Law, Tolerance and Society

[Philosophy Now]

by Rick Lewis

https://philosophynow.org/issues/79/Law_Tolerance_and_Society

[Nick_A]

Hi Rick

How can a free society maintain tolerance which supports the preamble to the declaration of Independence?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.”

You wrote

Pretty much every society has two sets of rules – a formal set encoded in laws and enforced by police, lawyers and courts, and an informal set of social norms and conventions. Additionally, we as individuals each have our own views on what is acceptable and what isn’t. So the third question we’ll ask is how far each of us should tolerate people, activities or situations of which we disapprove. The question of tolerating unpopular opinions – including the opinions of those who are themselves intolerant – is touched on by Raymond Tallis in his column and by Phil Badger in his article on the Enlightenment. Matthew Pianalto argues that although intolerance gets a bad press, in some situations it is actually our duty to be intolerant. He describes an interesting distinction between toleration, which has to do with actions, and tolerance, which has to do with attitudes. He points out that Gandhi and Martin Luther King refused to tolerate unjust laws, but that their actions opposing those laws were non-violent. This for Pianalto is a crucial distinction between good and bad actions in the face of something we would find it wrong to tolerate. Above all though, the impressive thing about Gandhi’s and King’s intolerance was that it was always directed at laws rather than at people.
Every society struggles with questions about rulebreaking, though writing from his cell on death row, Shawn Harte reminds us that whether we get it right or wrong, nothing endures forever. Not only prisoners waiting on death row, but also the rest of us, and our societies, our rules, our greatest monuments, the planet, the galaxy – all are impermanent and in a state of continual change and decay. How should we live with that? Harte meditates on a problem which goes to the very heart of meaning in life.

Where a normal modern secular society strives to maintain tolerance through through rules, education, and indoctrination, Simone Weil suggests tolerance comes from nourishing the soul. Coopertion is the norm for the evolved soul.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html
First she describes the human condition

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.
Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.
Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.
Just as the reality of this world is the sole foundation of facts, so that other reality is the sole foundation of good.
That reality is the unique source of all the good that can exist in this world: that is to say, all beauty, all truth, all justice, all legitimacy, all order, and all human behaviour that is mindful of obligations.
"At the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world."
Those minds whose attention and love are turned towards that reality are the sole intermediary through which good can descend from there and come among men…………………………..

Does Man create higher values or are they remembered as Plato suggests?

For a free society to become tolerant, its citizens must admit the value of experiencing and reconciling the contradiction between facts and values. The problem isn’t facts but the need to open to the experience of objective values beginning with awakening our nearly atrophied conscience

Simone goes on to describe the pairs of values the soul needs to feel in order to grow. For example the list begins with:

A concrete conception of obligation towards human beings and a subdivision of it into a number of obligations is obtained by conceiving the earthly needs of the body and of the human soul. Each need entails a corresponding obligation.
The needs of a human being are sacred. Their satisfaction cannot be subordinated either to reasons of state, or to any consideration of money, nationality, race, or colour, or to the moral or other value attributed to the human being in question, or to any consideration whatsoever.
There is no legitimate limit to the satisfaction of the needs of a human being except as imposed by necessity and by the needs of other human beings. The limit is only legitimate if the needs of all human beings receive an equal degree of attention.
The fundamental obligation towards human beings is subdivided into a number of concrete obligations by the enumeration of the essential needs of the human being. Each need is related to an obligation, and each obligation to a need.
The needs in question are earthly needs, for those are the only ones that man can satisfy. They are needs of the soul as well as of the body; for the soul has needs whose non-satisfaction leaves it in a state analogous to that of a starved or mutilated body.
The principal needs of the human body are food, warmth, sleep, health, rest, exercise, fresh air.
The needs of the soul can for the most part be listed in pairs of opposites which balance and complete one another.
The human soul has need of equality and of hierarchy.
Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings. Hierarchy is the scale of responsibilities. Since attention is inclined to direct itself upwards and remain fixed, special provisions are necessary to ensure the effective compatibility of equality and hierarchy.
The human soul has need of consented obedience and of liberty.
Consented obedience is what one concedes to an authority because one judges it to be legitimate. It is not possible in relation to a political power established by conquest or coup d'etat nor to an economic power based upon money.
Liberty is the power of choice within the latitude left between the direct constraint of natural forces and the authority accepted as legitimate. The latitude should be sufficiently wide for liberty to be more than a fiction, but it should include only what is innocent and should never be wide enough to permit certain kinds of crime.
The human soul has need of truth and of freedom of expression.
The need for truth requires that intellectual culture should be universally accessible, and that it should be able to be acquired in an environment neither physically remote nor psychologically alien. It requires that in the domain of thought there should never be any physical or moral pressure exerted for any purpose other than an exclusive concern for truth; which implies an absolute ban on all propaganda without exception. It calls for protection against error and lies; which means that every avoidable material falsehood publicly asserted becomes a punishable offence. It calls for public health measures against poisons in the domain of thought.
But, in order to be exercised, the intelligence requires to be free to express itself without control by any authority. There must therefore be a domain of pure intellectual research, separate but accessible to all, where no authority intervenes.

The list goes on towards the end of the essay. But she offers a potential alternative to the emphasis on rules and indoctrination. She offers the potential for Man to become normal by nourishing the soul. Is it possible?