Toleration, Skepticism, and Blasphemy: John Locke, Jonas Proast, and Charlie Hebdo

John William Tate

American Journal of Political Science, 2016, vol. 60, issue 3, 664-675

Abstract: As the recent Charlie Hebdo, Copenhagen café, and Garland, Texas, shootings show, religion has recently reemerged as a source of violence within liberal democracies, particularly in those instances where cases of alleged blasphemy are involved. Although toleration arose, within the liberal tradition, as a means of dealing with such conflict, some individuals, possessed of devout religious belief, when confronted with beliefs or practices profoundly at odds with their faith, cannot conceive of toleration as a possibility. In such situations, the demand that these individuals tolerate that to which their faith is at odds is likely to run up against a more personal and, for its adherents, eternal agenda. This article considers a way in which those with devout religious beliefs might tolerate that which is profoundly at odds with their faith, thereby providing a means to avoid violent outcomes such as those in the “extreme cases” above.

Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:amposc:v:60:y:2016:i:3:p:664-675

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