AS/POLS 4080 3.0A The Philosophy of Toleration Winter 2019
Prof. Stephen L. Newman
Office: S659 Ross
416-736-2100 ext. 33869
Web site: http://snewman.info.yorku.ca/
Office Hours (subject to change): Tuesday, 12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m..; Thursday, 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
The seminar meets Tuesday, 2:30 - 5:30 in Founder’s College 103
Course Description: Our seminar examines historically important texts concerning toleration as well as modern contributions to the literature on tolerance. This is a political philosophy seminar. Students interested in the psychological and sociological dimensions of tolerance and intolerance should go elsewhere. Students who are primarily interested in the political ramifications of tolerance and intolerance are hereby warned against disappointment, for the seminar will not dwell on the mix of personalities, partisan motives, and political expediency that customarily occupy the attention of political scientists. This is a seminar about the ideas and arguments found in the assigned readings. Students will be introduced to different ways of conceptualizing and justifying toleration and examine its place in the pantheon of liberal democratic values.
If you are not prepared to complete the assigned readings each week and to think about them carefully prior to the seminar, do not enrol in the course.
Pre-requisites: None, but POLS 2900 is strongly recommended.
- Course Requirements & Assignments:
- Term paper or Take-home Final Exam. 40%. You have the choice of writing a research paper or a take home final examination.
Term paper option: Your term paper must be no less than 15 pages and no more than 30 pages, typed, double-spaced with one-inch margins and written in twelve point font. Two sorts of papers are welcome. Students interested in the history of political thought are encouraged to write a research paper investigating arguments over toleration in some particular place at some particular time. You might, for example, look into the genesis of Locke’s ideas on the subject or the range of arguments marshalled for and against toleration in Locke’s England. Or you might investigate how religious pluralism, dissident speech, or social nonconformity was dealt with in Canada in the Confederation era or some later period. If you are more of a philosopher than an historian, you might want to examine in detail a set of arguments concerning the concept of tolerance and its scope or application. There is a rich literature on religious tolerance, freedom of expression, and social nonconformity that you can draw upon. I will be happy to help you formulate and refine your research question. I do ask, however, that if you are interested in writing a term paper you approach me early in the term. Researching and writing a paper takes time and it is important that you get started as soon as possible.
Take-home Final Exam: The exam will consist of at least four essay questions of which you must answer two. Your answers must be typewritten, double-spaced with one-inch margins and in twelve point font. Your answer to each question should be no less than seven and a half pages and no more than fifteen pages, for a total of between 15 and 30 pages overall. The questions will concern the readings assigned for the course and the issues they raise. You will have ten days to complete the exam.
- Presentation. 20%. You must make at least one presentation to the seminar. Your presentation should draw on the assigned and recommended readings, but you are not to present a mere summary of the readings nor are you restricted to discussing only the assigned readings. Rather, your presentation is to address the concepts, issues, and arguments raised by the readings. You are encouraged to bring in historical and present-day examples to illustrate the way in which these issues are manifest in the politics of liberal democratic states. Concrete examples are highly useful when it comes to illustrating theoretical problems. Keep in mind, however, that because this is a political theory course and not a course in empirical political science, I expect normative questions to be foremost.
- Short essay. 25%. The paper (7 – 8 pages) is due in class on January 29. You will find the essay assignment on the last page of this syllabus.
- Participation. 15%. All students are expected to do the assigned readings, attend the seminar regularly, and participate in class discussions.
- Other Useful Information:
Special Circumstances: Students with physical, psychiatric or learning disabilities may request reasonable accommodations in teaching style or evaluation methods, as outlined in Appendix A of the Senate Policy on Students with Special Needs. They should advise the course director at the earliest opportunity, so that appropriate arrangements may be with the assistance of the Office for Persons with Disabilities, the Counselling Development Centre or the Learning Disabilities Program.
Late Papers and Missed Exams: No late papers will be accepted without penalty and no make-up examinations will be administered without a documented medical excuse or some equally compelling (and equally well documented) reason. Students who encounter extenuating circumstances during the term which may interfere with the successful completion of exams or other course assignments should discuss the matter with the course director as soon as possible.
About Grade Appeals: I am available to discuss assessments made of your performance during the term. Your final grade in the course may be appealed through the department’s formal grade appeals process. Formal grade appeals can be initiated only after official grade reports have been issued by the university.
