason operates, toleration is not a political virtue for Kant. Toleration is only relevant in a constructive sense in the community of scholars (where public reason is protected), together with aspects of private interpersonal relations outside official roles, which makes it a moral concept rather than a political one, ‘which relates to the virtues of critical dialogue rather than to the way state authorities control our lives’ (Heyd Reference Heyd2008: 181). States might contain, or even encourage, individuals who are tolerant of one another, but states are not tolerant themselves as states. Political toleration in WA is limited to a negative action on the part of the state, the evacuation of the sphere of public reason (‘political abstention from censorship’), so that individuals can reason their way towards moral improvement (Heyd Reference Heyd2008: 181).
Heyd (Reference Heyd2008: 177) observes that Rawls, O’Neill and others have sought to preserve toleration as a political concept rather than a moral one, even while toleration as a concept has become increasingly difficult to define as other liberal values have become more firmly established. Heyd’s primary criticism of this approach is that it fails to recognize that we do not wish to ground contemporary liberal democracy on toleration, but instead on a group of other concepts centred around rights, justice, equality and the rule of law. Toleration might be something practised by a medieval sovereign, but not by a modern state founded upon universalizable principles and rights. If a citizen goes beyond these rights into the impermissible then the state must act against them, and if they do not then the state has no place to act: no room is left for toleration between these two postures.
Heyd’s denial that toleration has a substantial and constructive political dimension for Kant is partly confirmed by the evidence we examine above. We have argued, in agreement with Heyd, that for Kant the state ultimately has no business adopting a posture of toleration (or intolerance) towards its citizens. However, Kant does see toleration by the state as having a positive provisional political role in helping to bring about a more enlightened age. State toleration in both RGV and WA is seen by Kant as contributing positively towards the goal of enlightenment, which necessarily includes a political dimension. Further, although Heyd correctly recognizes that Kant has a constructive moral conception of toleration, he does not interact sufficiently with Kant’s own account at this point. Heyd recognizes the role that toleration has in WA in relation to the communications of public reason within the community of scholars. However, he does not see its constructive moral role as extending beyond this as he fails to consider the positive moral role that Kant, in his post-Critical works, sees for toleration in interpersonal relations and personal development in promoting virtue.
Abellan regards Kant’s concept of toleration as being fundamentally moral, but unlike Heyd sees this moral account as having significant political implications. He sees toleration for Kant as ‘mutual respect between human beings’ or ‘respect for the dignity of the person’ (Reference Abellan, Laursen and Villaverde2012: 209, 215). Toleration is understood as a moral duty derived directly from the principle that persons cannot be used as a mere means but must also be respected as ends in themselves (Abellan, Reference Abellan, Laursen and Villaverde2012: 217). Toleration-as-respect, for Abellan, is defined as individuals avoiding coercion of others and respecting their capacity to set ends for themselves, which is similar to Forst’s respect conception of toleration. This has the political implication that the state ought to ‘tolerate’ citizens, in the sense of employing coercion only through laws which could be consented to by all, with the goal of promoting freedom in the external relations among people (p. 215).
Abellan’s equation of the moral sense of toleration with respect is improbable, given that in none of Kant’s texts is respect directly equated with toleration. Further, the concept of toleration that we do find in Kant’s work is clearly not equivalent to respect.Footnote 29 For example, while Kant consistently presents respect in unambiguously positive terms, he regards toleration with a degree of ambivalence given its limitations that are not shared by respect. Respect also plays a foundational role in Kant’s moral philosophy in terms of the respect that we owe all rational beings, whereas toleration has an important but far more restricted role in interpersonal relations (in terms of tolerating difference and seeing the good in others) and personal development (in terms of tolerating hardships).Footnote 30 For Kant, toleration is thus something distinct from and more limited than respect in the moral realm, just as toleration is something distinct from and more limited than right in the political realm.
5. Conclusion
Based on our survey, we have shown that Kant develops an understanding of toleration across political, interpersonal and personal spheres. We have shown, in contrast to others in the secondary literature, that Kant develops an understanding of toleration that is neither foundational for his entire practical project nor peripheral to it. Rather, for Kant toleration has an important, but not foundational, role in facilitating moral and political progress. We have also shown that his understanding of toleration has both moral and political components, with important differences between them. Kant’s political use of toleration tends to include a negative aspect, whereas his moral use of toleration is more unambiguously positive given its role in promoting virtue. This strongly suggests that attempts to equate toleration with respect in the moral realm and right in the political realm are mistaken, and that attempts to derive an implied respect conception of toleration from Kant’s work are in tension with the explicit account of permissive toleration that Kant outlines. Politically, Kant sees toleration in a more negative light, given its arrogance, and as having only a temporary role in promoting progress rather than being, unlike right, the political endgame itself. Morally, Kant sees toleration, in the form of being tolerant and open-minded in interpersonal relations and being personally tolerant of hardships, as distinct from respect, but as nonetheless having a positive (though limited) role in promoting virtue.Footnote 31
Appendix Occurrences of Toleration Terminology in Kant, AA 1–23
