International Toleration: A Theory 9780367442514, 9780367442521, 9781003008576

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction: the appeal of international toleration
1 On toleration: concept and conceptions
2 Political liberalism and the partition model
3 A liberal theory of international toleration: meaningand desiderata
4 The liberal theory of international toleration: a candidate
5 Reconstructing the liberal theory of international toleration
Conclusion: the difficulty of international toleration
Index

Citation preview

‘Liberal toleration seems increasingly under threat – both within nations and between them. Under these circumstances, work such as that of Pietro Maffettone becomes increasingly important. Maffettone provides a compelling and elegant defense of a particular vision of liberal tolerance; his account of toleration is capable of guiding liberal states seeking to identify those foreign political practices they are duty-bound to respect – as well as those they are rightly permitted to reject. The book draws on the history of liberal thought about toleration, while demonstrating the ways in which that history must be reinterpreted to make sense of modern international controversy. The book is rigorous, clear, and very likely right; it deserves to be taken seriously by political philosophers and political practitioners alike’. – Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Governance, Department of Philosophy and Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Washington, USA ‘Since the publication of Rawls’s book, Political Liberalism, two questions have been central to the development of liberal political philosophy: how can a liberal political order be justifed, given the pluralism that characterizes liberal societies; and how ought a liberal society to regard other societies that are not liberal? In this book, Pietro Maffettone makes an important contribution to answering the second question. Building on a novel interpretation of Rawls’s idea of toleration of nonliberal but “decent” societies, Maffettone develops a methodologically sophisticated and plausible account of what we should expect of the people of nonliberal societies if they are to warrant our toleration. Further, he demonstrates that toleration is not just a matter of “putting up” with those you regard as inferior, but a positive affrmation of equal respect’. – Allen Buchanan, Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona; James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Duke University, USA

INTERNATIONAL TOLERATION

This book proposes a theory of toleration wherein liberal democracies peacefully co-exist with non-democratic societies. It conceptualises international toleration in a way that is both faithful to the liberal tradition and at the same time explains why we should accept some nonliberal and non-democratic political communities as members in good standing in international society. The volume delves into different theoretical understandings of the idea of toleration and what it has come to mean in today’s highly polarised world. It argues that classifying states as liberal and nonliberal is important but cannot explain how they should relate to one another. Putting forward a new reconstruction of Rawls’s theory of political liberalism, Maffettone makes a compelling case for the claim that the separation between domestic and international political domains can enable a liberal state to have equal respect and recognition for at least some nonliberal ones. A major intervention in political and legal philosophy, this book will be indispensable to students and teachers of political theory, international relations, peace and confict studies, international law, and human rights. It will also be of interest to government think tanks and civil servants. Pietro Maffettone teaches at the Department of Political Science, University of Napoli Federico II, Italy.

Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought Series Editors: Aakash Singh Rathore and Sebastiano Maffettone Center for Ethics & Global Politics, Luiss University, Rome

Whereas the interrelation of ethics and political thought has been recognized since the dawn of political refection, over the last sixty years – roughly since the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights – we have witnessed a particularly turbulent process of globalizing the coverage and application of that interrelation. At the very instant the decolonized globe consolidated the universality of the sovereign nation-state, that sovereignty – and the political thought that grounded it – was eroded and outstripped, not as in eras past, by imperial conquest and instruments of war, but rather by instruments of peace (charters, declarations, treaties, conventions), and instruments of commerce and communication (multinational enterprises, international media, global aviation and transport, internet technologies). Has political theory kept apace with global political realities? Can ethical refection illuminate the murky challenges of real global politics? This Routledge book series Ethics, Human Rights and Global Political Thought addresses these crucial questions by bringing together outstanding monographs and anthologies that deal with the intersection of normative theorizing and political realities with a global focus. Treating diverse topics by means of interdisciplinary techniques – including philosophy, political theory, international relations and human rights theories, and global and postcolonial studies – the books in the Series present up-to-date research that is accessible, practical, yet scholarly. Religion and Civil Society in the Arab World In the Vortex of Globalization and Tradition Edited by Tania Haddad and Elie Al Hindy Formatting Religion Across Politics, Education, Media, and Law Edited by Marius Timmann Mjaaland International Toleration A Theory Pietro Maffettone For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/EthicsHuman-Rights-and-Global-Political-Thought/book-series/EHRGPT

INTERNATIONAL TOLERATION A Theory

Pietro Maffettone

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Pietro Maffettone The right of Pietro Maffettone to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-44251-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-44252-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-00857-6 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

In memory of David Held

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

x

Introduction: the appeal of international toleration

1

1

On toleration: concept and conceptions

15

2

Political liberalism and the partition model

41

3

A liberal theory of international toleration: meaning and desiderata

75

4

The liberal theory of international toleration: a candidate

98

5

Reconstructing the liberal theory of international toleration

128

Conclusion: the diffculty of international toleration

166

Index

172

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has been on my mind for a long time. I started to think about the topic in late 2011 when writing the last chapter of my PhD thesis at the London School of Economics. Since then, I have written several pieces on international toleration but always felt that the topic deserved a more encompassing treatment. Throughout this period, I was extremely fortunate to be able to discuss my ideas with a large number of friends and colleagues. I am very grateful for their input and for their encouragement. I am particularly indebted to Leif Wenar. His infuence on my understanding of Rawls’s work will, I trust, be apparent to anyone reading this book. While at the LSE during my PhD, I was lucky enough to have an exceptional group of fellow students who allowed me to test my ideas on toleration and political liberalism. Ed Hall, Luke Ulas, Yoni Reshef, and the late Carlo Argenton were a constant source of inspiration then and now. Luke and I also ended up as colleagues for a short time in Durham, and we co-authored a paper on legitimacy in international society that allowed me to refne some of my ideas about the nature of the concept. At the LSE, I beneftted from extensive discussions on the topic with my two supervisors, Paul Kelly and David Held (a truly superb supervisory team), and from other members of the staff, including (at the time) Mat Coakley, Laura Valentini, Kai Spiekermann, Lea Ypi, Kirsten Ainley, and Chris Brown. Laura and Mat deserve special thanks. Laura read and extensively commented on an early version of my book proposal. Mat, undeterred by several lengthy discussions on international ethics, was brave enough to accept my invitation to co-author a paper on ethical foreign policy-making. My PhD examiners, Chandran Kukathas and Andrea Sangiovanni, probed in a friendly and yet rigorous way my views on international justice and especially my initial approach to the issue of international toleration; in so doing they pushed me to refne my ideas. After my PhD at the LSE, I spent fve splendid years at Durham University’s School of Government and International Affairs. I am sincerely grateful to all

Acknowledgements

xi

members of the academic and administrative staff for their support while conducting most of the research for this book. My then colleagues and fellow political theorists, John Williams, Eva Maria Nag, Beth Khan, Maria Dimova-Cookson, Stephen Welch, Ilan Baron, and, more recently, Christopher Finlay, were kind enough to discuss specifc aspects of my project. In addition, Or Raviv, then at Durham, listened to my daily moaning exercises over how painful writing a book can be for the best part of three years; the fact we are still friends is a testament to his tolerant attitude. While at Durham, I was able to discuss my work with some of the people based at Newcastle University. I would like to single out Andrew Walton for his help, feedback, and encouragement, and for single-handedly introducing me to Indian cuisine. Peter Jones was patient enough to read a substantial amount of the material I produced on international toleration over the course of the last six years (including Chapter 2 of this book). I learned a lot from his feedback. The infuence of Peter’s work on my understanding of toleration has been signifcant and will be obvious to anyone reading Chapter 2 of this work. As one of the co-founders of the MSc Global Politics and of the Global Policy Institute (both at Durham University), I was the co-convenor of a seminar series on ethics and global public policy and was able to meet and discuss my ideas with a fantastic group of scholars who presented their work in the series. I would like to thank K.C. Tan, Michael Blake, Aaron James, Ryan Muldoon, and Allen Buchanan. Michael and Aaron both gave extensive feedback about the general contours of the book and about specifc aspects related to their work. Allen and I have been in conversation about the nature of legitimacy, human rights, and self-determination ever since. Ryan led by example and showed me that philosophy can have an impact in the real world. Over the course of the past seven years, I have presented my material on toleration and legitimacy in several venues, including Durham (twice), York, Sheffeld (twice), Boston College, UCD Dublin, LUISS, and Pavia. I am especially grateful to those audiences. I would like to single out Martin O’Neill, Chris Armstrong, Rainer Forst, Enzo Rossi, Matt Sleat, Ed Hall, Alasdair Cochrane, Paul Weithman, Ian Carter, Emanuela Ceva, Elisabetta Galeotti, Carla Bagnoli, Antonella Besussi, Mario De Caro, Filippo Magni, Corrado Fumagalli, Roberta Sala, Ingrid Salvatore, Gianfranco Pellegrino, Valentina Gentile, Marcello Di Paola, Domenico Melidoro, and Valeria Ottonelli. Ian Carter went through the trouble of providing extensive written comments on an early version of Chapter 4. Corrado Fumagalli has probably listened to (and given feedback on) some of the book’s central ideas more times than anyone really should. I would also like to thank Alessandro Ferrara for several conversations on the idea of pluralism. I can still recall a particularly signifcant one on a spring evening of 2017 in Rome, where both Sandro and I did our best to defend Rawls’s view of decency against Rainer Forst’s penetrating Kantian criticisms. Earlier on that very same day, I also had the opportunity to act as a discussant to Frank Michelman at LUISS. Our conversation concerning his work on the legitimating role of constitutions allowed me to get a clearer sense of my argument about the meaning and

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relevance of self-determination in a constitutional democracy. I am, in addition, sincerely grateful to Andrew J. Cohen, Sebastiano Maffettone, and Guido Parietti. Andrew read and commented on Chapter 1 of the book and in the process pushed me to clarify several aspects of the chapter. Guido took the time to discuss with me the idea of power, something that I think is crucial for any conceptual analysis of the idea of toleration. Sebastiano read the entire manuscript, provided extensive feedback, and quipped that it was perhaps a bit ‘too Rawlsian’ (the irony of life . . .). In 2016 and in 2019, I spent two short visiting periods at Boston College and Kings College London, respectively. I am grateful to those institutions for hosting me. In particular, I would like to thank David Rasmussen and Frank Garcia at BC and Massimo Renzo at Kings. David and Massimo were wonderful hosts and were kind enough to offer feedback on the book. While in Boston, I also conducted a week of archival research at Harvard University, going through some of Rawls’s unpublished work and correspondence and would like to thank Harvard for giving me access to the material. In the autumn of 2019, Michele Bocchiola organised a manuscript symposium in Pavia. I would like to thank the participants (Michele Bocchiola, Ian Carter, Federico Zuolo, Giulia Bistagnino, and Federica Liveriero) for their feedback and for helping me to clarify several aspects of the book. Enrico Biale could not attend the symposium but managed to send excellent written feedback nonetheless. I would also like to thank all of the aforementioned colleagues for being very friendly while at the same time taking my work seriously: a rare combination. After having spent most of my adult life in the UK, I recently moved back to Italy to teach in the Political Science Department at the University of Napoli Federico II. Several people deserve my heartfelt thanks for making me feel at home, including Marco Musella, Vittorio Amato, Salvatore Strozza, Vanda Fiorillo, Maurizio Griffo, Ruth Hanau-Santini (at the Università L’Orientale), Settimio Stallone, Daniela La Foresta, Gaetano Di Martino, Barbara Guastaferro, Gaetano Vecchione, Armando Vittoria, Gianluca Luise, Lucia Simonetti, Gianluca Dioni, Cintia Faraco, Ilaria Pizza, Vincenzo Alfano, Maria Chiaro, Rosario Rossi, Valeria Parisi, and Erminia Morone. Special thanks are owed to Vanda Fiorillo for providing some excellent reading material on toleration, to Maurizio Griffo for a discussion on the historical signifcance of toleration to liberalism, to Armando Vittoria for feedback on the structure of the theory, to Barbara Guastaferro for explaining to me some of the basic aspects of comparative constitutionalism, and to Gaetano Vecchione for, among other things, reminding me of the importance of religious commitments in public reasoning. In Rome, Mark Thatcher has been a constant source of motivational energies. His ‘you can do this’ attitude whenever we have talked about the project over the past year or so has been nothing short of decisive in order to be able to complete the book sooner rather than later. Large parts of Chapter 4 are taken from two papers I published in Social Theory & Practice (Should We Tolerate Benevolent Absolutisms? Volume 42, Issue 3, July 2016, pp. 525–554) and Ethics & International Affairs (Constitutional Democracy and Robust International Law, Volume 30, Issue 4, Winter 2016, pp. 451–460). I am

Acknowledgements

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grateful to both journals for allowing me to use the material for this book. In particular, I am grateful to the Philosophy Documentation Center for granting permission to re-publish on behalf of Social Theory & Practice. I should also like to thank my copy-editor in Napoli, Adriana O’Connor, the series editor, Aakash Singh Rathore, for his truly exceptional level of support, and the whole team at Routledge for their help during the production process. Despite all the help I have received, this book will no doubt be very far from perfect. Any remaining mistakes are, as always, entirely my responsibility. Finally, allow me to strike a more personal note. I would like to thank my friend Francesco Delle Fave for hosting me on both of my ‘visiting’ periods (that is, in Boston and London). The possibility of spending, on both occasions, several weeks thinking about my work was in no small part due to his generosity. Thumbs up also to my friend Valerio Bergesio for keeping me sane while writing the fnal draft of the manuscript (and much else besides) and to Guglielmo De Maria and Eduardo Del Gado for being there for me through the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’. My parents, Marika and Sebastiano, and my Aunt Cicci offered unwavering support since the beginning of my academic career. Immense gratitude goes to my wife, Beatrice, for her love and for her truly astonishing patience and to my daughter, Margherita, for showing me (quite forcefully, as it happens) that there are far more important things in life than writing books. The book is dedicated to the memory of my mentor, David Held. There are many words one could use to try to describe how much David meant to me and how strong his infuence has been on my way of thinking. However, I fear words would not be particularly apt at capturing my feelings. The only thing I can say about David’s sudden death is ‘too soon, much too soon, my friend’.

INTRODUCTION The appeal of international toleration

I.

The intuitive appeal of international toleration

Political pluralism is the defning feature of international politics. Here, by political pluralism, I shall simply refer to the different ways in which the basic structures of different political communities are organised. These are the features that we would normally take into account in order to, for example, describe a political society as a ‘liberal democracy’, or as an ‘autocracy’, or whatever other label one might think is best apt to defne the essential features of a political regime (see Alvarez et al., 1996; Collier, La Porte and Seawright, 2012; Siaroff, 2013). At the same time, however, what can be called, broadly speaking, liberal international political theory, has not been particularly keen to systematically address the aforementioned pluralism. While there are some notable exceptions (to which I will return later), not much attention has been, at least explicitly, devoted to the task of approaching international political pluralism from a normative perspective. To put things in a slightly different way, one is tempted to conclude that while the internal political features of the members of international society vary extensively, ‘a great deal of liberal international political theory seems to work under the assumption that the only permissible way of organizing political society is according to a fully liberal democratic model’. I fnd the latter to be, in many respects, a counterintuitive stance. The aim of this book is to defend an account of international toleration that is both faithful to the liberal tradition and at the same time explains why we can (and in fact should) accept at least some nonliberal and non-democratic political communities as members in good standing of international society. The reader may fnd part of my initial analysis slightly disconcerting. She might retort that, over the past four decades, liberal theorists have spent a signifcant amount of intellectual energies on issues concerning ‘global justice’. This much, I believe, is diffcult to deny. Nonetheless, I think my point still stands. To illustrate,

2

Introduction

think about one of the main debates that has occupied the feld for over a decade. The debate featured exchanges between so-called cosmopolitans and so-called statists and/or nationalists (for an overview see Mandle, 2006; Armstrong, 2012; Risse, 2012; Held and Maffettone, 2016: editors’ introduction). It reached great levels of complexity, but, in essence, it was characterised by disagreements about the scope of egalitarian principles of distributive justice and/or the relevance of special obligations to co-nationals or compatriots (see Miller, 2007; Brock, 2013; Moellendorf, 2016). Yet, at the same time, it largely took for granted that whatever the appropriate scope of egalitarianism, or distributive justice more broadly, the core principles of the liberal constitutional tradition would normally have to be respected at the international level (for a classic discussion see Caney, 2006). Now, one might retort that, if our referents are liberal political theorists, the fact that they take liberalism (loosely defned) for granted is largely unsurprising and perhaps even tautological. That seems to be, once again, diffcult to argue against. Yet, I think it is important not to draw a false inference from the latter observation, for one can be committed to the overall (normative) superiority of liberalism without being committed to the fact that the only permissible way to organise political institutions should be according to a liberal democratic model. To believe that liberalism is the best we can hope for in political life does not really tell us how we should, theoretically and morally speaking, respond to those who reject that claim. One might also legitimately ask: where does the intuition that ‘assuming liberal democracy to be the only permissible way of structuring a political society is implausible’ come from? Clearly, intuitions are just what the word suggests: intuitions, not arguments. And, while the purpose of this book is indeed to put forward a (rather long) argument in favour of the conclusion implicit in the aforementioned intuition, here I can only provide a sketch of the basic elements that seem to speak in favour of its prima facie plausibility, if not its appeal. The frst element underpinning my intuition that there might be something to be said for tolerating other ways of internally organising political societies – that is, ways that are not liberal democratic – derives from the black and white picture of international politics that would seem to be implicitly relied upon by the opposite conclusion. While ‘liberal democracies versus the rest’ makes for a clear and uncompromising characterisation of the international political landscape, it does not strike me as one that we should easily take for granted. One reason not to do so is that it may strike us as an exceedingly moralistic stance. By ‘moralistic’ I do not wish to depict any kind of complex doctrine or ethical fault, but to refer to an oversimplifcation of what seems to be, prima facie, a very complex moral problem. Put differently, one might legitimately suspect that a view like ‘liberal democracies versus the rest’ would run the risk of being moralistic, at least insofar as a central aspect of any view being moralistic is its implicit attempt to oversimplify something we are bound to consider, on due refection, very complicated, morally and politically speaking. And, we can add, there is no doubt that such moral and political complexity is a feature of the internal institutional organisation of a political society. For such internal organisation is bound to