Caution re Academic Honesty: Students are assumed to be familiar with the university's regulations concerning academic honesty. If in doubt, please consult the summary of regulations appended to this syllabus or the official statement of policy contained in the York University Programme Calendar. Students suspected of violating the rules and regulations concerning academic honesty will be brought to the attention of the Associate Dean, who is empowered to impose penalties in such cases.
III. Texts and readings:
Readings for the seminar that are not available online have been placed on reserve in Scott Library. Most of the journal articles among the assigned readings can be accessed through JSTOR on the library’s Web site and downloaded as a pdf for your personal use. In addition, an order for the following books has been placed with the University bookstore.
John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. James Tully (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983)
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ed. Elisabeth Rapaport (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1978)
Brian Barry, Culture & Equality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001
Topics and Readings
Week 1 (Jan. 8) Introduction to the course
Recommended reading:
Thomas Scanlon, “The Difficulty of Tolerance,” in The Difficulty of Tolerance: essays in political philosophy (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003) available as an e-book online from the Scott Library.
Week 2 (Jan. 15) 17th century origins of liberal (religious) tolerance:
John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration
Required reading:
John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), entire (pp. 21-58). (The editor’s introduction is optional.)
For those who want to dig deeper: A concise and eminently readable history of European religious toleration can be found in Perez Zagorin’s How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West. A more detailed account of the struggle to establish toleration in the late 17th century is on offer in John Marshall’s John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture. Gary Remer’s Humanism and the Rhetoric of Toleration discusses non-liberal origins of modern toleration. Andrew R. Murphy gives special attention to the history of Anglo-American toleration in Conscience and Community: Revisiting Toleration and Religious Dissent in Early Modern England and America. Richard Vernon’s The Career of Toleration: John Locke, Jonas Proast, and After offers a rigorous analysis of Locke’s argument in the Letter and discusses its relationship to later developments in liberal theory. An alternative reading of Locke’s Letter and its implications for liberalism may be found in Susan Mendus, Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism. Jeremy Waldron finds fault with Locke’s argument in “Locke, Toleration, and the Rationality of Persecution,” in J. Waldron, Liberal Rights: Collected Papers, 1981-1991. For analyses of Locke’s argument that depart from Waldron’s see for example see Steven Lecce, “Putting Up with Heresy,” Ch. 1 of Against Perfectionism: Defending Liberal Neutrality; John William Tate, “Locke and Toleration: Defending Locke’s Liberal Credentials,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 35:7; Adam Wolfson, “Toleration and Relativism: The Locke – Proast Exchange,” The Review of Politics, 59: 2.
**Jan.16 is the last day to enrol in winter term courses without permission of the instructor**
Week 3 (Jan. 22) Separation of church and state today
Required Reading:
Michael Walzer, “Drawing the Line: Religion and Politics,” Soziale Welt, 49. Jahrg., H. 3 (1998), pp. 295-307. Access via JSTOR on the York Library Web site.
Kent Greenawalt, “The Role of Religion in a Liberal Democracy: Dilemmas and Possible Resolutions,” Journal of Church and State, 35:3 (SUMMER 1993), pp. 503-519. Access via JSTOR on the York Library Web site
Suggestions for further reading: See Robert Audi, Religious Commitment and Secular Reason and Paul J. Weithman, Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship. See also Robert Audi, “The Separation of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 18: 3, pp. 259-296 and Paul J. Weithman, “The Separation of Church and State: Some Questions for Professor Audi,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 20: 1, pp. 52-65. For a view similar to Audi’s, see Richard Rorty, “Religion as Conversation-stopper,” in Richard Rorty, Philosophy and Social Hope, pp. 168-174. For a critical look at the liberal principle of separation of church and state from different perspectives, see; J. Judd Owen, Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism and Stephen M. Feldman, Please Don’t Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History of the Separation of Church and State. Ronald Beiner examines state-church relations in the history of political thought in Civil Religion: A Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy. Political philosopher Christopher J. Eberle offers a defense of religion in public life in Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics (be warned: this is a dense and closely argued book). Kent Greenawalt tackles the space for religion in American constitutional law and politics in Private Consciences and Public Reasons. For a dyspeptic view of separation doctrine, see Stanley Fish, “Mission Impossible: Settling the Just Bounds between Church and State,” Columbia Law Review 97 (December 1997).
