.... The Egyptian case study highlights the dissonance between the post-Enlightenment political philosophy of individual rights and freedom of religion that undergirds Western academic discourse on the subject of interreligious relations and the markedly different concept of religious toleration that prevails...

...This introductory chapter sets out the book's focus, namely the question of why the state should have to tolerate exemptions from generally applicable laws when they conflict with religious obligations but not with any other equally serious obligations of conscience. It illustrates this issue...

...The analysis has so far assumed that the moral foundation of the law of religious liberty is to be found in the idea of principled toleration. But are we entitled to that assumption? Martha Nussbaum, for example, has recently argued for the attitude of “respect” as the moral foundation of religious...

...This chapter examines Thomas Hobbes's views on toleration and the inner life. Throughout Leviathan, Hobbes is hostile to religious dissent and claims for freedom of speech; he is eager to keep universities firmly under control, and does not hide his thoughts about what is and what...

... are certainly liberals. However, they do not agree on issues such as the boundaries of toleration, the legitimacy of the welfare state, and the virtues of democracy. They do not even agree on the nature of the liberty they think liberals ought to seek. The chapter considers classical versus modern liberalism...

...This chapter details how the Jews of the Holy Roman Empire constituted the central European region of emancipation. Some historians would contend that the Holy Roman Empire's “archaic, traditionalist constitution created a society that tolerated religious and ethnic differences to a far greater...

... Shaftesbury's project was far more ambitious in scope. The Earl did not limit his ridicule to enthusiasts or priests but instead, drawing on the ancient Stoics and Cynics, sought to shock his readers into revising their beliefs and adopting a sociable religious disposition more conducive to toleration...

... it as a means to expose hypocrisy, unsettle the arrogant, and deflate the powerful. This book examines how leading thinkers of the period searched for a humane form of ridicule, one that served the causes of religious toleration, the abolition of the slave trade, and the dismantling of patriarchal power...

...The inclusion of immigrants in general and Muslim immigrants in particular is straining liberal democracies in western Europe. This chapter re-examines an earlier and more expansive understanding of tolerance. To be tolerant, it is now agreed, means to be willing to put up with others that one...

...This chapter analyzes the concept of religious toleration. Religious toleration has long been the paradigm of the liberal ideal of toleration of group differences, as reflected in both the constitutions of the major Western democracies and in the theoretical literature explaining and justifying...

...This chapter presents an account of what makes religious claims of conscience distinctive. If there is a special reason to tolerate religion it has to be because there are features of religion that warrant toleration, and these features are either: (1) features that all and only...

... if they produce some existential consolation. Second, the general principled arguments for toleration sketched in Chapter II—both the broadly Rawlsian and Millian ones—do justify legal protection for liberty of conscience, which would necessarily encompass toleration of religious beliefs. This means the hard...

...This chapter confronts the question of what to do about our Sikh boy and rural boy discussed in the introduction if there really is no reason to tolerate only the former's claim of conscience for carrying a weapon in places where that is ordinarily prohibited. It argues that both boys should be out...

...This book addresses one of the most enduring puzzles in political philosophy and constitutional theory—why is religion singled out for preferential treatment in both law and public discourse? Why are religious obligations that conflict with the law accorded special toleration while other...

...This concluding chapter reflects on the historical foundation on which the modern discourse of liberty and toleration is based. It looks back to “the long sixteenth century,” the period between 1500 and approximately 1650—specifically between the time of Niccolò Machiavelli and John Milton—during...

...This chapter examines the concepts of toleration and repression in the Byzantine context. It begins by surveying the framework of patriarchy inherited from Late Antiquity and then proposes several areas of research. Within the household and family, any attempt to study toleration and repression has...