Introduction

3

be the result of a host of interconnected factors, including the interaction between a culture, its values, and innumerable past historical circumstances. Second, consider the range of political societies that populate the international political landscape. More specifcally, think of, for example, the different kinds of nonliberal and non-democratic regimes that often appear in the news: North Korea, Singapore, China, Brunei, Jordan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba, Morocco. As anyone minimally in touch with international politics would be able to recognise, the defning political features of the aforementioned polities are very diverse. This is not just in light of their formal constitutional make-up, though, of course, the latter is important. To a signifcant extent the differences we intuitively grasp to be relevant when we consider these countries are differences about the many political values that seem relevant to us when we judge, even from a liberal perspective, how a given basic structure is organised. We often ask whether a given basic structure is just, whether government power is legitimately used within it, but also whether the way in which a society is run is compatible with developing central elements or aspects of the human experience, that is, the ability to fourish even according to a very thin account of what human fourishing might require. And there is no denying that being placed in these different societies would allow us to gain radically different perspectives and thus give radically different answers about the extent to which such benchmarks pertaining to political morality are met, if at all. To see this in the plainest way possible, one might entertain the following thought experiment: would I be indifferent towards these different countries if I was forced to live in one of them for a signifcant length of time? The predictable answer would be ‘surely not’. The question then is: why would that be so? My sense is that the nature of the answer would be of a qualitative kind, rather than simply of a quantitative kind, so to speak. Put differently, the answer would be guided by the intuition that these societies are qualitatively different and not simply, to a lesser or greater extent, imperfect versions of the only acceptable model of political organisation, namely, the liberal democratic model. To put things in yet another way, the idea that the only morally distinctive feature of all the aforementioned political regimes is that they are, to a greater or lesser extent, all nonliberal and non-democratic may strike at least some as counterintuitive. My observations so far, I should hasten to repeat, are fully compatible with accepting the overall superiority of liberal democracy over other forms of internal political organisation. Their point or purpose, rather, is to invite caution, for while we might justifably entertain the idea that a given regime is superior to its alternatives, this does not, on its own, translate into an argument for the conclusion that all other kinds of regimes are impermissible. What these intuitions are meant to achieve, instead, is to allow the reader to see that thinking harder about the problem of international political pluralism seems to be warranted, for not doing so might lead us to take for granted something we should not. Even conceding, for the sake of argument, that the comments I have put forward earlier have some intuitive appeal, a further question the reader might legitimately ask is: why exactly approach the issue of political diversity through the prism of

4

Introduction

toleration? My sense is that there are two reasons that would suggest the relevance of toleration given the nature of the normative problem under consideration: one meta-theoretical and one more substantive. The meta-theoretical reason is connected to the liberal tradition itself. Historically, one of the main purposes of liberalism has been to develop accounts that defended the legitimacy, or at least permissibility, of domestic forms of religious, moral, and political diversity (see Bican, 2010; Forst, 2013). From Spinoza to Bayle, Locke, and Mill, liberal political morality has often been told as a tale of toleration and its moral rationale and justifcation. Needless to say, liberalism stands for more than toleration alone, for it would be easy to cite other foundational commitments of the liberal tradition, commitments that, while not necessarily universally shared by all liberals, clearly would have to feature within the family of central concepts that might help us give shape to its intellectual history (see Kelly, 2005). Individual rights, a commitment to liberty (however interpreted), a measure of equality, and specifc constraints on the legitimacy of state rule would all feature in a longer (and more accurate) story about liberal political philosophy. However, my sense is that no such story would be complete, or at least fully convincing, without acknowledging the place of toleration. If the latter observation is correct, then it seems plausible to think that liberalism should have at least something to say about international political diversity. And that something, we can add, should feature as a conclusion of an argument rather than as one of its premises. The more substantive reason that might lead one to select the concept of toleration to frame a discussion of international political pluralism is linked to a considered conviction that, as liberals, we are likely to entertain. The considered conviction is that even if liberal democratic forms of government are not the only permissible way to organise political institutions, liberalism itself, understood as a set of values, ideas, and principles, should enjoy a special status. This special status I shall coarsely describe to be the status of being the best source of normative ideas for how to think about political morality. In this picture, however, the idea of framing our concerns through toleration seems to gain some traction. If liberalism is our starting point in political morality, while, at the same time, we have the intuition that at least some forms of nonliberal and non-democratic societies should not be the object of sanctions or outright moral condemnation, then the idea that the latter societies might instead be the object of liberal toleration seems far from implausible, vague as this kind of suggestion might initially appear.

II.

A liberal theory of international toleration

I shall explore the idea of international toleration from a liberal perspective. However, to say that an approach is liberal is, to be fair, not saying much. Liberalism is a broad church. Even without engaging in a historical survey, and just sticking to some of the most commonly cited contemporary authors, Nozick, Rawls, Okin, Nussbaum, Williams, and Raz, to name just a few, are clearly not committed to the same kind of liberalism (see Kymlicka, 2001). In this book, I shall thus try to limit myself to what some have called political liberalism (see Larmore, 1987, 1990,

Introduction

5

1996). One of the central features of the political liberal approach is that we should respect persons and that respecting them requires those engaged in political action, especially when it comes to matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials, to provide reasonably acceptable justifcations for the exercise of political power. Put differently, ‘all persons are owed a public justifcation’ for at least the most basic features of the political order under which they live (see Waldron, 1987; Gaus,1996, 2011; Eberle, 2002: 51). As Rawls himself stated,‘to respect another as a moral person is to try to understand his aims and interests from his standpoint and to present him with considerations that enable him to accept the constraints on his conduct’ (1971/1999: 338). Intimately connected to this commitment to public justifcation is the political liberal view of toleration. As many have noted, one of the novelties of political liberalism is its historically sui generis conception of the structure and justifcation of toleration (see Jones, 2007; 2019). By far the most theoretically interesting, and some would say appealing, feature of the political liberal view is the attempt to decouple toleration from a commitment to traditional liberal values (such as autonomy) or meta-ethical ideas about the nature of value itself (such as pluralism or scepticism). The success of such an attempt would allow the appeal of toleration to broaden, and yet, at the same time, not to do so at the cost of portraying it just as a political compromise or modus vivendi (see Scheffer, 1994). In this picture, it is possible to depict liberal toleration as a less ‘sectarian’ normative political ideal, and thus one potentially able to attract even those not committed to liberal morality, or those unwilling to subscribe to controversial meta-ethical theses. Paraphrasing its most illustrious proponent, political liberalism aims at applying toleration to philosophy itself, and, in the process, it aims at offering an account of toleration that fts the nature of a modern democracy characterised by ‘reasonable pluralism’ (see Rawls, 1996). Why should we focus on political liberalism? There are, I believe, two main reasons, so it is useful to make them explicit. I shall devote a signifcant amount of space, in Chapters 2 and 5, to the analysis of the relationship between political liberalism and toleration, but, for now, I shall simply limit myself to the following observation, namely, that ab initio, at the core of the political liberal approach to toleration lies the desire to offer a justifcation of toleration that reaches beyond liberalism and liberals. Whether such an attempt is, all things considered, successful, cannot be discussed in this introduction, yet one can intuitively grasp the connection between the nature of international political pluralism and the political liberal view of toleration by simply observing that the central moral problem posed by the former seems to be intimately connected to the key theoretical feature of the latter. If political liberal toleration is a kind of toleration that can appeal to nonliberal citizens (i.e. citizens not committed to liberalism as a comprehensive doctrine), then its international counterpart might be useful in the context of a pluralistic (international) society where different forms of internal political organisation (some liberal and some not) co-exist. The second reason is inward facing, so to speak, and concerns part of the nature of political liberalism itself, for political liberalism is not

6

Introduction

just an argument addressed, potentially, to those who are not committed to liberal morality more broadly, but it is also (and some would say ‘mainly’) a project of ‘liberal self-understanding’ (Scheffer, 1994). It thus would seem to make sense to ask what that self-understanding can tell us about international political diversity. Stated differently, liberal political communities are placed in a global order that, as we have seen, features signifcant political pluralism, and they will have to fnd principled ways, that is, ways that are consistent with their ‘self-understanding’, to engage with such pluralism. The book’s focus is, in many respects, even more specifc than the broadly political liberal view as I have (very briefy) sketched it earlier. My account of international toleration will stay particularly close to the Rawlsian understanding of political liberalism in general and of toleration in particular. This is a conscious decision. The reasons for proceeding this way are twofold. First, Rawls’s presentation of political liberalism is widely acknowledged to be the most authoritative one. Clearly, to call such a view ‘authoritative’ does not imply ‘correct’, and disagreement with and about Rawls’s views have been extensive in the recent literature (for example see Gaus, 2011). Yet, there is also a clear sense in which political liberals, or at least the vast majority of them, take Rawls’s work to be central and use it as a point of reference, even if their main aim is to refne, develop, or criticise Rawls’s work. Second, Rawls is probably the most notable exception to the observation I have made in the previous part of the introduction, namely, that liberal political philosophy has largely taken for granted a specifc answer to the problem posed by international political pluralism. The debate concerning the defensibility of Rawls’s specifc proposals has been rich, and its participants have clearly displayed very high levels of sophistication (see Tan, 1998, 2006; Cabrera, 2001; Caney, 2002; Nussbaum, 2002; Hayfa, 2004; Pogge, 2004, 2006; Reidy, 2004, 2010, 2013; Wenar, 2004, 2006; Neufeld, 2005; Follesdal, 2006; Freeman, 2007a, 2007b; Avila, 2011; Taylor, 2011; Lister, 2012; Porter, 2012, to name just a few). Yet, it seems fair to say that Rawls’s is the most developed account of political liberal international toleration one can fnd in the literature. Thus, Rawls’s work will undoubtedly loom large in what follows. In fact, some readers may come to the conclusion that the book’s main concern is to offer a long and relatively detailed exegesis of the Rawlsian account of toleration, both in domestic and international political domains. There is, I concede, some truth to the latter claim. However, and I will be at pains to often remind the reader of this aspect of the book, the theory of international toleration I will try to develop over the course of this volume is, in my view, more broadly relevant than a purely exegetical concern with Rawls might suggest (important as that concern certainly is). One way to portray the manner in which the book proceeds is to say that it refects ‘about Rawls’ but also ‘with Rawls’. Put differently, the book often tries to develop new exegetical insights concerning some of the central ideas that belong to the Rawlsian corpus, especially when it comes to his domestic and international accounts of toleration. Yet, it usually does so to get a better grasp of what a sound theory of international toleration broadly inspired by a political liberal view would

Introduction

7

look like. Thus, the book is often about Rawls, but not simply, or exclusively, in order to understand what Rawls wants to tell us. What about the work of other liberal political philosophers who have approached the issue of international political diversity? As we have seen, much of the debate concerning international political pluralism has been framed as a set of disagreements concerning Rawls’s specifc proposals. Given the nature of this book, I shall extensively draw on the latter discussions in order to address specifc aspects of the theory of international toleration I set out to defend. Yet, I think Michael Blake’s (see 2002, 2013) and especially K.C. Tan’s (1998, 2000, 2005, 2006, 2011) work deserves special mention, for their efforts on the topic of international political pluralism have been, in my view, more systematic than most (but see also Altman and Wellman, 2009; Cohen, 2019). While in the book itself I shall not directly address their ideas at great length, I feel compelled to explain why that is the case. The main reason is, I think, methodological. It basically boils down to my view that the best kind of defence for any given account is to lay it out as best as one can rather than to show the faws in other authors’ work. Given that space and time are relatively scarce resources, even when it comes to a longer project, the choice between criticising a different approach and presenting one’s own should, I believe, privilege the latter over the former. Such a conclusion, to be fully clear, does not presuppose any kind of judgment about the signifcance or philosophical depth of the alternatives. Quite to the contrary, I doubt that I would have spent as much time as I have thinking about international toleration without reading Toleration, Diversity and Global Justice (Tan, 2000) or Justice & Foreign Policy (Blake, 2013). A second and related reason has to do with the kinds of conceptions of international toleration that are offered by both Tan and Blake. Without denying important differences between the two authors, and accepting that labels are often reductive and tend to run the risk of misrepresenting what they are meant to designate, both are, in my view, more easily portrayed as ‘comprehensive’ rather than ‘political’ liberals. And, in a comprehensive liberal view, toleration will often tend to play a largely derivative role when compared to more substantive (comprehensive) liberal ideals. From the perspective of this kind of comprehensive liberal view: toleration is seen as a derivative value, having significance only because of a more basic liberal moral commitment. For instance, it might be the more fundamental value of respecting the autonomy of persons that gives toleration its significance, in that one way (but not the only way) the autonomy of persons is respected is to respect their different conceptions of the good, ways of life, and their respective associations. On this conception of liberalism, in contrast to the toleration-based liberalism described above, what typifies liberalism is its commitment to protecting and even promoting the autonomy of persons, and toleration is valued because, and only in so far as, it realizes this ideal of equality of persons. We can call this account of liberalism autonomyliberalism. (Tan, 2011: 495)

8

Introduction

Even more importantly, their (Tan’s and Blake’s) views on international toleration, while they clearly allow for some measure of diversity in international political life, do so in a way that I do not fnd entirely convincing or appealing. Why? In essence because their views are anchored to an account of toleration as ‘putting up’ with something, in this case, international political diversity, for lack of prudentially and morally superior alternatives. In other words, both Tan and Blake acknowledge the possibility of international toleration, yet, at least when nonliberal societies are involved, they largely see toleration as the result of our lack of better solutions, as the best we can practically achieve in light of the constraints that real (international) politics forces upon us. Once again, Tan’s discussion of this issue is admiringly clear, for, in his view, the essential way in which liberals will necessarily approach tolerating nonliberal political communities will have to rely on what he calls a ‘common usage’ of the concept of toleration, namely, one in which toleration: mean[s] ‘putting up with’ or ‘the accommodating of ’ the object of tolerance (e.g., a way of life or pursuit) which we declare to be wrong but that which we nonetheless tolerate for lack of a better practical alternative. That is, we tolerate the object in question because we have no choice but to live with it, and to make the best we can under the circumstance. So we may condemn as wrong or unjust a given pursuit, but we are compelled to put up with it because we have no appropriate or productive means of countering it; or we feel that leaving it alone is desirable for a variety of other reasons (the wrongness of the thing in question notwithstanding), such as for the sake of peace, stability of relationship, and so on. (Tan, 2011: 490) It is important to stress that neither Tan nor Blake consider toleration of nonliberal societies to be the result of self-interested reasons, for while both do indeed acknowledge prudential reasons for not trying to suppress at least some forms of political diversity, part of the justifcation that leads them to the latter conclusion is connected to the moral risks involved in coercive international actions. Blake’s work (2013: 50–59), in fact, provides one of the best recent discussions I know of for not intervening (through sanctions or force) against at least some nonliberal societies in what we can safely call a wide array of political circumstances. This kind of ‘modest’ approach to the limits of what we can try to impose on others is, I should also add, part and parcel of what makes their views (Tan’s and Blake’s) powerful candidates for a plausible liberal account of international toleration, for, clearly, it is a sensible way of recognising that, if nothing else, trying to alter the ways in which a political community is organised is not an easy task. Especially if those who do the ‘trying’ are far from (morally and epistemically) perfect, and especially if we acknowledge that political cultures are not something one can change at will in a short period of time, or without facing signifcant unintended consequences.

Introduction

9

However, their moral and political wisdom notwithstanding, there is a clear sense in which their view of why we should tolerate some international political pluralism is contingent on the world being what it is. The pluralism that they are ready to put up with is in their view something that we have reason to regret at a very deep level. I disagree, and one of the main goals of this work is to offer an alternative picture, one in which reasonable disagreement about how to internally organise the basic structure of a political society can extend to at least a class of nonliberal and non-democratic political communities. The latter is an important point, so it is worth stressing it. The nature of my disagreement with Tan and Blake does not reside in the fact that there might be prudential reasons to tolerate some nonliberal and non-democratic societies. I think that they are right about that. I also believe, and suspect that both Tan and Blake would agree, that values such as peace and a modicum of stability in the international order would have to count for something when we decide how liberal foreign policy should be conducted. The real disagreement, I think, lies elsewhere. The real disagreement is the extent to which we can remain faithful to liberalism and, at the same time, fnd moral reasons to tolerate, in a stronger and more respectful sense of the term than the one associated with the idea of ‘putting-up with’, at least some nonliberal and non-democratic political communities. Neither Tan nor Blake would be inclined to think that we should. The goal of my work in what follows is to demonstrate that we can.

III.

Outline of the book

The overall goal of the book is to offer a coherent, and hopefully convincing, argument that (political) liberalism would permit (indeed, morally require) the toleration (for moral reasons) of at least some nonliberal and non-democratic political communities and consider those societies as members in good standing of the international order. Leaving to one side the detailed contents of each chapter, something I shall turn to shortly, the overall architecture of the book is as follows. The book explores, frst, the concept of toleration. It then offers an in-depth analysis of the relationship between a specifc aspect of practical reasoning and the political liberal conception of toleration. Subsequently, the book moves on to consider the nature of the subjects and objects of a theory of international toleration coupled with a set of good-making features that a theory of international toleration should ideally display. It then presents a candidate theory, that is, a potential exemplar of a good theory of international toleration. Finally, it shows that the candidate theory (Chapter 4), if properly reconstructed, can be coherent with the analysis of both the concept (Chapter 1) and conception (Chapter 2) of toleration developed in the frst part of the book and can ultimately display the good-making features that any attractive theory of international toleration should possess (as these are outlined in Chapter 3). The fve chapters that constitute the book are organised as follows. The book begins, in Chapter 1, by offering a general discussion of the concept of toleration.