Week 4 (Jan. 29) Religious accommodation in the liberal state
Required reading:
Brian Barry, Culture & Equality, Chapter 2, “The Strategy of Privatization.”
Suggestions for further reading: There is a large and ever-growing literature on religious accommodation. In addition to the pro-accommodation arguments Barry contends with, see the essays collected in Nancy L. Rosenblum, ed., Obligations of Citizenship and Demands of Faith. For a defense of accommodation in the Canadian context, see Linda A. White, “Liberalism, Group Rights and the Boundaries of Toleration: The Case of Minority Religious Schools in Ontario,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 36:5 (December 2003), pp. 975-1004. Canadian political theorist Simone Chambers argues in favor of accommodation in “Secularism Minus Exclusion: Developing a Religious-Friendly Idea of Public Reason,” in The Good Society, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2010), pp. 16-21. For a rather sharp-edged argument against accommodation, one that goes beyond what Barry argues, see Brian Leiter, Why Tolerate Religion? Among Leiter’s critics are Michael W. McConnell, “Why Protect Religious Freedom?” in The Yale Law Journal, v. 123 (2013); and Robert Merrihew Adams, whose review of Leiter’s book appears in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2013), online only at http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/36599-why-tolerate-religion/. Leiter responds to his critics in the University of Chicago Law School Public Law and Legal theory Working Paper No. 514, 2014, accessible online at http://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/public_law_and_legal_theory?utm_source=chicagounbound.uchicago.edu%2Fpublic_law_and_legal_theory%2F529&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages. You can read the Canadian Supreme Court decision with which Leiter begins his book, Multani v. Commission scolaire (2006), online at https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/15/index.do. For additional pro-accommodation arguments, see Michael McConnell, “Accommodation of Religion,” The Supreme Court Review, v. 1985, pp. 1-59; Paul Bou-Habib, “A Theory of Religious Accommodation,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, v. 23:1 (2006), pp. 109-126; and Lucas A. Swaine, “How Ought Liberal Democracies to Treat Theocratic Communities?” Ethics, v. 111: 2 (2001), pp. 302-343.
**Jan. 30 is the last date to enrol with permission of the instructor**.
Week 5 (Feb. 5) Liberal tolerance and intolerant religions
Required reading:
Brian Barry, Culture & Equality, Chapter 5, “Liberal States and Illiberal Religions.”
Suggestions for further reading: Avishai Margalit, “The Ring: On Religious Pluralism,” chapter 9 of Toleration: An Elusive Virtue, ed. D. Heyd; Jeff Spinner-Halev, “Hinduism, Christianity, and Liberal Religious Toleration,” Political Theory, 33:1, pp. 28-57; Andrew F. March, “Speech and the Sacred: Does the Defense of Free Speech Rest on a Mistake about Religion?” Political Theory 40: 3, pp. 319-346;
Week 6 (Feb. 12) Difference, dissent, and deviance:
- S. Mill’s “one very simple principle”
Required reading:
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter 1, “Introductory” and Chapter IV, “Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual.”
Suggestions for further reading: For a contemporary’s critical response to Mill’s argument, see James Fitzjames Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, chapter 4, “The Doctrine of Liberty in its Application to Morals.” Notable scholarly treatments of Mill’s On Liberty include C.L. Ten, Mill on Liberty; John Skorupski, Why Read Mill Today?; Alan Ryan, The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill; and Peter Berkowitz, “Liberty, Virtue, and the Discipline of Individuality,” in Eldon J. Eisenach, ed., Mill and the Moral Character of Liberalism. The literature on what has come to be known as the harm principle is huge. For a sampling, see Joseph Raz, “Autonomy, Toleration, and the Harm Principle” in Issues in Contemporary Legal Philosophy, edited by Ruth Gavison (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1987); Arthur Ripstein, “Beyond the Harm Principle, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 34: 3, pp. 215-245; Piers Norris Turner, “’Harm’ and Mill’s Harm Principle,” Ethics, 124: 2, pp. 299-326; Nils Holtug, “The Harm Principle,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 5: 4, pp. 357-389; Richard A. Epstein, “The Harm Principle - And How It Grew,” The University of Toronto Law Journal, 45: 4, pp. 369-417; Andrew Kernohan, “Accumulative Harms and the Interpretation of the Harm Principle,” Social Theory and Practice, 19: 1, pp. 51-72.