10 Introduction

I start from the assumption that toleration requires a background of diversity to be meaningful. We would have very few occasions to think or practise toleration in a perfectly homogeneous world. I then move on to discuss what toleration is not. Toleration is not indifference. We cannot be indifferent to something that we tolerate, for to tolerate requires some form of opposition to what is tolerated. Toleration is also, and for similar reasons, not endorsement. We tolerate something we oppose at some level, and we cannot oppose something we endorse. Finally, toleration is not endurance. To tolerate requires the tolerator to be able, at the very least, to have the possibility to interfere with the object of toleration. Yet we usually cannot be said to endure what we can interfere with (provided interference is properly defned). In the second part of the chapter, I offer a positive defnition of toleration. My argumentative strategy is to start from A.J. Cohen’s defnition of the concept (2004) and use it as a foil to illustrate my specifc concerns about various elements of the general defnition of the concept. More specifcally, Parts III and IV of the chapter examine two specifc aspects of the concept of toleration that will become salient in the rest of the book. The frst is the correct interpretation of the so-called power condition that is featured in most accounts of the concept of toleration. My discussion leads me to endorse what I take to be a defnition of the power condition that is compatible with the idea of mutual toleration. Finally, I analyse the best way to model the relationship between what are usually referred to as the ‘objection’ and ‘acceptance’ components of toleration. I conclude, taking cue from the work of Rainer Forst (2013), that the best way to model such a relationship is to see it through the lens of what I call the partition model. The partition model is briefy illustrated as a model that characterises the relationship between acceptance and objection components in toleration as one dictated by a categorical distinction between different classes of reasons. The goal of Chapter 2 is to then illustrate the features of the partition model in greater detail. To do so, I start by offering what I take to be a non-controversial account of reasons, and, more specifcally, how we should understand the nature of the conficts between practical reasons. Following Raz, I introduce the idea of a second-order reason as one specifc way to distinguish the status of specifc reasons within our deliberative practices. I then move on to apply the partition model, and the Razian account of second-order reasons, to the political liberal account of toleration. The basic claim I make is that Rawlsian political liberalism can be portrayed as one of the most effective illustrations of the partition model of toleration, namely, one where the partition operated between different classes of reasons allows us to distinguish the reasons we can put forward to motivate specifc instances of the use of political power and those that are excluded. Stating the argument in compressed form we can say that, in political liberalism, the acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy by citizens implies the acceptance that they have negative second-order reasons not to consider comprehensive reasons and positive second-order reasons to only consider public reasons when they provide a justifcation for the exercise of political power over one another. Put together, Chapters 1 and 2 thus offer a detailed account of the concept of toleration and of how to best model a specifc conception of toleration, namely,

Introduction

11

the conception that is implicit in a specifc account of political liberalism. Yet, the discussion in both chapters is largely confned to how toleration is supposed to operate in the context of a domestic political society. Instead, Chapter 3 offers the initial elements of how to think about toleration in international society. It does so by providing an account of the relevant agents in the theory of international toleration. My claim is that such agents are bounded self-governing political communities understood as moral collective agents. Following Rawls, I call these agents peoples. I offer both an explanation of: a) why the theory might wish to adopt this defnition of the relevant agents; b) the specifc meaning of each single aspect of the defnition; and c) the functional role that these different parts of the defnition of the agents in question would play in a theory of international toleration. Finally, in the last part of the chapter, I put forward what I take to be the most important desiderata that a theory of international toleration should be able to satisfy. Briefy stated, such desiderata are: a) that the theory be constrained by the liberal commitment to normative individualism; b) that it be compatible with mutual respect between those who tolerate and those who are tolerated and also compatible with their integrity; and fnally c) that its scope (i.e. which agents it ends up suggesting we should tolerate) be broader than liberal democratic peoples alone. The chapter is thus largely meta-theoretical but allows us to better defne both the subjects, the objects, and the good-making features of a theory of international toleration. While Chapter 3, as we have seen, largely discusses meta-theoretical concerns related to the development of a sound theory of international toleration, Chapter 4 presents what I call a candidate theory. The candidate theory is an original reconstruction of Rawls’s account of international toleration as developed in the second part of his The Law of Peoples (1999). More specifcally, in the chapter, I argue in favour of what I take to be a novel interpretation of Rawls’s view based on the idea of supporting for the right reasons a conception of international justice. In the process, I reject two of the main alternative readings that are implicit in much of the literature on Rawls’s account of international toleration. These accounts usually rely on the idea that what we can call the criteria of decency, namely, the normative features of decent peoples generally, are central (that is, suffcient) to explain why we should tolerate decent peoples, or at best combine such criteria with the notion of well-orderedness to explain why we should tolerate decent political regimes. Instead, my claim revisits the role of the criteria of decency by arguing that a necessary and suffcient condition for tolerating decent peoples is that they endorse for the right reasons a liberal political conception of international justice. In this picture, the criteria of decency are largely to be understood as an account of the minimal necessary conditions that a people must meet in order for us to believe that it can genuinely comply for the right reasons with the Rawlsian (liberal) account of international justice. In the chapter, I also devote signifcant attention to the content of the liberal political conception of international justice developed in The Law of Peoples, namely, the eight principles that liberal peoples select in the frst international original position. My main reason to do so is to explain why even internally liberal peoples would select a conception of international justice that does

12 Introduction

not require every political society to be internally organised as a liberal democratic polity and why this conclusion would follow from the very interests of liberal peoples properly understood. Chapter 4 suggests that my original reconstruction of the Rawlsian account of international toleration is a candidate theory. More specifcally, the claim should be understood as follows – that the revisited Rawlsian view would: a) be compatible with the concept of toleration developed in Chapter 1 of the book; b) implicitly provide an extension of the partition model of toleration as developed in Chapter 2 to the domain of international society; and c) be able to meet the desiderata or good-making features of a theory of international toleration as these are laid out in Chapter 3. The task of Chapter 5 is then to show that the interpretation of Rawls’s work offered in Chapter 4 can achieve the three aforementioned goals. My argumentative strategy in Chapter 5 is as follows. I start by showing that we can (subject to specifc constraints) generalise the liberal principle of legitimacy and thus that the validity of such a principle may not be exclusively tied to the original political domain for which it was developed. I then go on to show that the distinction between public and non-public reasons is domain-sensitive, that is, what counts as a public reason changes according to the political domain under consideration (once again, subject to specifc constraints). In Part III of the chapter, I then outline the way in which the central insight in my novel interpretation of Rawls’s work in Chapter 4 can be illuminated by the more general version of the partition model as developed in Parts I and II of Chapter 5. The chapter ends by showing that the international version of the partition model (and thus the theory of international toleration developed in Chapter 4 and in the frst three parts of Chapter 5) can meet the desiderata developed in Chapter 3 of the book. Finally, allow me two comments. The frst concerns what the book does not address. No book, needless to say, can address every aspect of a given topic, yet many a reader will legitimately complain that the present volume does not seem to have signifcant points of contact with existing political reality. Put differently, in this book, there is no real attempt to analyse the way in which an account of international toleration would allow us to effectively or concretely shape the foreign policy of a liberal democratic polity or, more broadly, inform our practical decisions on how to deal with specifc instances of political pluralism in the international order. This is a decision I have taken in light of two main reasons. The frst reason is that the book as it currently stands is already long and covers a substantial amount of theoretical ground. The second reason is that I have tried to give more practical guidance elsewhere on how the general approach to international toleration I am defending here might be used in a foreign policy-making context (see especially Maffettone, 2016; Coakley and Maffettone, 2017). The second comment concerns a more ‘formal’ aspect of the book. This work contains no footnotes. This is a conscious (and, at times, painful) decision. As a mentor and friend once told me: ‘if it is important, it should be in the text, if it is not, then, you probably don’t need it’. Whether he was conclusively right about footnotes is not something I shall try to establish, but I have decided to follow his advice.

Introduction

13

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14 Introduction

Kymlicka, W. (2001), Contemporary Political Philosophy: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Larmore, C. (1987), Patterns of Moral Complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Larmore, C. (1990), “Political Liberalism”, Political Theory, 18 (3), 339–360. Larmore, C. (1996), The Morals of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lister, M.J. (2012), “There Is No Human Right to Democracy: But May We Promote It Anyway?”, Stanford Journal of International Law, 48 (2), 257–276. Maffettone, P. (2016), “Benevolent Absolutisms, Incentives, and Rawls’ the Law of Peoples”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 15 (4), 379–404. Mandle, J. (2006), Global Justice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Miller, D. (2007), National Responsibility and Global Justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Moellendorf, D. (2016), “Global Distributive Justice: The Cosmopolitan Point of View”, in Held, D. & Maffettone, P. (eds.), Global Political Theory. London: Polity Press. Neufeld, B. (2005), “Civic Respect, Political Liberalism, and Nonliberal Societies”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 4 (3), 275–299. Nussbaum, M. (2002), “Women and the Law of Peoples”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 1 (3), 283–306. Pogge, T. (2004), “The Incoherence between Rawls’s Theories of Justice”, Fordham Law Review, 72 (5), 1739–1759. Pogge, T. (2006), “Do Rawls’s Two Theories of Justice Fit Together?”, in Martin, R. & Reidy, D. (eds.), Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 206–225. Porter, T. (2012), “Rawls, Reasonableness, and International Toleration”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 11 (4), 382–414. Rawls, J. (1971/1999), A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (1996), Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Rawls, J. (1999), The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reidy, D. (2004), “Rawls on International Justice: A Defense”, Political Theory, 32 (3), 291–319. Reidy, D. (2010), “Human Rights and Liberal Toleration”, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 23 (2), 287–317. Reidy, D. (2013), “Cosmopolitanism: Liberal and Otherwise”, in Brock, G. (ed.), Cosmopolitanism versus Non-Cosmopolitanism: Critiques Defenses, Reconceptualizations. New York: Oxford University Press. Risse, M. (2012), Global Political Philosophy. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Scheffer, S. (1994), “The Appeal of Political Liberalism”, Ethics, 105 (1), 4–22. Siaroff, A. (2013), Comparing Political Regimes: A Thematic Introduction to Comparative Politics. 3rd ed. Toronto: Toronto University Press. Tan, K. (1998), “Liberal Toleration in Rawls’s Law of Peoples”, Ethics 108 (2), 276–295; 669–696. Tan, K. (2000), Toleration, Diversity, and Global Justice. University Park, PA: Penn State Press. Tan, K. (2005), “International Toleration: Rawlsian vs. Cosmopolitan”, Leiden Journal of International Law, 18 (4), 685–710. Tan, K. (2006), “The Problem of Decent Peoples”, in Martin, R. & Reidy, D. (eds.), Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 76–94. Tan, K. (2011), “Two Conceptions of Liberal Global Toleration”, The Monist, 94 (4), 489–505. Taylor, R.S. (2011), Reconstructing Rawls: The Kantian Foundations of Justice as Fairness. University Park, PA: Penn State Press. Waldron, J. (1987), “Theoretical Foundations of Liberalism”, The Philosophical Quarterly, 37 (147), 127–150. Wenar, L. (2004), “The Unity of Rawls’s Work”, Journal of Moral Philosophy, 1 (3), 265–275. Wenar, L. (2006), “Why Rawls Is Not a Cosmopolitan Egalitarian”, in Martin, R. & Reidy, D. (eds.), Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 95–113.

1 ON TOLERATION Concept and conceptions

Introduction Toleration is a diffcult concept. Some would say that it is an essentially contested one (Gallie, 1955; Horton and Mendus, 1985). Thus, no study of toleration can even hope to get off the ground unless some form of conceptual analysis is performed. This is for two distinct reasons. The frst is that to defne one’s terms is an accepted practice within normative political philosophy. Unless a term is defned with some level of precision, we perpetually run the risk of talking past each other. The second and related reason is that the essentially contested nature of the concept means that normative disagreements about the nature of the theory presented in this book would soon be, in the absence of a clear defnition, turned into semantic ones. Yet, normative political philosophy is more interesting and more meaningful when disagreements are about normative issues rather than defnitional ones. The concept of toleration has a long history, not just a controversial meaning (see Forst, 2013; Mendus, 1989). From Augustin to Locke, Bayle, Voltaire, and Mill, toleration has been central in debates concerning the approach that secular and religious authorities should have towards their subjects. From freedom of conscience to the limits of government action, the idea of toleration has occupied centre stage in much of the classics of political philosophy. Toleration is particularly relevant for liberal political morality (see Fitzmaurice, 1993; Kukathas, 2003; Waldron and Williams, 2008; Bican, 2010; Bejan, 2017; see also Muldoon et al., 2011). Some would go as far as saying that no political philosophy can be called liberal unless it contains some kind of account of the idea of toleration. To be liberal is just to be committed to some form of toleration (Williams, 1998). There is no denying that the concept of toleration has a long and distinguished intellectual pedigree and one that is particularly closely intertwined with the liberal tradition broadly construed. Nonetheless, the approach I will take in this chapter will not offer an account of toleration in different historical contexts. In other words, I will not delve, interesting

16 On toleration

and rewarding as that task certainly is, into the meanings that toleration has been assigned by the classics in the canon of political philosophy, nor shall I endeavour to trace the historical evolution of the concept through different social and political settings. This is not, I would hasten to stress, to signal that the latter kinds of inquiries are less relevant intellectually speaking. To the contrary, they often are useful prolegomena to a conceptual analysis that can claim to offer guidance into the idea of toleration itself. Rather, my choice is dictated by a matter of relative priority and of comparative advantage. By relative priority, I refer to the fact that the goal of this book is to offer a credible (moral) theory of international toleration. Its main aim, then, is not to trace the origin of the concept, nor to investigate how the way in which the concept is used today compares to how it was used in the past. Instead, the point, in this work, is to offer an account of how the concept should be used for it to play the role that I intend for it to play within the theory of international toleration I will put forward in the rest of the book. The argument from a comparative advantage, borrowing from Ricardian terminology, is that I am a political philosopher, not a historian of ideas. My ‘regard’ on a concept is analytical and often oriented to the kinds of normative conclusions that can be drawn in a given domain. Others are thus much better equipped, and in fact have done so extensively, to address the intellectual history of the idea of toleration. In economic life, Adam Smith has taught us that self-suffciency is the road to poverty. The same holds, for most people, when it comes to intellectual journeys. The chapter has four parts. In the frst part, I start by discussing what toleration is not. Part I starts from the assumption that toleration requires a background of diversity to be meaningful (see Galeotti, 2002). We would have very few occasions to think about or practise toleration in a perfectly homogeneous world. Toleration is not indifference. We cannot be indifferent to something that we tolerate, for to tolerate requires some form of opposition to what is tolerated. Toleration is also, and for similar reasons, not endorsement. We tolerate something we oppose at some level, and we cannot oppose something we endorse. Finally, toleration is not endurance. To tolerate requires the tolerator to be able, at the very least, to have the possibility to interfere with the object of toleration (more on this later). Yet, we usually cannot be said to (unintentionally) endure what we can interfere with (provided that interference is properly defned). In the second part of the chapter, I move on to discuss a positive defnition of the concept. My approach to the latter task is to start from what I consider to be the most sophisticated contemporary analytical defnition of the concept, the one offered by Andrew Jason Cohen (2004). My goal, however, is not to simply adopt Cohen’s defnition. Instead, I proceed by using Cohen’s defnition as a signpost against which I discuss my specifc views of the formal components of the concept. Cohen defnes toleration as ‘an agent’s intentional and principled refraining from interfering with an opposed other (or their behavior, etc.) in situations of diversity, where the agent believes she has the power to interfere’ (2004: 69). This defnition can be formally decomposed into eight distinct parts. I go through all of them. Beyond the details of my analysis, the central aspects of the concept I wish to

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highlight are the relevance of the proper interpretation of the ideas of opposition, power, and interference. By highlighting the contentious nature of the aforementioned ideas, I lay the foundations for the fnal two parts of the chapter. In Part III, I discuss the best interpretation of the idea of interference and its relationship with the power condition. In Part IV, I move on to discuss the nature of the opposition component in toleration and its relationship with the acceptance component. I remark, following the contemporary literature on toleration, that there is a tension within the very idea of toleration (King, 1976). This tension, which I take to be one of the fundamental tensions connected to the concept, is between the opposition component of toleration and the fact that, ultimately, for toleration to take place the tolerator needs to have reasons to accept the tolerated act, belief, or state of affairs. I remark that this tension is at its starkest when the nature of the reasons to oppose and to accept a given act, belief, or state of affairs belongs to the same domain of reasons and thus when we have, at least prima facie, no clear priority rule to establish their relationship. I then go on to discuss three different models that can explain how to resolve this tension. I call these the balancing, perceptual, and partition models, respectively. I criticise the frst two as inadequate and endorse the third in its general form. Finally, note that, notwithstanding the differences concerning the respective object(s) of analysis, Parts III and IV have something in common. Looked at from a higher vantage point, they both feature discussions of the role that a given ‘conception’ of toleration can play in infuencing our understanding of the very concept itself. This is the reason that explains why the chapter’s title refers both to ‘concept’ and ‘conceptions’.

I.

What toleration is not

Conceptual analysis is diffcult. Conceptual analysis of the idea of toleration is no exception to this general rule. One plausible way to start with our task is to begin from what toleration is not (Cohen, 2004). More specifcally, I shall start from what we might be tempted to portray as toleration and yet does not count as toleration. The purpose of this kind of exercise is to demarcate the outer boundaries of the concept. To start with what toleration ‘is not’, however, does not entail that one is prohibited from drawing on intuitions about the concept of toleration in order to contrast toleration with something else. Some would go as far as claiming that to know what toleration is not, we need to know what toleration is. I disagree. A fruitful and more parsimonious way forward is to keep to a minimum what we claim to be true about toleration in order to draw clear contrasts with what toleration is not. The contrasts I shall draw in the frst part of the chapter, I should hasten to add, are familiar within the toleration literature (see, for example, Galeotti, 2014). The point of rehearsing them is thus not to break new (conceptual) ground but rather to start from some of the considered convictions we have about the differences that exist between toleration and other related ideas. Before I proceed with the latter task, I shall make one important assumption about the boundaries of my enquiry. The assumption is that toleration characterises

18 On toleration

an attitude towards diversity of some kind. In the absence of diversity, there would be no occasion to think about toleration, much less to exercise it. I employ the term ‘diversity’ very broadly. Diversity can here be taken to refer to, among other things, social diversity, political or ideological diversity, cultural diversity, aesthetic diversity, and so on. Note that the assumption in question is weak. A perfectly homogeneous world might give us no occasion to think about or practise toleration, and yet we are unlikely to ever experience that kind of world. We might experience, and in fact do experience or have experienced, synchronically, or diachronically, many instances of suppression of diversity. That is perfectly compatible with the idea that some form of diversity is a pre-requisite to think about or practise toleration. So, what should we not confuse toleration with? It is often tempting to portray our indifference to the world around us as a feature of a tolerant attitude. I see people speaking on the phone in the street, I hear music coming from inside a passing car, I notice that the waiter at my usual coffee place has changed his eyeglasses. None of this exercises me. I simply move on. Here, I am indifferent to these actions; I am not tolerating them. Indifference suggests the absence of negative judgment concerning the actions or agents to which one is indifferent, something that seems incompatible with toleration. Why are we often tempted to equate toleration and indifference? One reason is that in a liberal society, growing indifference to social diversity might actually constitute evidence of the cultural work done by an education to toleration. Put differently, in a liberal society, people might become, over time, more accustomed to different ways of life, and this gradual process of habituation might induce or generate indifference to diversity. Nonetheless, in line with common usage, we cannot tolerate something to which we are not opposed. Toleration should also be distinguished from endorsement. I endorse religious freedom; I do not tolerate it. I endorse diversity in sexual orientation; I do not tolerate it. I endorse the equality and emancipation of women; I do not tolerate it. More broadly, if my attitudes to some forms of diversity are positive, then I cannot be said to tolerate them. Once again, toleration requires opposition, and I cannot be opposed to something I endorse. Note how the work of an opposition component within the concept explains the difference between toleration, indifference, and endorsement of diversity. For the time being, consider toleration as an attitude towards an agent or an action. How can we characterise that attitude? One suggestion is that the conceptual space is exhausted by a tripartite division between indifference, positive attitude, and negative attitude. The claim here is that toleration can only take place when some form of negative attitude or opposition is present. Going back to endorsement of diversity, why might we be tempted to equate toleration with endorsement of diversity? Here. too, I believe, the temptation arises from our familiarity with present-day liberal societies. Liberal societies are often characterised by deep forms of, among others, social, cultural, political, and aesthetic diversity. The fact that we can see different ways of life co-existing within a liberal society may lead one to believe that such a society is a tolerant one. And, in turn, to the extent that one identifes with the co-existence of these different ways of life, one might believe that one is identifying with a tolerant society and

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thus is tolerant in some sense. However, note that to claim that a society is tolerant because different ways of life co-exist within it is either an inconclusive statement or a question-begging one. It is question-begging because it presupposes a fuller defnition of toleration. It is almost certainly inconclusive, for we would need to know how and why these different ways of life co-exist in order to know if that society is a tolerant one. Finally, toleration is not endurance. If your boss is unpleasant in some way and you decide not to do anything about her unpleasantness, you are not necessarily tolerating her behaviour. If you are in jail and solid bars prevent you from exiting your cell, you are not tolerating your predicament of unfreedom. If a thief threatens you at gunpoint, and you decide to part company with your wallet as a result, you are not tolerating his actions. In all the aforementioned situations, you are most probably enduring the behaviour of the other agent and/or the circumstances in which you happen to fnd yourself. You are, ex hypothesis, opposed to the circumstances and forms of behaviour in question. Yet, while opposition, as we have just seen, is a necessary condition for toleration to take place, it is not a suffcient one. The shared presence of an opposition component in both toleration and endurance might, in fact, be the source of the potential confusion between the two. The reason why toleration and endurance are not one and the same will, thus, have to lie elsewhere. Where, then? A moment’s refection will suggest that one of the features of endurance does not allow the ‘enduring’ agent to exercise restraint vis-à-vis something that they judge negatively. Stated differently, we usually have the intuition that toleration coincides with some form of restraint where the opposition component that the tolerating agent experiences will not disappear but, in some fashion to be determined, will be overridden by something else. The process by which this form of ‘overriding’ takes place will be the object of a longer discussion next, yet for the time being we can say that a tolerator will exercise restraint vis-à-vis what it tolerates and that the exercise of this restraint suggests the possibility of not exercising the restraint in question, which, in turn, seems incompatible with the idea of enduring something. Let us take stock. Toleration, I have argued, presupposes the existence of some form of diversity. Toleration, I have also argued, is not indifference, nor endorsement, nor is it endurance. Furthermore, I have claimed that we have some strong intuitions, which partly explain what toleration is not, about the fact that toleration requires the tolerating agent to be opposed to what it tolerates and that it requires the possibility that this opposition be the object of an exercise of restraint on the part of the agent. These conclusions, however, leave many questions open. A more positive defnition of toleration is required to fll the gaps. This is what I turn to in the next section.

II. Toleration: a positive defnition I shall start my discussion of the concept of toleration by drawing on what is, to my knowledge, the most sophisticated conceptual analysis of the idea, the one provided

20 On toleration

by Andrew Jason Cohen (2004; see also Cohen, 2014, 2018). It is important to stress that my purpose or goal here is not to simply endorse Cohen’s account (though, to be clear, I largely agree with his views on the nature of the concept); rather Cohen’s defnition allows us to more transparently see the different elements that one might fnd relevant to a fne-grained analysis of the concept. Put differently, his view will provide a benchmark or sign post for the discussion that follows. Cohen’s defnition has eight distinct elements and can be formalised in the following way: an act of toleration is (1) an agent’s (2) intentional and (3) principled (4) refraining from interfering with (5) an opposed (6) other (or their behavior, etc.) (7) in situations of diversity, where (8) the agent believes she has the power to interfere. (2004: 78–79) I shall discuss them in turn. The frst part of the defnition suggests that toleration should be exercised by an agent. This may sound rather trivial, but it is important to note that ‘agent’ is not employed as a generic substitute for ‘natural person’. An agent can be a company, a government, a person, and so on as long as we can attribute some form of agential capacity to it. One’s social ontology may push them to believe that the actions of a government are always reducible to the actions of specifc politicians, that the actions of a company be reducible to the actions of a given employee, and so on (see List and Pettit, 2011 for a critique). I fnd the latter view implausible but cannot discuss it here. For now, I shall simply assume that it need not be ‘necessarily’ confned to natural persons. The second element of the defnition is that toleration needs to be intentional. This may sound like an even more trivial point, but it does signal something relevant, conceptually speaking, namely, that tolerating someone or something requires awareness of what others are doing and of one’s decision to have a certain attitude towards those agents and/or their actions. The upshot is that we cannot tolerate by mistake or unwittingly. The third element in the defnition is that toleration requires a principled justifcation. This is an important feature of the concept of toleration. That toleration should be principled immediately raises two kinds of questions. The frst is: what do we mean to say when we say that a form of action or inaction should be principled? The second is: what are, if any, the restrictions on the nature of the principles in question? That toleration needs to be principled simply means, in my interpretation, that reasons can be offered for the decision to tolerate. This much is not very controversial. What is more controversial is what those reasons can be. This is a diffcult issue. Cohen himself suggests that the only principled reasons that can offer a plausible justifcation are respect for the object of toleration or valuing toleration (or one of its components) for its own sake. Thus, he claims that toleration requires a justifcation based on some kind of value, and he specifes what the relevant values are. That may be the case. I shall not take a stand here. What seems relevant to me

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is that the values in question cannot be just any values. I might, following Gardner (1993), value pain in others. But if I tolerate your actions because I think that by so doing you shall suffer more as a result of how I predict events to unfold, then this is not an instance of toleration. So, not just any principle or value (and thus reasons) will do. And clearly enough, some candidates are much more plausible than others. However, I am not sure we need to say more than this. At least, I do not intend to; for to defne the ‘space’ in question in a more fne-grained way inevitably, it seems to me, leads us closer to discussing a specifc conception of toleration rather than the concept itself. There is clearly no issue in so doing, and yet, at least for the purposes of my analysis in this part of the chapter, I shall refrain from saying more about this specifc point. Elements four, fve, six, and seven I have already discussed earlier in passing, and, later, I will have something to say about element eight. Toleration necessitates a background of diversity to be a meaningful concern; it requires opposition and that the tolerating agent refrains from interfering with the tolerated agent or behaviour (which itself requires that the agent had the possibility to interfere). What can we add about these elements? I shall try to say more about all of them. First, consider diversity. In the preceding section, I have intentionally defned diversity in a very wide fashion. The reason for doing so, in my view, is that toleration should not be thought to be the relevant concept only when we are in a specifc kind of context. More precisely, toleration is not confned to issues relevant to political philosophers. To a person with a (political) hammer, everything looks like a (political) nail, but that is defnitely not a good recipe for conceptual analysis. I can tolerate the fact that my neighbour inundates my house with barbecue fumes. Yet, leaving aside my views about vegetarianism, there seems to be nothing particularly political about my decision to tolerate. Nor, as the barbecue example illustrates, does toleration need to be about important and/or life-changing issues. It might, but it need not be. That said, we will often be interested in toleration when something relevant is at stake. And, as political philosophers, we might very well be more interested when toleration pertains to issues that are central to a political society, such as, for example, religious diversity. Conceptual analysis, after all, is seldom, at least for most political philosophers, an independently valuable activity carried out for its own sake. Second, consider opposition. That I am opposed to something is a very broad characterisation of my attitude toward that something, and, even more importantly, it does not tell you much about the nature of my opposition. I may be opposed to matching black belts and brown shoes on aesthetic grounds (I really am), while I may be opposed to eating meat on moral grounds. These are two different kinds of opposition. At the very least, we can categorise the opposition component of toleration as either based on moral or non-moral reasons. The justifcation for this distinction is that some have argued that only moral opposition should count when it comes to toleration. As the shoes and belt example shows (i.e. given that I do think that it is a genuine instance of toleration), I disagree. A potential solution is to reserve the expression ‘moral toleration’ for instances of toleration where the opposition component is moral in nature. In any case, I see no particular (conceptual)

22 On toleration

gain in sight by adding a qualifer to the word toleration. That said, much the same applies here to what I have remarked about the nature of the relevant diversity. That we might tolerate things we oppose on trivial grounds should not blind us to the reality that the (normative) action will often, most often, lie elsewhere, especially in the context of political philosophical discussions. Third, consider the idea of refraining from interference. The latter, too, is very broad. More specifcally, one needs, at the very least, to offer some characterisation of what constitutes interference of the relevant sort. Am I interfering in the relevant way with your decision to eat that second slice of cassata if I point out to you that too much sugar is bad for your health? Am I interfering with your plans if you ask me for a ride to an unpleasantly loud dance club and I refuse? The list of questions could go on. My sense is that, however, one relatively coarse distinction might very well be all that is needed. Following Cohen, I shall not consider attempts at rational persuasion to ‘generally’ constitute relevant forms of interference. Note, though, that attempts at rational persuasion might or might not count as a relevant form of interference, depending on the nature and source of the attempt in question. This is an issue that will become relevant in the next chapters, yet, for the time being, consider the following example. Is offcial encouragement in the form of, say, a moral condemnation to abandon a given religious (perfectly legal) practice or belief by state authorities a form of interference? The answer, I think, is that it depends. It depends on, for example, whether we think that an offcial intervention of this kind (to which no action follows) is an attempt at rational persuasion. Leaving aside the ‘concept’ of toleration and moving to a specifc ‘conception’ of toleration, furthermore, might reveal some forms of rational persuasion (if indeed offcial state condemnation is an instance of rational persuasion) as incompatible with the general structure of the conception of toleration one adopts (i.e. of why we should tolerate certain things). So, when, for example, political liberals condemn the use of non-public reasoning by judges or public offcials, they do so even if those offcials and judges do not necessarily act upon those non-public reasons, and they do so because non-public reasoning in offcial speech would be incompatible with a conception of toleration based on the acceptance of reasonable pluralism and equal respect for persons. (I will discuss this issue extensively in the next chapter.) A member of the government might publicly declare not to like the beliefs of a specifc religious minority based on his religious views and yet accept that it would be inappropriate, given the laws of the country and his duty to comply and uphold them, to act on such views. Political liberals would see the latter as a violation of the duty of civility and of the requirements of public reason. And we can add that they would not celebrate this instance of offcial speech as a form of the relevant (normatively correct) view of toleration. That said, it might still count as an instance of toleration as part of the general concept. Let us now delve slightly deeper into the discussion of interference. What is the meaning of the verb ‘to interfere’? This issue may strike the reader as irrelevant, but it turns out to be normatively signifcant (more on this later). Interfering might be understood in two different ways. At one end of the spectrum,‘to interfere’ seems to

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be close to ‘to prevent’. Synonyms to this specifc sense of the term ‘interfere’ would be ‘to impede’,‘to obstruct’,‘to hamper’, and so on. A second understanding of the word is closer to ‘to intervene’ or ‘to intrude’. Thus, the potential spectrum of the meaning of ‘to interfere’ seems to be relatively wide and ranges from simply getting involved in a given situation to preventing something from being the case. Now, if we accept Cohen’s view that rational dialogue does not count as a relevant form of interference, then we can at least say that the meaning of ‘to interfere’ adopted in the defnition excludes at least some of the meanings associated to what we can call the ‘weak side’ of the range of meanings we usually attribute to it. A more diffcult question pertains to whether ‘to interfere’ can be strictly equated with ‘to prevent’. My sense is that the answer is ‘no’. If we thought that to interfere and to prevent are one and the same thing, then one would have to conclude that interference should always in some sense be successful in order to count as such. I don’t fnd that plausible. However, note that rejecting the equation of interference and prevention is compatible with the fact that interference ‘may’ cause something not to happen or be the case; my interference may, but is not required to, in order to count as an instance of interference, lead you not to take the action you intended to take. For now, let us proceed as follows. Let us divide the spectrum of meanings of ‘to interfere’ into three different views. The frst we shall call the ‘very capacious view’ of the meaning, the second the ‘moderately capacious view’, and the third the ‘restrictive view’. The very capacious view ranges over all the meanings of ‘to interfere’ we have discussed. I leave that view aside, for we have seen that at least some forms of interference do not qualify as relevant when it comes to toleration (i.e. assuming that at least some attempts at rational persuasion are a form of weak interference). The restrictive view of the spectrum equates interference with prevention or something synonymous with it. I have rejected this view on conceptual grounds. I will return to the strict view later when I discuss the normative implications of how we understand interference and power within a defnition of toleration. The moderate part of the spectrum rejects the strict identifcation of interference with prevention but allows that, for example, interference may signifcantly alter the costs of a given action or prevent it altogether. The moderately capacious view is thus, in many respects, more ecumenical than the restrictive view, even if not uncontroversial. Element six in Cohen’s defnition refers to ‘an opposed other (or their behavior, etc.)’. Simply stated, the idea is, as Cohen himself notes, that there must be something that is tolerated. If toleration has to occur, we need an object of toleration. The relevant, and far less obvious, question is what exactly can be an object of toleration. We can tolerate acts and beliefs. That much seems relatively uncontroversial. Less obviously, we might also say that we tolerate a state of affairs. Though some will inevitably be drawn to the conclusion that when we tolerate a state of affairs, we actually tolerate an agent, a belief, or an action that has led to, or in some sense describes, the state of affairs in question. When A tolerates the fact that her house is dirty (and assuming this is not her fault), she tolerates a state of affairs, but

24 On toleration

we might just think that she is tolerating the actions of those who left the house dirty. Things can become more complex, though. If B is appalled by the racism of her society, there certainly is a sense in which she is opposed to those who are primarily responsible for this state of affairs (i.e. racist members of her society). But B could also feel particularly aggravated by the structural racist elements in the basic institutions (formal and informal) of her political community. Perhaps these structures are the result of a historical heritage of racism. And we can certainly imagine B to interfere with the racism of her society without necessarily interfering with the behaviour or beliefs (at least not directly) of racist citizens. She could, for example, entertain egalitarian relationships and offer fair terms of employment to discriminated minorities. She might, furthermore, be particularly troubled by the consequences of racism for the dignity and well-being of those who are its victims, rather than concerned about attributing blame to perpetrators. Whether or not this is a morally sound view need not detain us; what seems relevant is that there is nothing incoherent about the idea. We can also tolerate social practices, for example, the fact that women often wear white dresses symbolising purity when getting married (a rather sexist view). Some will in fact argue that the use of ‘state of affairs’ I have employed in the previous paragraph is better captured by the idea of social practices. The central question, however, is not a terminological one. Whether we refer to social practices or to a state of affairs, the main point is that we can tolerate something even if we cannot really trace the origin or responsibility of that something to the actions or beliefs of a specifc agent. We can, fnally, tolerate agents. Some would argue that when we tolerate agents, we are in fact tolerating what they do or believe. However, as Cohen notes, this is not necessarily the case, for we can certainly think of tolerant racists: that is, racists who tolerate those whom they hate but who hate a given class of people precisely because they are members of that class. These racists are tolerating a racial group as a group (Cohen, 2004: 91). We can thus tolerate agents, but can we tolerate corporate or collective agents (or even groups)? In line with what I have stated earlier, my sense is that the answer is clearly yes (for an excellent discussion see Zuolo, 2013; see also Bessone, Calder and Zuolo, 2014). So, when we will speak of international toleration, in Chapter 3, I shall argue that it makes sense to think that a people might tolerate another people in international society. Note, however, that while there is a strong conceptual difference between accepting the idea of group agents or not accepting it, the difference between the two approaches need not be morally central. To say that people A tolerates people B (call it description 1 of a potential occurrence of toleration), or to say that citizens of people A tolerate citizens of people B (call it description 2 of a potential occurrence of toleration), might not really be signifcantly different from a moral point of view (here I refer to the two descriptions), for one might be more interested in what is tolerated and why. Differences in social ontologies are surely important, and I shall try to clearly state when they become relevant, but they do not seem to alter the range of moral cases to which toleration, as a concept, can

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be applied, or at least, not necessarily. Note also that, accepting the idea of group agency, we can still think that many instances of toleration within the political domain are not instances of toleration of groups by groups. They might be, but they need not be. Citizens can tolerate one another as individual citizens, for the beliefs they have as members of certain groups are, for example, still their beliefs as individuals. Consider, now, the idea that an agent, as stated by Cohen’s defnition, must ‘believe she has the power to interfere’. In the previous part of the chapter, I have argued that toleration is not endurance given that when we endure something we cannot refrain from interfering, for, generally, when we endure something, we have no option to interfere and thus no opportunity to refrain from doing so. This is the so-called ‘power condition’; a key feature of all defnitions of toleration. Note, frst, that the power condition and the reference to interference are intimately connected but distinct. That I have the power to do something usually indicates that I can do that thing (I have the possibility or the opportunity to do it), but not what that thing is (see Morriss, 2002 for a discussion). In this case, the power is a power to interfere with the object of toleration, given the defnition of interference I have given earlier. Both elements are conceptually important for toleration requires the absence of some kind of interference and yet, as the power condition states, it is not simply endurance and thus also requires the presence of some kind of possibility to interfere. Finally, note that Cohen’s defnition is couched in terms of a belief that one has the power to interfere. The power to interfere and the belief that one has the power to interfere are clearly different. I have often entertained the belief that I was not going to gain weight as a result of my fondness for fried calamari, but a glance at the scale might have revealed that, alas, the belief was mistaken, and that I was in fact gaining weight. Trivially, that I believe something to be the case does not make it the case (alas, no matter how intensely one believes it). Why would we want to couch the defnition of the power condition in terms of ‘beliefs’? And what does our doing so imply? These are important questions that deserve to be more fully discussed. I turn to them in the next section of the chapter.

III.