**Feb. 16 - 22 is Reading Week. Classes do not meet.** Feb. 18 is Family Day. The university is closed.
Week 7 (Feb. 26) Applying Mill’s harm principle I: The case of pornography
Required Reading:
David Dyzenhaus, “John Stuart Mill and the Harm of Pornography,” Ethics v.102 (1992), 534-51. Access via JSTOR on the York Library Web site.
Robert Skipper, “Mill and Pornography,” Ethics v.103, No. 4 (1993), pp. 726-730. Access via JSTOR on the York Library Web site.
Richard Vernon, “John Stuart Mill and Pornography: Beyond the Harm Principle,” Ethics, v.106, No. 3 (1996), pp. 621-632. Access via JSTOR on the York Library Web site.
(Strongly recommended if you’ve not read it before: J.S. Mill, On Liberty, Chapter II, “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion.”)
Suggestions for further reading: On pornographic “speech,” see L. W. Sumner, The Hateful and the Obscene, which examines the case against pornography in the Canadian courts from a philosophic perspective. Nadine Strossen does the same from an American perspective in Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights. Her argument takes aim at two of the leading American proponents of censoring pornography, Catharine MacKinnon (see her Only Words) and Andrea Dworkin (Pornography: Men Possessing Women). You will find a host of other references, both for and against censorship, in her footnotes.
Week 8 (March 5) Applying Mill’s harm principle II: The case of hate speech
Required reading:
Irwin Cotler, “Holocaust Denial, Equality, and Harm: Boundaries between Liberty and Tolerance in a Liberal Democracy,” in Raphael Cohen-Almagor, ed., Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance: Essays in Honor and Memory of Yitzhak Rabin, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), pp. 151-181. Available as an e-book from Scott Library. Also, a copy has been placed on reserve in Scott.
- W. Sumner, “Should Hate Speech Be Free Speech? John Stuart Mill and the Limits of Tolerance,” in Raphael Cohen-Almagor, ed., Liberal Democracy and the Limits of Tolerance: Essays in Honor and Memory of Yitzhak Rabin, ed., pp. 133-150. Available as an e-book from Scott Library. Also, a copy has been placed on reserve in Scott.
(Strongly recommended if you’ve not read it before: J.S. Mill, On Liberty, Chapter II, “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion.”)
Suggestions for further reading: Philippa Strum’s When the Nazis Came to Skokie examines both sides of the case for allowing hateful speech from an American First Amendment perspective. For a detailed analysis of the Canadian Supreme Court’s treatment of hate speech, see Lorraine Eisenstat Weinreb, “Hate Promotion in a Free Society: R. V. Keegstra,: McGill Law Journal 36: 1416-49. For a defense of the majority’s position in Keegstra by a political theorist, see Samuel LaSelva, “Pluralism and Hate: Freedom, Censorship, and the Canadian Identity,” in K. Peterson and A. Hutchison, eds., Interpreting Censorship in Canada. For critiques of the Canadian treatment of hate speech, see Stefan Braun, Democracy Off Balance: freedom of expression and hate propaganda law in Canada; and Terry Heinrichs, “Censorship as Free Speech! Free Expression Values and the Logic of Silencing in R. v. Keegstra,” Alberta Law Review 36:4, 122-23. See also Richard Moon, The Constitutional Protection of Freedom of Expression. Cf. Stephen L. Newman, “American and Canadian Perspectives on Hate Speech and the Limits of Free Expression,” in Stephen L. Newman, ed., Constitutional Politics in Canada and the United States, pp. 153-173. For a recent defense of the case for suppressing hate speech as an assault on human dignity and the public good of inclusiveness, see Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech. (I have a critique of Waldron’s argument in the September 2017 issue of the Canadian Journal of Political Science, 50:3, pp. 679-697, “Finding the Harm in Hate Speech: An Argument against Censorship.”) Timothy Shiell’s Campus Hate Speech on Trial is an excellent treatment of the question as it played out on American university campuses. You’ll find a broader treatment of the subject in Samuel Walker’s Hate Speech: The History of an American Controversy.
**March 8 is the last day to drop a Winter term course without receiving a grade**
Week 9 (March 12) Is Liberalism hostile to “difference”?
Required reading:
Brian Barry, Culture and Equality, Chapter 3, “The Dynamics of Identity: Assimilation, Acculturation and Difference.”