The power condition and interference

In the previous section of the chapter, I have discussed, in passing, two important issues: the meaning of interference and the nature of the power condition. I have also argued that the meaning of interference and the nature of the power condition bear on how we understand toleration in ways that are relevant beyond a purely conceptual analysis. Interference, I have argued, should be understood as a spectrum that goes from a moderate to a more restrictive understanding of the term. Previously, I have rejected what I called the restrictive view. Yet, note that my rejection was based on conceptual grounds and fundamentally depended on accepting the use of the term ‘interfering’ in Cohen’s defnition. If we relax that assumption, then we can think in terms of the following question: should we use the verb ‘to interfere’ (understood according to the moderately capacious view as defned earlier) or the

26 On toleration

verb ‘to prevent’ (here not as a synonym for ‘to interfere’, but in its standard usage) in a defnition of toleration? I think that this is a legitimate question. When it comes to the ‘power condition’ I have remarked that one can understand the idea of having the ‘power to interfere’ in at least two different ways. The frst is to conceive the idea of the ‘power to interfere’ as ‘having the actual power to interfere’. The second is to conceive of the power condition subjunctively (this was Cohen’s suggestion). If we consider the condition in its subjunctive form, then we defne it as ‘the belief that one has the power to interfere’. Clearly the two defnitions, as I have already observed, are different. What changes, beyond the confnes of a conceptual analysis, if we select either of the interpretations of the options related to our understanding of power and interference? Since I have contrasted two meanings for each of the two ideas, the possible combinations available to us are to be conceptualised as the elements of a two-by-two matrix. We thus have four possible interpretations available to us, as shown in Table 1.1. Now, consider the following question: how, exactly, should we select among the four available options? On conceptual grounds, my sense is that T4 is the best candidate. One of the virtues of T4 is that it is in many ways the most capacious of the four options, at least insofar as I have defned them, and yet it is not vacuous or indeterminate. It is the most capacious of the available options for the simple reason that the other three can be understood as special cases of T4, for example, if the belief concerning the power to interfere is true, or when interference successfully prevents something from happening (loosely speaking). Now, many would be, and in fact are, tempted by the idea that the only plausible way to distinguish toleration from endurance is to accept T1 (or perhaps, more weakly, T2). My intuition is that this solution would be too blunt. One can have the power to signifcantly alter the cost of a given action, or of holding a specifc belief, without necessarily having the power to prevent the action and alter the belief in question. Not doing so, refraining from exercising the power to signifcantly alter the cost of an action, for example, still strikes me as compatible with the idea of toleration, though, of course, some would claim that if the cost alteration is dramatic, then the choices determined by it are not free in the relevant sense, and thus that it is an instance of prevention. I cannot address this point here for it would take us too far from our central concern, namely, the concept of toleration. TABLE 1.1 The meaning of the power condition

Non-subjunctive power condition

Subjunctive power condition

Interference replaced by prevention

T1

T2

Interference as the moderately capacious view

T3

T4

Source: Compiled by author

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I have endorsed T4. That said, I think it is worth dwelling on these four options for a moment. How do they differ from a normative perspective? My sense is that the four options can be taken as a proxy for what I shall call the level of asymmetry between tolerated and tolerator. In other words, the four options can be taken to portray four different levels of power asymmetry (or asymmetry, for short) between tolerated and tolerator. More precisely, and to the extent that we consider toleration synchronically (i.e. at a given point in time), I believe that T1 defnes the strongest form of asymmetry between tolerated agent and tolerator, while T4 defnes the weakest possible form of asymmetry. In fact, we might go as far as saying that T4 is compatible with no asymmetry whatsoever. What about T2 and T3? The general answer is that they are not easily compared without further knowledge about the specifc case at hand. The slightly more precise answer is that the comparison should be understood as parametric, with the relevant parameter being the truth of the belief involved in the subjunctive condition. To expand slightly, if the tolerator’s belief that she has the power to interfere is correct, and interference is understood as prevention, then it might seem intuitively the case that T2 portrays a higher level of asymmetry between tolerator and tolerated agent compared to T3. However, if the tolerator’s belief that she can interfere with the tolerated agent is false, then T2 seems to defne a higher level of asymmetry. Two further options seem possible. First, it might be the case that, while the tolerator’s belief in her power ‘to prevent’ is false, she might still in fact have the power to alter the cost of the actions of the tolerated agent to some signifcant degree. In that case, T2 and T3 might be strictly non-comparable, unless more information about the case is provided, or they might even be identical. The second additional option is that we simply do not know whether the tolerator’s belief that she has the power to prevent is true or not. If we lack the knowledge of the truth of that belief, then the two options are non-comparable. (I here leave aside more complex questions concerning the idea of rationality and decision-making under uncertainty.) We have now laid out what I think are all the possible (or at least the most plausible) combinations that might lead us to understand the level of asymmetry between the tolerator and the tolerated agent. The next question then is: how should we select among the different options? Clearly, some aspects of the selection process will have to be conceptual in nature. In other words, when, in the previous section of the chapter, I have claimed that we should not understand interference as prevention, I was making a conceptual claim. The same goes for my argument in favour of T4 presented a few paragraphs earlier. Yet, I also think that it is worth refecting on what the different options imply for a ‘conception’ of toleration. In order to do that, we can start by observing that a conception of toleration will feature some form of justifcation for why certain agents, or actions, or policies, and so on are to be tolerated. However, note also that, depending on how one understands the concept, not every ‘conception cum justifcation’ will be appropriate. To illustrate, if, for the sake of argument, we think that the concept of justice is the attempt to implement the will of God on earth

28 On toleration

as literally specifed by Scripture, then a political liberal egalitarian conception of justice would feature as an unlikely instantiation of that understanding of the concept. And one reason for that being the case would simply be that the justifcation of the political liberal egalitarian conception would be using resources and values that are not easily compatible with that kind of defnition of the concept. Now, of course, it might very well be the case that one can arrive at the meaning of a concept independently from any considerations of the preferred conception that will eventually be developed. And it seems also clear that a given concept usually is ‘hospitable’ to more than one conception. Nonetheless, I do not think it is implausible to believe that concept and conception need to be in some form of refective equilibrium in a broader theoretical account. Needless to say, there is a considerable risk of one’s conceptual analysis being exceedingly teleological. And it is certainly wise to guard against the temptation of defning the meaning of a concept simply in light of one’s preferred conception. Yet, the idea of a refective equilibrium need not entail this kind of scenario, for the only thing it requires is that neither concept nor conception, and thus some of the settled considered convictions we might have about them, should enjoy strict priority. To maintain as much is, I hasten to concede, controversial methodologically speaking, and I cannot hope to do full justice to the topic in this book. The reader will have to weigh the pros and cons of this kind of approach in light of her own philosophical dispositions and beliefs. How will this bear on our discussion of toleration? In Chapter 3 of this book, I will try to develop a set of desiderata that a liberal conception of international toleration should meet in order to be a normatively attractive one. These desiderata will include what I shall call the possibility of mutual respect between those who tolerate and those who are tolerated. In Chapter 5, I will argue that my original reconstruction of the candidate theory of international toleration conducted in Chapter 4 (i.e. my account of Rawls’s view of international toleration) can meet the desideratum, and that it can do so because it is congruent with a specifc kind of ‘symmetry condition’. The symmetry condition tells us that mutual toleration is, at least in principle, possible. In other words, if we imagine two agents, A and B, then it is possible that A tolerates B and that, at the same time (i.e. synchronically), B tolerates A. Furthermore, in Chapter 5, I shall, following the recent literature on toleration, draw a distinction between two different conceptions of toleration, namely, the permission conception and the respect conception. These two different kinds of conception can be thought of as instantiations of two different ways of understanding toleration as either ‘vertical’ or ‘horizontal’ (see Castiglione and McKinnon, 2003; Jones, 2007; Ferretti and Lægaard, 2013; for critical discussions see Galeotti, 2002; Newey, 2013; Ceva, 2013). In a nutshell, the focal case of the vertical view of toleration is represented by the tolerant absolute sovereign. The tolerant sovereign could, for example, effectively suppress religious diversity within its territory. However, it decides not to. The focal case of horizontal toleration is the regime of toleration in a liberal egalitarian political society well-ordered by a political conception of justice. In the latter case, citizens (symmetrically) tolerate

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each other’s comprehensive outlooks. The conception of international toleration that I will develop will be an instance of horizontal toleration and will respect the symmetry condition. The upshot of this discussion is, quite simply, that if we think that the best conception of toleration is horizontal and meets the symmetry condition, then T1 offers a view of the concept of toleration that is incompatible with it, for if we replace interference with prevention and characterise the power condition in its non-subjunctive version, then we would not be able to claim that while A tolerates B, it is possible for B to tolerate A. If A has the power to prevent B from performing action X, then this suggests that B lacks the power to prevent A from acting in that way. At the very least, this seems to be the case if we are describing synchronic possibilities within the same domain of activity. It is, of course, possible that A might tolerate B in a domain, while, at the same time, B tolerates A in a different domain (keeping the meaning of ‘tolerate’ in line with what T1 specifes). My boss might tolerate the fact that I am often late for work, and I might tolerate his mediocre performances on our offce football team, of which I am the uncontested leader and team manager. But, for the purposes of our current topic, this kind of scenario is not relevant. What about T2 and T4? T2 and T4 share the subjunctive version of the power condition. Thus, it might be worth considering the plausibility of the subjunctive power condition. As I mentioned in passing earlier, the non-subjunctive version of the power condition can be interpreted as a special case of the subjunctive view in the following way: that the belief contained in the subjunctive formulation is true. This would, of course, allow us to reduce the subjunctive view to the nonsubjunctive one, but while this might actually be the case at times (i.e. the belief will sometimes be true), making it a requirement would simply make the subjunctive formulation otiose and redundant, for in formulating the subjective condition we clearly signal that we are interested, so to speak, in cases where the relevant belief entertained by the agent is false. The question then is: why might one be attracted by the subjunctive version? My sense is that the subjunctive version is useful because, among other reasons, it allows us to say something about situations in which we are interested in assessing the character of a given agent and, relatedly, the kind of relationship she has with the object of toleration. To illustrate, consider someone who wrongly believes she has the power to interfere with the behaviour of another agent but refrains from doing so (and let us assume that the decision is taken in light of appropriate reasons, that is, reasons that are compatible with denoting the decision as part of an instance of toleration). The fact that her belief is incorrect does not seem to detract from our assessment of her character as a tolerant person and, relatedly, the kind of relationship she might be portrayed to have with the object of toleration. (This is an especially salient point when the object of toleration is an agent.) What seems to be relevant for the latter judgment to hold is the relationship between her reasons and facts about the world she believes to be true, not whether these facts about the world are indeed true.

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However, note that once we move from considering the character of an agent and, more specifcally, the character of a natural person, to assessing the features of, say, a political regime, the interest for the character of the regime might be, some would claim, much less relevant. The main reason why the objection continues is that it seems unclear whether a regime or a corporate agent can have a character that is susceptible of moral appraisal, or, at the very least, that our assessment of that character might have the same kind of value and purpose. I am unconvinced. We can, and sometimes do, speak of, for example, virtuous corporations (see French, 1979). Corporations that take their stakeholders seriously and accept proft reductions, rare as they might be in the real world, are not unicorns. Of course, in making those assessments we might not be interested in the virtues of their character in exactly the same way as we would be interested in the virtues displayed by a natural person. And yet the meaning of propositions such as ‘corporate agent X displays virtue Y’ is not unintelligible. What we mean, I think, when we speak of the virtues of a corporation, is that the corporation reliably acts in some specifed way and for the right reasons. (I here leave aside discussions of exactly what virtue is.) We might, of course, be comparatively more interested in the acts that are performed by the relevant corporate agent than about the character of the agent in question, but the latter seems a matter of emphasis rather than conceptual intelligibility.

IV.

The paradox of toleration: opposition and restraint

Toleration, as we have seen, requires some form of opposition. And yet, for toleration to occur, the tolerator needs to restrain herself from interfering and not act according to the opposition she has toward the object of toleration. This is a key feature of toleration. However, as many have noticed, this feature of the idea of toleration might very well give rise to a paradox (see for example Horton, 1994; Newey, 2013; Balint, 2017), for why should we restrain ourselves from interfering with something we oppose? To illustrate, if I oppose my daughter smoking, why should I tolerate it? If I am against loud music (of the wrong kind) played by my neighbours, why should I tolerate it? The standard answer within the toleration literature is to point out that toleration must include reasons for acceptance, not just an opposition component (McKinnon, 2006: 3–18). I have touched upon this feature of toleration in Part II of this chapter. There, I discussed whether any value might constitute a sound one if we are to call an act as an act of toleration. My answer, following Cohen, was that it could not, though I was far more permissive (while still maintaining that not anything goes) than Cohen when it came to the statement of the positive values that should count as markers of an act of toleration. In what follows, I shall expand on that discussion. I will concentrate on reasons rather than values (without denying the strong connection between the two, more on this in Chapter 2), as this will make the discussion easier. Let us proceed by adopting the following terminology. The opposition component of toleration is characterised by the putative tolerator having

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reasons, of some kind, to object to the object of toleration. Given that the tolerator, if she has to perform an act of toleration, will need to refrain from interfering with something she has reason to oppose, and barring some defects in her practical reasoning, she will need to have some reasons to accept the object of toleration. Thus stated, then we can say that toleration suggests a tension between reasons to oppose something and reasons to accept it. The question then is how should we characterise the nature of this tension? The tension is particularly acute, furthermore, when both reasons to oppose something and reasons to accept it are similar in nature. To see why, consider the two following examples. A deeply Catholic mother tolerates her son’s decision to wear very vulgar T-shirts. She believes that vulgar T-shirts are deeply inelegant and ugly (reason to oppose). However, she also believes that no true commitment to God can come without the development of a measure of autonomy on the part of human beings, and that autonomy can only be possible if one is allowed to develop one’s character and personality by making choices for oneself (reasons for acceptance). Call this example 1. Now consider a deeply Catholic mother who tolerates her son’s decision not to go to church on Sundays. She believes that going to church on Sundays is a moral duty to God and to ourselves and our community, so not going is a violation of our duties (reason to oppose). Yet, she also believes that no true commitment to God can come from being forced to comply with one’s religious duties, and she thus accepts her son’s decision (reason to accept). Call this example 2. Now, clearly enough, we have the intuition that the tension in example 2 is much greater than the tension in example 1. The explanation of this intuition, in my view, is that the reasons to oppose and the reasons to accept are of the same kind in example 2 and not in example 1, and that, furthermore, we have intuitions about what kinds of reasons ought to normally prevail in our deliberations. These intuitions are not settled and are not usually enough to provide some strict or comprehensive set of priority rules (e.g. think about conficts between prudential and moral normative reasons), but they do provide guidance in a range of cases. Schematically, we can think of example 1 as a confict between aesthetic and moral reasons (broadly construed), while example 2 features a contrast between two kinds of moral reasons (broadly understood). Thus, the tension in example 1 is between two different kinds of reasons and, many would add, two kinds of reasons to which we normally used to give different weights. In example 2, by contrast, we seem to face a tension between two similar kinds of reasons, both of a moral kind. Here, at least intuitively, priority or greater weight is harder to assign. In what follows, I shall concentrate on cases that are relevantly similar to example 2. Let me try to be more specifc and to generalise the kind of idea that is conveyed by example 2. As we have seen, it features a tension between a reason to oppose and a reason to accept a given act or the behaviour of a given agent that are of the same kind. More precisely, we can say that the reasons belong to the same domain of reasons, namely, the moral domain. Both features of the example are relevant here. In what follows, I shall focus on the nature of one of the tensions that is generally considered to be at the heart of toleration but will reduce the scope of my concern

32 On toleration

by concentrating on cases of toleration where the reasons to oppose and the reasons to accept belong to the same domain of reasons, and the relevant domain of reasons is the moral one, broadly construed. There are two reasons to operate this restriction in scope, which correspond to the two aforementioned characteristics of the restriction. The frst is that the aforementioned tension at the heart of toleration is more clearly on display when we operate within the same domain of reasons, and this is because, as we have seen, when reasons belong to the same domain, we are far less likely to be able to rely on intuitions about general priority to be assigned. The second reason, which explains the selection of the relevant domain as the moral domain of reasons, is that my present interest in toleration is not simply conceptual, but rather is motivated by the desire to develop a moral theory of international toleration. If this is the case, then what we are likely to face is some form of contrast between moral concerns we have about tolerating certain practices or kinds of regimes in international society and the reasons why we might have to accept them. While there is no denying that some such reasons might be strategic in kind (leaving aside whether that would still count as an instance of toleration, see earlier discussion), the focal case for a moral theory of international toleration will consist in the tension between moral reasons to oppose and moral reasons to accept a given act or regime in international society. Thus, the next question is: given the specifcation of the scope of our enquiry, how are we to approach the tension between reasons to oppose and reasons to accept? In the end, the tension will be resolved in favour of the reasons to accept if toleration has to happen. But for now, let me concentrate on the approach to the tension rather than its outcome. What kind of model of this tension can we put forward? I shall argue that we can think of at least three main models: what I shall call the balancing model, the perceptual model, and the partition model. I shall criticise the balancing model as unattractive. I shall argue that the perceptual model is useful but that its applicability is limited. Finally, I shall argue that the partition model is the most fruitful one given our concerns but that there are different approaches to the relevant partition and thus that the model requires further specifcation. What is the balancing model? It simply states that the tension between moral reasons to oppose a certain act or agent should be weighed against the moral reasons to accept the given act or agent (or object of toleration more generally). Clearly enough, there is something ‘intuitionistic’ about the balancing model. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to think that the model is, simply put, implausible, for many of us, most of the time, use our practical reason to deliberate about what to do in just the way the balancing model suggests. In other words, we do often list reasons for and against a given action and then proceed to balance those reasons without necessarily assigning categorical distinctions or very precise weights to the different classes of reasons for and against a given course of action. Nonetheless, the balancing model does face a clear problem, namely, that its ‘intuitionistic’ character suggests an ad hoc way to proceed. The model, in other words, seems to suggest that only a case-by-case approach to one of the tensions at the heart of toleration

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is possible. This is, in my view, troubling not for what it tells us but for what it fails to tell us. The model, in other words, cannot offer systematic guidance (at least, it cannot given the restriction in scope I have discussed a few paragraphs earlier). In David Heyd’s words: ‘The traditional, “balancing” account of toleration can at most appeal to the overriding force of the reasons for restraint over the reasons for interfering in the wrong belief or practice. But this is an ad hoc explanation, which considers the relative weight of particular reasons in each case’ (1996: 13). Now, let me be clear on this issue. Earlier, I used the word ‘unattractive’ to qualify the balancing model. It is worth dwelling on the choice of the term. What it suggests is not that it would be fatly incorrect to portray a decision to tolerate in that way. Rather, the use of the term suggests dissatisfaction with the instability and lack of explanatory power inherent in the model. The issue, I think, is thus better portrayed as a quest for improvement than as one dictated by the observation of a mistake. Mutatis mutandis, the same will hold for the next model I will discuss. I here use the word model advisedly (see Reiss, 2013: ch. 7). In some obvious sense, all models are, strictly speaking, false (more generally, the qualifers ‘true’ or ‘false’ are not very insightful or informative when applied to models), but as political economist Dani Rodrik argues (2015), some are more useful than others. The second model I have called the perceptual model. The label ‘perceptual’ is drawn from Heyd’s discussion of the paradox of toleration. Let me quote him at some length: The conception I wish to outline can be called ‘perceptual’. It treats toleration as involving a perceptual shift: from beliefs to the subject holding them, or from actions to their agent. The model of two sets of reasons implies that the reasons for disapproval and those for restraint are balanced against each other by some sort of a weighting procedure. The perceptual model, on the other hand, treats the two sets of reasons as qualitatively distinct and irreducible to any common ground. The virtue of tolerance consists in a switch of perspective, a transformation of attitude, based not on the assessment of which reasons are overriding but on ignoring one type of reason altogether by focusing on the other. Thus, to be tolerant one must be able to suspend one’s judgment of the object, to turn one’s view away from it, to treat it as irrelevant, for the sake of a generically different perspective. (1996: 11) Heyd further specifes the perceptual model in the following way: The perceptual model, by appealing to a second-order reason, provides a general form for the tolerant option and is thus theoretically superior in being more systematic in the justification of toleration. The general superiority of the personalized perspective lies in the intrinsic value of individual integrity and the priority of the unique subject-agent to the impersonal content or validity of the beliefs and actions held by her. The values of autonomy,

34 On toleration

respect, authenticity, integrity, and interpersonal recognition and acceptance are indicative of this priority. (1996: 13) Let us partly leave aside some of the terminological distinctions between my discussion of the concept of toleration in this chapter and Heyd’s discussion. For example, Heyd refers to the virtue of tolerance rather than to toleration. Some, however, would claim that the virtue of tolerance and toleration are not one and the same. That said, I do not think that this kind of difference in the approach between my discussion and Heyd’s discussion is relevant to our present set of concerns. The main problem with the perceptual model is, in my view, that the model is of limited use. And this is the case whether or not we refer to the virtue of tolerance or to toleration more broadly. Put differently, my sense is that the limited use of the model comes from the restriction in the potential objects of toleration, not in the description of the subjects of toleration. The latter might be explained in terms of a concern for the virtue of tolerance as opposed to toleration generally; the former is not so easy to explain in that way. The main issue, in my view, is that the perceptual model seems to be most attractive when it comes to tolerating the actions of natural persons. It seems less attractive, instead, as a ‘general’ model for describing the nature of the tension and how to approach it (and this is so, even accepting the restriction in the scope of my concern I outlined earlier). For example, we might tolerate the actions of a corporation, but we might feel less than confdent in declaring this kind of decision to be reliant on the perceptual shift from the actions of the corporation to the corporation itself. Things are more complex when it comes to state policies, laws, regimes, or government actions, for then it might make more sense, at least in some cases, to speak of, for example, respect for the relevant agents even if these agents are not natural persons. Nonetheless, while more plausible, this kind of scenario is still, in my view, not fully convincing. The main reason is that we tend to fnd it comparatively more diffcult, especially when it comes to corporate agents like a state or a government, to have certain attitudes toward the agent irrespective of its actions and decisions. Perhaps this is too quick. We might, for example, ‘suspend our judgement’, to use Heyd’s terminology, of the policies enacted by a legitimate state. This is indeed a plausible view. Consider, for the sake of argument, a legitimate state to be a state whose policies are enacted in light of the decisions of a democratically elected government. Some, if not many, state policies we will nonetheless believe to be morally wrong. However, it might be said that we could ignore these policies because of the fact that the government is a legitimate one; its legitimacy provides reason enough for us to respect it notwithstanding the policies it is enacting through the state. Within limits, this is a possibility. Leaving aside whether this description of the situation is plausibly understood as a case of toleration, note, though, that even if it were, it should still strike us as inaccurate. The point of recognising the legitimacy of a (practical) authority is not to ‘suspend’ one’s judgment, much less to alter it.

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Political authority will require us to act in certain ways, not to think in certain ways (but see Kirby, 2017 for a discussion). So, even if we were to accept, again, for the sake of argument, that a democratically elected government can claim to have political authority over us, the upshot is that we should refrain from interfering with the policies it has decided to enact through the state, not that we should alter or suspend our judgment of those policies. And while this might still be described as an instance of toleration (again, for the sake of argument), it does not count as an instance of toleration of the kind that is suggested by the perceptual model. More generally, the second source of discomfort with the perceptual model is that, in my view, it gives the wrong impression that tolerating an act or agent means, in some sense, to forget the reasons why we have to oppose it. I do not think that is plausible either descriptively or normatively, for this might suggest that we resolve the tension by not thinking about it. We are thus left with the third and fnal model, which I have called the partition model. In essence, the partition model works by providing a partition of the moral domain (broadly construed). Rainer Forst (2003) provides the clearest articulation of this approach (but see also Carter, 2013 for a potentially similar view). According to Forst, we can distinguish between moral norms and ethical values (2003: 77 ff.). Using the language I have developed in this chapter, both moral norms and ethical values belong to the moral domain. However, they operate a partition of such domain. The partition between moral norms and ethical values rests on the nature of the reasons that can be offered to support them. Here, the echo of Habermas’s distinction between ethics and morality clearly looms large (see Calloni, 1997; Ferrara, 2000: 38–46 and 156–164; Maffettone, 2019: 314–317). In Forst’s Habermasian approach, we can say that moral norms are such when they are supported by reasons that are ‘generally’ and ‘reciprocally’ valid. Alternatively, using Rawlsian parlance, we might say that moral norms are reasonably acceptable to citizens as free and equal. Ethical values cannot be supported by these same kinds of reasons. Note, however, that this is not an indictment of ethical values. These, too, can be ‘justifably held’. Rather, the point is that ethical values and, more precisely, the reasons that constitute the justifcation that an agent might have for holding them are not susceptible to be reasonably acceptable to other citizens as free and equal. The detailed contours of Forst’s argument are complex and sophisticated. Yet, they need not detain us here, for what is relevant for our purposes is how the distinction proposed by Forst allows us to structure the tension between the acceptance and opposition or rejection components in toleration. In a nutshell, according to Forst, the opposition component of toleration is constituted by ethical values, while the acceptance component is constituted by moral norms: the ‘contexts of justification’ for ethical beliefs and general norms are different: they see that an ethical objection does not amount to a legitimate moral rejection; and they also see that they have a moral duty to tolerate all those ethical beliefs and practices that they disagree with but that do not violate the threshold of reciprocity and generality (trying to force their views on

36 On toleration

others). . . . Persons are tolerant to the extent that, even though they disagree with others about the nature of the good and true life, they tolerate all other views within the bounds of reciprocity and generality. (2003: 78) Several comments are in order. First, consider the sense in which Forst offers a partition of the moral domain. The partition is one between different kinds of reasons. Moral norms are backed by reasons that are reasonably acceptable to citizens as free and equal. Ethical values are held in light of reasons that cannot claim to be reasonably acceptable to free and equal citizens. The partition, then, is one between different kinds of reasons and is determined by their reasonable acceptability. Second, consider how the partition model would work in a given instance of toleration. The partition model would not rely on judgments concerning the relative weight of the reasons in play (as the balancing model would have it). Nor would it ask us to bracket our views concerning the actions or beliefs of the tolerated agent (as the perceptual model seems to suggest). Rather, the main question it would ask is whether the reasons we have to oppose a given action or belief are of the right kind, that is, whether we are entitled ‘not’ to refrain from acting on those reasons. Third, consider the relationship between toleration and justice in the partition model. In Chapter 2, I will discuss this issue extensively, but, for now, a few remarks will do. For the sake of argument, let us accept some form of political liberal approach to justice. Within a politically liberal approach, the basic rules that organise social and political institutions and the use of political power will need to be justifed in light of public reasons. In the same way, the partition model seems to suggest that, whenever there is indeed toleration (i.e. when the reasons to accept ‘prevail’ over the reasons to oppose), the reasons we have to accept a given act or belief are public reasons, while the reasons we have to oppose such an act or belief are non-public. Thus, toleration, justice, and legitimacy have, in the partition model, a common core. What distinguishes them is that they are justifed through a special class of reasons and, more specifcally, according to Forst, the same special class of reasons. Fourth, consider how the partition model offers a solution to what I have referred to as one of the fundamental tensions at the heart of toleration. The partition model suggests that, when we are indeed justifed in tolerating a given act or belief, we are doing so because we cannot provide reasons to interfere with the tolerated agent that he or she might be asked to reasonably accept (and yet, clearly, those reasons would still be reasons for us, in some way or another). Consider a variation on example 2 discussed earlier. Call it example 3. In example 3, a deeply Catholic elected public offcial tolerates her constituents’ decision not to go to church even if she thinks that this is a violation of their duties to God. According to the partition model, the decision to tolerate is the correct one. The structure of toleration in this example is the following. The public offcial has reasons to oppose her constituents’ decision. After all, she is deeply Catholic; she believes that life should be spent serving God and that going to church regularly is one the duties attached to this kind

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of service. Her ethical values are clear, and many would add, reasonably held. They are reasonably held for she can certainly offer (plausible) reasons for what she values. However, the public offcial is also committed to the freedom and equality of her constituents. And she accepts that her ethical values cannot be supported by reasons that her constituents can reasonably be asked to accept as free and equal citizens. Furthermore, she also believes that when no such reasons can be provided, she is not entitled to interfere with the (ethical) decisions of her constituents. In fact, we can go even further. She not only realises that she cannot offer a reasonable justifcation for interfering with them, but she is also committed to the idea that she should not impose on others what she cannot reasonably ask them to accept as free and equal. She thus sees the decision of her constituents not to go to church and, perhaps, not believe in God as one that they are entitled to make. Note that, in this picture, toleration takes place, and yet the tension we have highlighted in this part of the chapter does not disappear, rather, it is managed, so to speak. The reason why the public offcial has to oppose the behaviour of her constituents does not disappear. She might in fact feel very disappointed that they do not go to church, and she will, most probably, continue to feel so. However, she believes that what leads her to refrain from interfering is more important. And this is so because the decision not to interfere is supported by a different class of reasons, a class of reasons that takes priority over her commitment to God when she is acting in her capacity as a public offcial. Needless to say, none of what I have just stated is an argument concerning the correctness of the public offcial’s decision, much less the desirability of political liberalism more generally. That is not the point. Rather, the point is to offer an initial specifcation of how to model in a specifc way the tension between acceptance and opposition components of toleration, one that, I hope to have shown, can claim to be more systematic and with ampler coverage (respectively) than the two previous models we have discussed. In addition, note that much more would need to be said about the nature of, and justifcation for, the priority that model assigns to a specifc class of reasons. This is precisely the task I shall pursue in the next chapter of the book. Fifth, the reader might observe that I have presented the partition model as a general model for describing the best way to approach one of the most intractable paradoxes at the heart of toleration. And, yet, she might legitimately complain that the model seems closer to a reconstruction of a specifc conception of toleration rather than a general characterisation of an aspect of the concept. There is an element of insight in the latter observation, but I am inclined to believe that the conclusions we can draw are not particularly damaging. To begin with, as we have seen earlier, the existence of a relationship (that I have broadly described as one of refective equilibrium) between concept and conception is not per se something we need to worry about. In addition, note that my concerns in presenting the model are limited to a specifc set of cases, namely, those where the nature of the reasons to support and to object to something in the context of toleration broadly belong to the same kind of domain of reasons, and the domain in question is a specifc one

38 On toleration

(what I have referred to as the moral domain broadly construed). Thus, the model is meant to capture a sub-class of instances in which we think about toleration. Finally, note that the model is not necessarily committed to a specifc way of drawing the partition between reasons within the relevant domain (a potential objection raised by A.J. Cohen in correspondence). In this chapter, I have presented (in very compressed form) Forst’s approach. In the next, I shall offer a much more detailed analysis of the political liberal version of the partition model. Yet, I see no reason to believe that these are the only ones that are compatible with the general idea underlying a ‘partition-based’ approach. Even if it were the case that the partition model was inductively reconstructed from a specifc reading of Forst and Rawls, something I shall frankly refrain from denying, its origin and its generality or applicability need not coincide. Provided that one can offer a plausible account of a partition between different kinds of reasons within the domain of moral reasons, then one is in fact offering an account that is in line with my understanding of the partition model.

Conclusion Let us take stock. In this chapter, I have offered a conceptual analysis of some of the central aspects of the idea of toleration. Put shortly, toleration is the decision to refrain from interfering with a given object (belonging to the relevant classes) when we believe to have the power to do so. Toleration involves an opposition component. There must be reasons why we oppose what we tolerate. But toleration must also contain an acceptance component. There must be reasons why we believe that we should tolerate a given object. What are the most relevant elements of this analysis for the purposes of developing a theory of international toleration? The frst element is that some of the most intractable cases of toleration are cases where both the reasons we have to oppose the object of toleration and the reasons we have to accept it are of the same kind and, more specifcally, when such reasons are broadly construed moral ones. To achieve a clear understanding of what toleration means in those circumstances, we need to offer some kind of model that explains the way we resolve what I have called the tension that is at the heart of toleration. I believe that the partition model is the most promising way forward. The partition model tells us that the best way to address the tension is to specify different classes of reasons within the moral domain (again, broadly construed). Toleration is then explained by the fact that one of the two classes of reasons that constitute the partition is normally considered to have priority over the other. One of the advantages of the partition model is that it allows tolerators to stick to their reasons to oppose a given object while at the same time offering a clear (at least conceptually) and non-ad hoc, if not easy, specifcation of why toleration might nonetheless be appropriate. I have also clarifed something else that seems crucial to a theory of toleration, or, at the very least, to a liberal (moral) theory of toleration, namely, that the decision to tolerate need not be the exclusive purview of the strong and (more) powerful.

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For if toleration requires the power to interfere with the object of toleration, much will depend on the way that we interpret the idea of having the power to interfere. I have claimed that the best way forward is not to interpret the idea of having the power to interfere as simply having the actual power to prevent something. In this picture, it seems possible that toleration can be reciprocal and that it need not involve, at least conceptually, unidirectional relations of subjection. The upshot, then, is that we can have systematic theory of toleration that is, in some relevant respects, egalitarian, a theory of toleration that is compatible with the equal standing of those who tolerate each other and that provides systematic guidance for why and when toleration ought to occur.

Bibliography Balint, P. (2017), Respecting Toleration. New York: Oxford University Press. Bejan, T.M. (2017), Mere Civility. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bessone, M., Calder, G. & Zuolo, F. (eds.) (2014), How Groups Matter: Challenges of Toleration in Pluralistic Societies. London: Routledge, 34–51. Bican, S. (2010), Toleration: The Liberal Virtue. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Calloni, M. (1997), “Habermas e la Problematica Distinzione fra Etica e Morale: Il Caso Dell’Aborto”, Fenomenologia e Società, 20 (2), 30–41. Carter, I. (2013), “Are Toleration and Respect Compatible?”, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 30 (3), 195–208. Castiglione, D. & McKinnon, C. (eds.) (2003), The Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies: Reasonable Tolerance. New York: Manchester University Press. Ceva, E. (2013), “Why Toleration Is Not the Appropriate Response to Dissenting Minorities’ Claims”, European Journal of Philosophy, 23 (3), 633–651. Cohen, A.J. (2004), “What Toleration Is”, Ethics, 115 (1), 68–95. Cohen, A.J. (2014), Toleration. Oxford: Polity Press. Cohen, A.J. (2018), Toleration and Freedom from Harm: Liberalism Reconceived. New York: Routledge. Ferrara, S. (2000), Justice and Judgment: The Rise and the Prospect of the Judgment Model in Contemporary Political Philosophy. London: Sage Publications. Ferretti, M.P. & Lægaard, S. (2013), “A Multirelational Account of Toleration”, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 30 (3), 224–238. Fitzmaurice, D. (1993), “Autonomy as a Good: Liberalism, Autonomy, and Toleration”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 1 (1), 1–16. Forst, R. (2003), “Toleration, Justice and Reason”, in Castiglione, D. & McKinnon, C. (eds.), The Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies: Reasonable Tolerance. New York: Manchester University Press, 71–85. Forst, R. (2013), Toleration in Confict: Past and Present, trans. Cronin, C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. French, P.A. (1979), “The Corporation as a Moral Person”, American Philosophical Quarterly, 16 (3), 207–215. Galeotti, A.E. (2002), Toleration as Recognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Galeotti, A.E. (2014), “The Range of Toleration: From Toleration as Recognition Back to Disrespectful Tolerance”, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 41 (2), 93–110. Gallie, W.B. (1955), “Essentially Contested Concepts”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56 (1955–1956), 167–198.

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Gardner, P. (1993), “Tolerance and Education”, in Horton, J. (ed.), Liberalism, Multiculturalism and Toleration. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 83–103. Heyd, D. (1996), “Introduction”, in Heyd, D. (ed.), Toleration: An Elusive Virtue. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 3–17. Horton, J. (1994), “Three (Apparent) Paradoxes of Toleration”, Synthesis Philosophica, 9 (1), 7–20. Horton, J. & Mendus, S. (eds.) (1985), Aspects of Toleration: Philosophical Studies. London: Methuen. Jones, P. (2007), “Making Sense of Political Toleration”, British Journal of Political Science, 37 (3), 383–402. Jones, P. (2010), “Political Toleration: A Reply to Newey”, British Journal of Political Science, 41 (2), 445–447. King, P. (1976), Toleration. New York: Routledge. Kirby, N. (2017), “The Service Conception: Just One Simple Question”, Law and Philosophy, 36 (3), 255–278. Kukathas, C. (2003), The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. List, C. & Pettit, P. (2011), Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents. New York: Oxford University Press. Maffettone, S. (2019), Politica: Idee Per un Mondo Che Cambia. Milano: Mondadori. McKinnon, C. (2006), Toleration: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge. Mendus, S. (1989), Toleration and the Limits of Liberalism. London: Macmillan Publishers Limited. Morriss, P. (2002), Power: A Philosophical Analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Muldoon, R. et al. (2011), “The Conditions of Tolerance”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 11 (3), 322–344. Newey, G. (2013), Toleration in Political Confict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 11–23. Reiss, J. (2013), Philosophy of Economics: A Contemporary Introduction. New York: Routledge. Rodrick, D. (2015), Economic Rules: The Rights and Wrongs of the Dismal Science. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Waldron, J. & Williams, M.S. (2008), Toleration and Its Limits. New York: NYU Press. Williams, B. (1998), “Toleration: An Impossible Virtue?”, in Heyd, D. (ed.), Toleration: An Elusive Virtue. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 18–27. Zuolo, F. (2013), “Toleration and Informal Groups: How Does the Formal Dimension Affect Groups’ Capacity to Tolerate?”, European Journal of Political Theory, 12 (3), 288–305.