(Strongly recommended if you’ve not read it before: J.S. Mill, On Liberty, Chapter III, “Of Individuality as One of the Elements of Well-Being.”)
Suggestions for further reading: Those who see liberal tolerance as hostile to difference include Kirstie M. McClure, “Difference, Diversity, and the Limits of Toleration,” Political Theory 18:3 (August 1990), pp. 361-391; Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” in Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore, Jr. and Herbert Marcuse, A Critique of Pure Tolerance, pp. 81-123; and Wendy Brown, Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire, esp. Chapter 7, “Toleration as/in Civilizational Discourse.”
Week 10 (March 19) Liberal tolerance and the politics of recognition
Required reading:
Brian Barry, “The Abuse of Culture,” Chapter 7 of Culture and Equality (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 252 - 291.
Suggestions for further reading: As you may have noticed in reading Barry’s pungent critique of multiculturalism, Canadian political theorists are among the leading architects of multicultural theory. See, for example, Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship; Joseph Carens, Culture, Citizenship and Community; James Tully, Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an age of diversity; and Charles Taylor, “The Politics of Recognition,” in Amy Gutman, ed., Multiculturalism, pp. 25 – 73. Representative works by non-Canadian multicultural theorists include Chandran Kukathas, The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (see also his “Cultural Toleration,” in Nomos XXXIX: Ethnicity and Group Rights, eds. Ian Shapiro and Will Kymlicka, pp. 69-104); Bhikhu Parekh, Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory; Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy; Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era; and Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, Toleration as Recognition. Several defenders of multicultural theory reply to Barry’s book in Paul Kelly, ed., Multiculturalism Reconsidered.
Week 11 (March 26) Liberal tolerance and state neutrality
Required reading:
Charles Larmore, “Political Liberalism,” Political Theory 18:3 (August 1990), pp. 339-360. Access via JSTOR on the York Library Web site.
Stanley Fish, There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, Chapter 10, “Liberalism doesn’t exist” (pp. 134-138).
Suggestions for further reading: For a critical assessment of the concept of “reasonableness” that plays a key role in many theories of the neutral state, see Jeremy Waldron, “Toleration and Reasonableness,” in Catriona McKinnon and Dario Castiglione, The culture of toleration in diverse societies, pp. 13-37. The term “political liberalism” is most commonly associated with the late John Rawls. See his Political Liberalism. You might also have a look at his essay “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” which can be found in Samuel Freeman, ed., John Rawls: Collected Papers. The same essay is included in Rawls’s short book, The Law of Peoples.
Week 12 (April 2) Tolerance and civility
Required reading:
Richard C. Sinopoli, “Thick-Skinned Liberalism: Redefining Civility,” The American Political Science Review, 89: 3, pp. 612-620. Access via JSTOR on the York Library Web site.
Monique Deveaux, “Toleration and Respect,” Public Affairs Quarterly, v.12, No. 4 (Oct., 1998), pp. 407-427. Access via JSTOR on the York Library Web site.
Suggestions for further reading: For a recent treatment of civility by a political theorist, see Teresa M. Bejan, Mere Civility: Disagreement and the Limits of Toleration. (Bejans’s bibliography will lead you to other sources.) For a political scientist’s take on the recent loss of civility in US politics and its causes, see Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Becomes Our Identity. On the deleterious effects of nationalism on civility, see Michael Ignatieff, “Nationalism and Toleration,” in Susan Mendus, ed., The Politics of Toleration in Modern Life, pp. 77-106.
** April 3 is the last day of classes.
**April 19 is Good Friday, a statutory holiday. The university is closed.
Exams begin on April 5 and end on April 20.
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First Paper Assignment: Due in class on January 29. You must also submit an electronic copy of your paper on Turnitin.
Imagine that the student newspaper has published two cartoons. One features a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban in which a bomb is concealed. Another features a man in a Nazi uniform but wearing a Star of David. The man, who is labelled “Israel,” has his boot on the neck of a prostrate youth labeled “Palestine.” When questioned, the editor of the paper defends the first cartoon as a deliberate attempt to get readers to reflect on the relationship between Islam and terrorism and the second as an attempt to get readers to reflect on the moral implications of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Should the newspaper have published either of these cartoons? Why, or why not?
Your paper should be 7 – 8 pages, double-spaced with one inch margins all around and written in 12 point font.