2 POLITICAL LIBERALISM AND THE PARTITION MODEL

Introduction The task of this chapter is to develop a conception of toleration inspired by the idea of political liberalism. Thus, while Chapter 1 was devoted to the exploration of the concept of toleration, this chapter delves into its normative aspects by discussing the structure and justifcation of (a specifc kind of) liberal toleration. Recall that, when discussing the concept of toleration, I devoted the most attention to two aspects of the idea, namely, the proper interpretation of the power condition and the nature of the relationship between the reasons for acceptance and reasons for opposition when toleration does occur. My central claim concerning this second aspect of the concept was that the best way to understand what I have referred to as one of the fundamental tensions within the idea of toleration was to see it (at least in a range of important cases) through the lenses of what I labelled the partition model. In essence, the partition model works by providing a partition between kinds of moral normative reasons. That is, it highlights the categorical differences between the kinds of reasons that support claims about the object of toleration. In this chapter, my aim is to give more substance and precision to the underlying ideas connected to the partition model and to show that thinking about toleration in terms of such a model can provide a fruitful way to understand the structure and justifcation of toleration in a politically liberal account. My understanding of political liberalism is greatly indebted to Rawls’s view. Thus, a different way to portray what I am attempting in this chapter is to say that I will offer a reading of the Rawlsian argument for liberal toleration in light of my understanding of the partition model. As we shall see, an important aspect of the partition model is the background picture it presupposes concerning practical reasons. Without laying any claim to completeness, I will try, in this chapter, to offer some remarks that will allow me

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to situate the partition model in the broader framework of debates about practical reasoning. A key feature within those debates concerns the best way to understand conficts between reasons, and one of the most developed treatments of the topic is no doubt provided by Raz’s seminal work in Practical Reasons and Norms (1975). The central insight of the chapter, expanding on the work of Peter Jones (2003), is to think of liberal toleration in the Rawlsian framework through the lenses of the Razian distinction between frst- and second-order reasons (see also MeckledGarcia, 2003). In this picture the central case, so to speak, of liberal toleration is one where the reasons for objection are frst-order reasons and the reasons for acceptance are second-order reasons. Yet, at face value, this formulation is obscure, for we are certainly entitled to ask, in what way? or what kinds of reasons? The answer is, I think, rather intuitive in the Rawlsian framework. We can distinguish between reasons that persons have in light of the comprehensive doctrines they hold and public or political reasons. It will often be the case, in this picture, that the reasons persons have to object to something are non-public, while the reasons for acceptance are public or political in nature. The argument for liberal toleration, then, just is the argument for thinking that non-public reasons are frst-order reasons and that public reasons, at least within the limited domain of constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice, can be understood (I shall be clearer about how over the course of the chapter) as second-order reasons. To picture the status of, and relationship between, non-public and public reasons in the way I have just suggested, in turn, requires accepting some version of the liberal principle of legitimacy. I shall not reproduce (in this introduction) the fner aspects of the structure of the chapter and of my reasoning. Instead, I will limit myself to a comment about the nature of the claims I am making. The nature of the chapter is not, strictly speaking, interpretive. Thus, while I hope to make what are plausible interpretive claims, I do not think that the fruitfulness of the approach I am taking is dependent on, or at least not completely so, the accuracy with which it depicts Rawls’s arguments about liberal toleration and political liberalism. The main concern I have here is to give the partition model a more precise meaning. And, to do so, I use the idea of political liberalism as a ‘theoretical space’, so to speak, where it can be observed. However, one might also reasonably hope that something like the reverse is true. That is, that in laying out an interpretation of political liberalism that is based on the idea of a partition model, one can gain greater insight about the structure and justifcation of a specifc approach to liberal toleration. If these two purposes can positively interact, then signifcant (relatively speaking, of course) progress should be possible. For we would then have an account or conception of toleration that is deeply connected to our discussion of the concept in Chapter 1 and is structurally conceived so to deal with one of the central tensions within the very idea of toleration. Yet, that would not be the only pay-off, for we would also have obtained a clearer view of liberal toleration in the process. And, at least from a normative point of view, that is one of the main concerns within the broader framework of the theory of international toleration I am trying to develop.

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I.

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On practical reasons

So far, I have referred to what I have called the ‘partition model’. In Chapter 1, I have tried to offer one important illustration of the model by briefy laying out Forst’s Habermasian distinction between ethics and morality and have tried to explain its relevance to toleration. It is now high time to present the model in its more general form. The model, it must be recalled, is a model that concerns a basic distinction between different kinds of reasons. In order to gain greater clarity, I shall thus start to offer an account of the picture of reasons that the model takes for granted. I want to stress the latter point. My concern, in this book, is an account of toleration, not an account of reasons. I will thus try to avoid making substantive claims about the ontology of reasons, practical reasoning, or any aspect of the philosophy of action for that matter, unless these are strictly required. In so doing, I hope that the approach I am taking will not be unnecessarily controversial. In what follows I will be mainly concerned with reasons for action, or practical reasons. There are other kinds of reasons, such as reasons to believe or to feel, or reasons to have certain attitudes and so on, but reasons for actions are clearly more central in a normative theory of toleration. Reasons for actions are usually classifed using a tripartite distinction between normative reasons, motivating reasons, and explanatory reasons (Alvarez, 2010). One way to understand the differences between these kinds of reasons is to think about them in terms of the kinds of questions to which a given type of reason would be an answer when we are thinking about a specifc action (Dancy, 2000). That is, we can ask if there is a reason that favours a given action, or if there is a reason in light of which someone acted in that way, or if there is a specifc reason by reference to which we can explain the action in question. It is worth stressing that the aforementioned distinctions are not, strictly speaking, between different ‘kinds of reasons’; the reasons in question are not, that is, different in nature or ontologically. Rather, following Dancy’s understanding of the distinction, we should see the latter as pertaining to the different kinds of information we might be interested in knowing about a given action. So, for example, when he analyses the distinction between normative and motivating reasons, he writes: If we do speak in this way, of motivating and normative reasons, this should not be taken to suggest that there are two sorts of reasons, the sort that motivate and the sort that are good. There are not. There are just two questions that we use the single notion of a reason to answer. When I call a reason ‘motivating’, all that I am doing is issuing a reminder that the focus of our attention is on matters of motivation. . . . When I call it ‘normative’, again all that I am doing is stressing that we are currently thinking about whether it is a good reason, one that favours acting in the way proposed. (Dancy, 2000: 2–3) Let us focus on the variety of normative reasons. Normative reasons are, according to Tim Scanlon, considerations that count in favour of a given action (1998).

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What kind of considerations would those be? The answer is that it will depend on the kind of normativity under consideration. At the very least, we can think of moral normative reasons, prudential normative reasons, legal normative reasons, and hedonic normative reasons (Alvarez, 2016). The fact that there are more than one kind of normative reasons should not be surprising. The fact that different types of considerations count in favour or against a given action, and that such differences are generally of a qualitative nature, is a commonplace experience. If I think that I should be marking papers right now but that I also would like to go out and have my favourite ice cream (lemon and strawberry, in case the reader is wondering), then (and leaving aside other formal considerations) I am experiencing a confict between different kinds of normative reasons for action. In the domain of social and political life, the most obvious concern that one might have is the way in which prudential and moral normative reasons interact. More precisely, one of the key questions is the extent to which, if at all, moral normative reasons should enjoy priority over other types of normative reasons (Scanlon, 1998: 147–188). I shall not address the latter question, though I should note that it is, at least in some sense, relevant to our present concerns. It is relevant because, and insofar as, it signals that one of the traditional concerns of moral and political philosophers has been that of establishing categorical priority rules between different sources of normativity or different kinds of reasons. However, the problem that we are bound to face, if we want to give a more precise account of the partition model of toleration, is that the latter seems to operate a sort of partition within the very domain of moral normative reasons, thus claiming that one specifc kind of normativity is categorically more weighty won’t be, per se, of much help. For, as we noted in Chapter 1, the paradoxical nature of toleration is present in its starkest form precisely when we are dealing with reasons for accepting and reasons to oppose a given object of toleration that originate from the same kind of normativity (i.e. moral). A further important question concerning normative reasons generally is the extent to which they are (that is, their existence) connected to the position, so to speak, of a specifc agent. While there is no universal agreement on this point, it is a widespread view that reasons for action can be person-relative in a way that, for example, reasons to believe normally cannot (or at least, not in the same way). Alvarez expresses this distinction in an admiringly clear way when she writes that: What reasons a person has for acting and wanting things depend partly on who that person is and on her circumstances and values, because, in general, things are not good or right tout court but in some respect; and that respect may be more or less relevant to different people depending precisely on what their circumstances and values are. So, the variety of circumstances in which people find themselves (which makes it the case that what is good for one person may not be good or may even be harmful for another), and the variety and incommensurability of goods available to them, together with different

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preferences they may have towards those goods, create this person-relative feature of reasons for acting and wanting. (Alvarez, 2010: 22) An interesting question that I shall try to address later on in the chapter is how to understand what we can call the ‘position-relativity’ of at least some normative reasons. To illustrate, Alvarez suggests that differences in values, preferences, and the incommensurability of goods available to different agents might help us explain why something might be a reason for agent A but not for agent B. Is the latter the only available explanation of this kind of relativity? And, in any case, how should we interpret it? Is this kind of explanation, or a suitable interpretation of it, compatible with the idea that accepting and\or identifying with and\or playing a certain social role might give rise to reasons that are specifc to the role in question? In other words, can there be something like a reason that is a reason only for a given agent (or class of agents) in light of a specifc social role that she occupies in some sense or other of the verb ‘to occupy’? In what follows, I will also assume that our main concern is with moral normative reasons. One of the most common features of moral normative reasons is that, just like other kinds of reasons, they can confict. To illustrate, imagine the following example: I have a reason to donate to a charity to alleviate the suffering of distant strangers by supporting their government’s efforts in treating intestinal parasites. I also have a reason to use the same resources to help my daughter become a jazz pianist, one of her life-long dreams. Let us assume, furthermore, that my resources are suffciently scarce so that only one of those two uses of the resources is meaningfully possible (e.g. the goals I would pursue by using the resources are not meaningfully pursuable for any lesser amount than the full amount to be allocated). Leaving aside the complexities connected to a consequentialist position (e.g. the rather weak, or non-existent, role played by special or associative obligations within it), then I am experiencing a confict of moral reasons. Conficts of moral reasons are the daily stock of life, and there is nothing necessarily tragic about them, though there might of course be (see Nussbaum, 1985). In many circumstances, conficts of reasons can be resolved by attributing different ‘strengths’ or ‘weights’ to the reasons on either side of the confict (Raz, 1975: 26). For example, imagine that we went to lunch together and that this time it is my turn to pay for the meal given that you paid the last time around. Suppose also that I have only ten euros in my pocket and that that amount exactly covers the cost of the meal for both of us (something that can in fact realistically be the case in Napoli). Suppose now that, as I am about to pay for the meal, the person next to me feels unwell and that the money I have in my pocket is exactly the cost of the taxi ride to the hospital that would save her life. Assume, in addition, that the cab driver won’t give her a ride for free and that no one else is in a position to provide cash. In this case, it seems easy to see that my reason to pay for the meal is overridden by my reason to help the person in need of my help. Note, however, that even when there is a confict between two reasons, and one is overridden by the other, the overridden

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reason does not disappear. To use a sports metaphor, when two football teams play a match, the losing side, if there is one, does not disappear from the feld or from an account of the game; it just loses. One way to express this kind of situation is to say that, in the previous example, I had a pro tanto reason to pay for the meal and that it was defeated by (what was initially to be considered as) another pro tanto reason, the reason to pay for the cab. In this picture, paying for the cab revealed itself to be what I had reason to do ‘all things considered’ (i.e. the right thing to do, or a conclusive reason, to use Razian language 1975: 27), and my pro tanto reason to pay for the meal was defeated. As we have seen in Chapter 1, many have in fact been tempted to understand toleration in that way. For note that this kind of account of conficting reasons would seem, at least intuitively, to ft well with what I there called the balancing model of the paradox of toleration. If toleration requires a reason to oppose a certain action and a reason to accept it, then toleration, when it occurs, can be understood as a characterisation of a given confict between reasons where the reason to oppose is defeated by the reason to accept. The fact that defeated reasons do not disappear is also a good-making feature for the balancing model, for when we tolerate something it seems plausible to think that the very meaning of the concept itself would require that our opposition would be overridden by other reasons and not disappear altogether (that was, inter alia, one of the reasons for rejecting the perceptual model in Chapter 1). Recall also that, in Chapter 1, I criticised this approach (i.e. the balancing model) to understanding toleration for it seemed too ad hoc. In other words, the approach was not criticised because it was, strictly speaking, implausible, but because one might be inclined, theoretically speaking, to want more guidance, that is, guidance concerning the kinds of situations where toleration is appropriate and thus about the kinds of reasons that, if we support acceptance of an action or practice, would ‘normally or usually defeat’ the reasons that we have to oppose it. In Chapter 1 I also suggested that this desire for more precise guidance was particularly felt when the same kinds of reasons were at stake on ‘both sides’ of one’s deliberations about whether to tolerate something. For, in those cases, the balancing model might feel more acutely under pressure given that we have no clear general account of how to balance reasons of the same kind, that is, reasons that belong to the same domain (i.e. moral normative reasons). The solution I suggested pointed us in a different direction, namely, in the direction of what I then called the partition model. The partition model, recall, operates via (unsurprisingly) a partition, or, more specifcally, a partition between different kinds of reasons within the same domain of reasons broadly construed. Yet, there, I limited myself to illustrate one specifc form the partition model could take. What seemed relevant about the partition model was that it was categorical in nature. Put differently, what it offered, and that was the main reason I felt inclined to judge it as superior to its alternatives, was an account of the categorical difference between the reasons we have to oppose a certain object of toleration and the reasons we have to accept it when toleration does occur. And this suggests, in the context of our

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present discussion, that the partition model implicitly relies on a different account of how at least some conficts of reasons are resolved. Or at least, this is what I want to suggest. Following Joseph Raz (1975), I shall introduce the distinction between frst-order reasons and second-order reasons and shall claim that the partition model can best be described by understanding it through the lenses of the Razian distinction. I want to suggest that the partition model operates a categorical distinction between different kinds of reasons within the domain of moral normative reasons and that this partition allows us to consider some of those reasons as frst-order reasons and other such reasons as ‘connected to’ second-order reasons (see especially Jones, 2003). In this picture, when toleration occurs, it is because the reasons for opposition are frst-order reasons that are to be disregarded given the ‘intervention’ of second-order reasons. First-order reasons, or, more precisely, frst-order practical reasons, are just reasons to act in some way or another. Consider a case where non-moral practical reasons are involved. If John wants to have lunch with Jane because he enjoys her company, then he has a frst-order reason to have lunch with her. For moral normative or practical reasons, we can think of another example. If Robert does not cheat on his exam because he believes that cheating is unfair to the other persons being examined, then he is using a frst-order reason as a consideration that counts in favour of his not cheating. First-order reasons are just the normal set of considerations we take into account when we deliberate about what to do. Instead, second-order reasons are not reasons to act or do anything, strictly speaking. They are reasons that bear on our understanding of which frst-order reasons for action we have and should bear on a particular case. First-order reasons are, simply put, reasons to act in a given way. Instead, second-order reasons are reasons to act or not to act for a given reason or set of reasons. Following now-standard terminology (see Raz, 1975: 39), I shall call negative second-order reasons ‘exclusionary reasons’. A useful illustration of the idea of an exclusionary reason can be provided through the concept of (practical) authority. Put differently, and accepting for the sake of argument that someone does indeed have the relevant form of authority, we can ask what kinds of reasons her commands would provide one with. So, adapting one of Raz’s famous examples, imagine you are in the military and your commanding offcer Jane tells you the following:‘confscate that van from these civilians so that your platoon can cover more distance towards the front line’. Faced with this kind of order, you might take two different kinds of deliberative approaches. On the one hand, you could consider your commanding offcer’s order just as a normal reason, a frst-order reason, that you would then have to balance against other frst-order reasons that apply to the case at hand. For example, we can imagine that you know for a fact that the van is used by a family to transport water and daily supplies to the village and that confscating it would thus have severe consequences for the entire village. Alternatively, and more in line with the traditional view of the chain of command in an army, you can think of her command as (the source of) a second-order reason that excludes (at least some) of the frst-order reasons that bear on the case.

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More specifcally, her command, the very fact that the order is issued by your commanding offcer, which, ex hypothesis, has authority over you, would exclude from your deliberation (at least some) frst-order reasons that bear on the case. Orders provide frst-order reasons to perform certain actions. Yet, many would argue, the crux of Jane’s authority over you, the essential element of your status as a subordinate, is that it is simply not your place to decide what is the best course of action to get to the front line quickly or whether getting to the front line quickly is a worthy goal to pursue in the frst place (Raz, 1975: 38). You might believe that the balance of frst-order reasons is such that you should not requisition the van, and yet the fact that you received the order simply tells you that you should disregard (within limits) such balance of frst-order reasons, for some such reasons are excluded by a second-order reason, the status of which is determined by Jane having authority over you. Several comments are in order concerning second-order reasons and how they relate to frst-order reasons. Recall the qualifcations I have repeatedly inserted within the example. So, I have mentioned that Jane’s orders would normally defeat ‘at least some’ frst-order reasons and ‘within limits’. I have thus basically hinted at the fact that reasons that originate from authority are exclusionary reasons, yet their ability to act as exclusionary reasons is not unlimited or self-evident. There are in fact several ways to see the ‘limits’ of second-order reasons. First, consider the scope of second-order reasons, and specifcally of exclusionary reasons. According to Raz’s defnition ‘[t]he scope of an exclusionary reason is the class of reasons it excludes’ (Raz, 1975: 46). This point is probably easier to illustrate in cases outside of military authority, for the latter usually offers instantiations of what are overall prescriptions about what to do. Yet, as Raz argues, it is perfectly possible for the scope of an authoritative directive only to exclude a specifc kind of reason, for such directives may be designed not finally to determine what is to be done in certain circumstances but merely to determine what ought to be done on the basis of certain considerations. For example, a directive may determine that from the economic point of view a certain action is required. It will then replace economic considerations but no others. (Raz, 1988: 46) Second, so far we have assumed that Jane does in fact have authority over you, but we might very well ask why that is the case in a more general form, that is, leaving aside the obvious fact that she claims it and, in a functioning army, has de facto authority over you. This is the question to which Raz’s service conception of authority is meant to offer an answer (2006). Leaving several complications aside (but see Ehrenberg, 2011 for an excellent discussion), the basic insight is that an authority is such in light of its ability to allow its subjects to better comply with the balance of frst-order reasons that apply to them in a specifc set of circumstances. Normally, if we trust that a given authority is in fact meeting the conditions implicit in what Raz calls the

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Normal Justifcation Thesis, then, we trust her determination of what the balance of frst-order reasons is. In addition, note that meeting the Normal Justifcation Thesis will be something that an agent can usually claim to achieve within a given domain, not generally. This kind of feature of authority is more easily illustrated with reference to the scope of theoretical, rather than practical, authority. Bearing in mind the distinction between the two kinds of authority, namely, that theoretical authorities usually give us good reasons to believe something not to act in a given way (see Ehrenberg, 2011: 884), it is easy to see that a physicist may reasonably lay claim to authority concerning physics, not law or literature. Yet, there can also be circumstances where we might be relatively secure that something went wrong, so to speak, and this might affect the exclusionary character of the reasons for action provided by authoritative directives. If Jane was temporarily incapacitated, or drunk, we might doubt that, at least temporarily, she meeting the conditions implicit in the Normal Justifcation Thesis. If Jane ordered you to massacre the entire village, including children, then one might be inclined to think that, at least in this case, the Normal Justifcation Thesis is not in fact satisfed. Third, exclusionary reasons, just like frst-order reasons, may have cancelling conditions that are distinct from their limited scope or domain of application. So, if Jane gave you an order yesterday morning of the form, ‘do X tomorrow evening’, but you stepped down from your position in the army before the time of executing the order has come, then this would act as a cancelling condition (the reason being, intuitively, that the sui generis character of the reasons provided by Jane’s order is dependent on the role you occupy in the army). The same applies to frst-order reasons. If I promised you to do something and you subsequently released me from that promise, then your ‘release’ would act as a cancelling condition for the frst-order reason I originally had (see Raz, 1975: 27). A cancelling condition is both different from a scope restriction and from the pure absence of a second-order reason. If Jane posed as your commanding offcer when in fact she was not, then her status would simply not be connected to the existence of second-order reasons, though you might (incorrectly, as it happens) believe that it is. Fourth, it is important to stress that second-order reasons, and specifcally exclusionary reasons, exclude rather than override frst-order reasons. They thus illustrate a different and distinct way in which a given reason can be defeated by another reason. In addition, just like for conficts between frst-order reasons, the frst-order reason that is defeated by the intervention of a second-order one is not invalidated or lost. Its strength is not, in other words, dissipated by the fact that it is, for example, excluded by a second-order reason; rather, when an exclusionary reason applies, a given frst-order reason (or a set of such reasons) is simply taken out of the balance of reasons (Edmondson, 1993: 330–332). Fifth, so far, we have assumed, for the purpose of illustrating the idea of a secondorder reason, that proper authority can be the source of exclusionary reasons. But the remit of second-order reasons is not limited to the commands of an authority. And, in any case, while the assumption is reasonable, it does not explain what links

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the commands of an authority to a second-order reason of some kind. (Recall that this was the specifc role of the service conception.) More precisely, we should distinguish between what follows from the fact that a reason is a second-order reason (the part that such reason plays in our practical reasoning) and what justifes the fact that such reason is a second-order reason in the frst place (that is, ‘why’ it should play such a part in the frst place). Let us take stock. In this part of the chapter, I have offered a very coarse, but hopefully plausible, account of practical reasoning. The main justifcation for such coarseness is that my main goal is the specifcation of the partition model, not the development of a specifc take on practical reasoning. I have thus tried to shy away from what I take to be unnecessarily controversial views on the matter. A second element of the account I have presented was the introduction of the Razian idea of a second-order reason. The justifcation for the discussion of Raz’s work lies in the fact that the idea of a second-order reason offers what I take to be (and shall discuss at greater length later) an important, in fact decisive, element of a plausible account of the partition model of toleration in a range of cases. I believe the latter point needs to be stressed. My discussion of the idea of a second-order reason, and its connection with the Razian account of (practical) authority, is not meant to suggest that I endorse a picture of practical authority (i.e. its justifcation) that is similar to Raz’s one. For the purposes of my enquiry, instead, the point has been to develop (or rather to borrow and illustrate) a specifc language and set of ideas in order to think about how to resolve conficts between reasons. Thus, to repeat, the point of the aforementioned pages lies not in an interpretive claim concerning, for example, the similarities between the Razian view of practical authority and the Rawlsian understanding of legitimacy (which I will discuss later). Rather, the point has been to specify the conceptual tools that are used by, or within, the partition model.

II.

The partition model, justice and legitimacy

In this part of Chapter 2, I shall try to offer an interpretation of the idea of toleration as it is presented within Rawls’s Political Liberalism (1996) that fts with the partition model. In order to do so, I shall deploy the understanding of the Razian category of second-order reasons as analysed in the previous part of the chapter. I shall draw from, and expand on, the work of Peter Jones (2003), for to my knowledge his represents the only attempt to make sense of the Rawlsian account of toleration through the lenses of the Razian distinction between frst-order and second-order reasons (for a partial exception see Meckled-Garcia, 2003). In what sense, then, can we reconcile the idea of second-order reasons with a Rawlsian account of toleration? Here, it is worth quoting Jones at some length: This separation between the political and the non-political, the public and the non-public, takes us on to the question of whether the reason Rawls gives for toleration is a first- or a second-order reason. . . . [Rawls] does present his conception of justice as one that should function in political decision-making

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in an exclusionary way. It matches Raz’s idea of a ‘protected’ or ‘peremptory’ reason. It is a first-order reason in that it prescribes how we should settle fundamental political matters, but it is also a second-order reason in that it provides that, in dealing with those political matters, other sorts of reasons – reasons drawn from our comprehensive doctrines – should be excluded from consideration. Similarly, in political matters, the associated idea of public reason operates in an exclusionary way. In their role as citizens, just individuals do not engage in political decision-making by weighing both public and non-public reasons and letting the balance fall where it may. Rather, they exclude non-public reasons from consideration and attend only to public reasons. Thus, given that Rawls’s argument for toleration forms part of his political conception of justice, there is a clear case for holding . . . that it provides us with a negative second-order reason for toleration. That is, on public or ‘political’ matters, it provides us with a reason for refraining from acting on reasons of another sort. (Jones, 2003: 106) Note several features of Jones’s reconstruction of the Rawlsian argument. Jones describes the political conception of justice, following Raz, as acting like a protected or peremptory reason. Thus, a conception of justice provides both frst- and second-order reasons. This is not an uncommon predicament (i.e. that a given source of reasons be both the source of frst-order reasons and connected, in some fashion, to second-order reasons). Yet, it is important to highlight this feature for it would otherwise be less than fully transparent why there is a sense in which one might be tempted (at least prima facie) to think of the relationship between reasons that originate from the conception of justice and reasons that originate from a comprehensive doctrine as one characterised by a confict of reasons in the traditional (i.e. frst-order) sense. And, clearly, they are, at least insofar as we set to one side the ‘second-order-related’ character of those reasons that originate from the conception of justice. Second, and relatedly, note that Jones refers to the idea that a conception of justice might ‘function’ as a second-order reason. Yet, it is not obvious how that could be the case, for, strictly speaking, it is not self-evident the way in which a conception of justice might ‘itself ’ be, or be the source of, a second-order reason of any kind. Here, I believe, we should try to ‘decompress’ the terminological choices made in the passage and link them to the wider context of Political Liberalism. To do so, we can note that any exercise of political power, at least in a liberal democratic society, requires some form of justifcation. And yet, not any kind of justifcation will do. For, in a liberal democratic society, political power is the power of the citizens as a collective body and all citizens share in such power equally. What will be required, then, is a justifcation that is reasonably acceptable to the deeply (and reasonably) divided constituency of a liberal democratic political community. Rawls’s answer is that political power should be exercised according to the liberal principle of legitimacy and thus in light of a political conception of justice (Wenar,

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2017). Such conception is, Rawls tells us, freestanding, limited in its scope of application to the basic structure of society and draws from the fundamental ideas in the public political culture of the kind of society it aims at regulating. Thus, when it comes to the exercise of political power in a liberal democratic society, only those exercises that are justifed in light of (i.e. that rely on reasons derived from) the political conception are legitimate. In addition, through his doctrine of public reason, Rawls extends the aforementioned constraints on justifcation for the exercise of political power to what is publicly offered as the rationale for such exercise by citizens acting in their capacity as public offcials, but also when, as ordinary citizens, they vote on and discuss a restricted set of questions pertaining to the basic architecture of their society. Assuming, as I will, that we have good reason to endorse Rawls’s solution to the problem of the exercise of political power in a pluralistic liberal democratic society, then it becomes clearer why, or more explicitly in what way, a political conception of justice can be the locus where we can ‘observe’ both frst- and second-order reasons connected to it. The conception provides frst-order reasons that are just the kinds of reasons we could derive from what the conception tells us justice to be. Intuitively, if X is what justice requires of us, then we have reason to do X. We can also point out that a political conception and its content is the result of a specifc constructivist procedure (i.e. the original position) and that, to the extent that one sees epistemic and/or moral value in such a procedure, then we have reason to endorse the content of its principles and thus act according to them. At a more abstract level, offering a full explanation of why that is the case might require answering more complex and controversial questions. I shall not take a specifc stand on this point but would like to signal that there are different options available, and that which is to be preferred will largely depend on what kind of relationship we think there is between reasons (and especially practical reasons) and values (see Heuer, 2004). For example, one might think that values are to be defned in terms of reasons. Scanlon’s ‘buck-passing’ account of values seems to offer the clearest instantiation of this model insofar as, according to Scanlon: being valuable is not a property that provides us with reasons. Rather, to call something valuable is to say that it has other properties that provide reasons for behaving in certain ways with regard to it. . . . We judge things to be good or to be valuable because of other properties that they have. (Scanlon, 1998: 96) In this picture, one might be inclined to think that the reason giving force of a liberal conception of justice lies in the fact that justice is a value because it has ‘other properties’ that provide us with good reasons to ‘behave in certain ways with regard to it’, such as respecting its principles (Scanlon, 1998: 95). I shall not spend too much time illustrating alternative approaches, but note that one might reverse the order of priority suggested by Scanlon’s account and claim, following Heuer, that ‘we have reasons to act in certain ways because so acting is

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an appropriate response to value . . . it is an aspect of things of value, one might say, that they are practical reasons’ (2004: 133). In this picture, one might think of a liberal conception of justice as providing a coherent and attractive interpretation of important values such as freedom, equality, and fairness. Thus, the reason giving force of a conception of justice would lie, in this more direct route, in the fact that we are (correctly responding to) the values of fairness, freedom, and equality. This is how, inter alia, Heuer describes the Razian view of the relationship between reasons and values. So much for the conception of justice being a source of frst-order reasons. What is even less obvious is why, or rather how, such a conception would be the source, so to speak, of second-order reasons. My proposed solution is that the very function it (the conception of justice) plays as the only source of reasons for the justifcation of the exercise of political power over a pluralistic constituency ‘presupposes’ that there must be second-order reasons in play: more precisely, a negative one implying that we should not consider other sources of reasons, such as those derived from comprehensive doctrines, as what can potentially drive the justifcation of the exercise of political power, and a positive one that tells us that the political conception of justice itself is the only appropriate source of reasons in light of which we can justify the exercise of political power. What is relevant, for my present purposes, is to highlight that there is a clear asymmetry here. For the conception of justice is itself a source of frst-order reasons, while it acts as it does, as the only source of reasons that can be used in the justifcation of political power, because of other features of the Rawlsian argument. Thus, the political conception ‘visibly’, so to speak, is the source of frst-order reasons, and yet the way it is supposed to operate presupposes, at the very least, that a secondorder reason not to ‘count’ other kinds of sources of frst-order reasons is already in place. So, a perhaps more convoluted, but hopefully more precise, way to put things is to say that a political conception of justice, when it operates in the correct way as the only source of frst-order reasons for the justifcation of the exercise of political power must itself rely on the operation of second-order reasons that provides a justifcation for the conception’s role (and thus for the sui generis status of the reasons that are connected to such a conception). We shall come back to this question later, but it must be highlighted that there is no inconsistency here. As we have seen previously, we can ask at least two questions about second-order reasons: one is what follows from the fact that they are the kinds of reasons that they are. A separate question is, to put it crudely, what makes them the kinds of reasons that they are. What I have argued so far is that a political conception of justice is the source of frst-order reasons and is supposed to operate as the only source of relevant reasons and that this plausibly required the existence of a negative second-order reason that allowed us to exclude other sources of reasons, and of a positive second-order reason that individuates the conception as the only appropriate source of frst-order reasons. So, what is still missing from this picture is the justifcation for those second-order reasons being the kinds of reasons that they are (as opposed to how we can see the result of their existence in play).

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Third, note also that, at least implicitly, the conception of justice will act as a sui generis reference point for the justifcation of the exercise of political power over a limited domain, namely, constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. The scope of public reason and of what we can call the ‘public justifcatory requirement’ more broadly is, needless to say, a controversial topic (see Quong, 2004). Yet, following Rawls, I shall assume that such scope is limited to the aforementioned subset of the political domain. The verb ‘to assume’ is here important. For, strictly speaking, I do not believe that disagreements on this point are relevant for the purposes of my enquiry. If the reader feels uncomfortable with this kind of assumption, then I think she is entitled to alter it. I do not believe that the overall approach to the partition model I am presenting would be required to change as well if she did. At the very least, its conceptual structure would not. Yet the reader might also ask why I make the assumption in the frst place. While I cannot do justice to the relevance of the topic, allow me two passing remarks. The frst is that limits on the scope of the public justifcatory requirement cannot, in my view, be too loose, for political power, if broadly interpreted, is everywhere in a modern political community. And yet, it would be implausible to maintain that we should justify just any use of political power, broadly construed, according to the reasons that can be derived from a conception of justice. To require as much, one might be tempted to say, would be to impose an excessive burden on citizens and institutions (Freeman, 2007: 372; he uses the word ‘strenuous’). Second, note that a political conception of justice is developed, at least within the Rawlsian framework, with a specifc kind of object in mind, namely, the basic structure of society. What is part of the basic structure is, to be sure, itself bound to be controversial, but my sense is that a convincing (public) justifcation of constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice would ‘cover’, so to speak, most of its relevant parts. Let us come back to the question of justifcation. As I have clearly stated just two paragraphs earlier, none of what I have said so far provides a justifcation for the claim that a conception of justice should play a specifc role. Yet, I believe that my analysis up to this point does allow us to ask the relevant question about justifcation in a more precise fashion. So we can say that we are looking for the following: a justifcation for the role of a political conception of justice as the only legitimate source of reasons according to which political power should be exercised, and citizens and public offcials be required to publicly explain to each other such exercise, over the restricted domain of constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. The structure of the justifcation for the latter conclusion is, in my view, readily available in Rawls’s work. It starts from a general principle of legitimacy. Such principle states that: Our exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to their common human reason. (1996: 137)

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This tells us that the exercise of political power in a liberal democratic society should ‘fulfll a criterion of reciprocity: citizens must reasonably believe that all citizens can reasonably accept the enforcement of a particular set of basic laws’ (Wenar, 2017: 3.1; for a detailed discussion see Freeman, 2007: 374–376). The next step in the justifcation is to see what kinds of restrictions this principle and the associated criterion of reciprocity impose on the reasons that are offered for the justifcation of the exercise of political power. The frst is negative and tells us that no reason(s) derived from a comprehensive doctrine can form the basis for the justifcation of political power over matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials, for in light of the fact of reasonable pluralism, no such doctrine could act as the source of reasons that would constitute a justifcation that citizens could reasonably be asked to endorse. The second is positive, and it tells us that a political conception of justice that is ‘freestanding’, that is, one that is not derived from any comprehensive doctrine, and provides an interpretation of the fundamental ideas implicit in the public political culture of the society in question, can act as the relevant source of reasons that can provide a reasonable justifcation for the exercise of political power over matters of basic justice and constitutional essentials. Thus, provided one accepts the validity of the liberal principle of legitimacy, something I will not try to offer a justifcation for (but more on this later), then we can see why specifc kinds of reasons are not to count and that other kinds of reason are to count when it comes to the justifcation of the exercise of political power. I believe that we are now in a position to clarify the sense in which a political conception of justice is connected to the idea of second-order reasons in a fuller way. As we have seen, a political conception is the source of frst-order reasons. Furthermore, its role as the sole source of reasons that constitute an appropriate justifcation for the use of political power itself relies on our acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy and its implications. Acceptance of the validity of such principle implies that we have a negative second-order reason to exclude reasons that derive from comprehensive doctrines from the justifcation of the use of political power, that is, inter alia, the sense in which we have an exclusionary reason (as suggested by Jones), namely, a reason not to allow a specifc set of reasons (i.e. those derived from comprehensive doctrines) to form part of the balance of reasons in light of which power should be exercised. We also have, I believe, a positive second-order reason, in light of the other features in which a political conception is constructed (i.e. being limited to the basic structure of society and derived from the fundamental ideas that are implicit in the public political culture of the society), to use the political conception as the only source of reasons to justify the use of political power. The political conception has the right kind of pedigree, so to speak. The idea that there is a ‘positive’ as well as a negative second-order reason in play here might be thought of in the following way: a) that the kinds of reasons one has is not reducible to political versus comprehensive distinction (to wit, some non-public reasons might not be derived from a comprehensive doctrine); and b) that only those reasons that are appropriately political should come into play.

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The scope of negative second-order reasons is limited to reasons that derive from comprehensive doctrines and that imply considerations in favour of exercising political power in certain ways and over a specifc subset of the domain of the political. The same applies to positive second-order reasons. Thus, for the purposes of the partition model, the domain of application of both negative and positive secondorder reasons is to the restricted domain of constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. (More precisely: only comprehensive reasons that bear on such matters are excluded, and only when such matters are concerned is it the case that the reasons derived from the political conception of justice are the only appropriate kind of reasons.) Thus, in other domains, other sources of reasons, such as comprehensive doctrines, are not to be excluded from practical deliberations, nor should ‘political reasons’ be seen as having sui generis status and importance. Finally, before moving on to the next part of my discussion, allow me to make one important caveat. So far, I have taken for granted that at least three important issues can be successfully resolved from within a political liberal framework. The frst, on which I have touched upon very briefy, pertains to the relevant scope of the ‘objects’ over which public political reasons are claimed to have sui generis status (e.g. constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice). The second is that whatever the aforementioned scope, public reason can be ‘complete’ (for an excellent discussion see Reidy, 2000). The third and fnal concerns the sui generis status of public political reasons itself and the demands that such status may impose on different kinds of persons within a liberal society, and especially on those citizens who harbour deep religious convictions (for a wide range of positions on the latter issue see Audi and Wolterstorff, 1997; Greenawalt, 1988; Vallier, 2014). Thus, we can say that, so far, I have assumed that: a) the relevant scope where public political reasons have sui generis status are constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice; b) that public political reasons can provide an answer to most, if not all, relevant questions within such scope; and c) that public political reasons, and only those reasons, shall have sui generis status within the relevant scope. My sense is that these assumptions, while certainly controversial, are not very damaging. For, once again, my goal in this chapter is to illustrate an approach to a specifc conception of toleration rather than specifying the whole of the conception and provided one believes that at least some solution can be found, then nothing, it seems to me, hinges on the specifcity of the solution itself, other than the normal caveats about checking for the overall coherence of the resulting theory of toleration. Without any claim to completeness, and for the sake of providing a basic illustration, we can, going back to the discussion of Raz’s understanding of second-order reasons, bear in mind that what gives a second-order reason its status is a matter of argument rather than assertion. And, we can add, that whether we should accept such status might, among other things, depend on what the normative implications of such acceptance would be, all things considered. This is, in my view, one way to interpret the so-called Rawlsian ‘proviso’ (1996: lii; for an excellent discussion see Freeman, 2007: 411 ff.). For what the proviso tells us is that there can be good

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reasons for relaxing the requirement that, for example, citizens draw only on public reasons when constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice are at stake, provided certain conditions are met. In such a case, the partition model might not be the most fruitful way to illustrate the division of labour between classes of reasons. Yet, it seems intuitive to think that, within such a model, the proviso tells us that the sui generis status of public political reasons can be ‘momentarily bracketed’, in light of the overall normative implication that not allowing such bracketing might have.

III.

The liberal principle of legitimacy

So far, I have conducted my discussion in a conditional form, for I have tried to explain what follows from accepting the validity of the liberal principle of legitimacy. Leaving aside the controversial idea that one can ‘accept’ the validity of a principle (some might be inclined to think that a principle is either true or false, for example, but see Ferrara, 2008: 69–79, 2019), it is worth asking in light of what, so to speak, such acceptance could be understood. One obvious possibility is to note that such principles, together with guidelines for public enquiry, would themselves be, according to Rawls, chosen in the original position (for an excellent discussion see Weithman, 2017: 399–400). Yet, my sense is that while such an answer is certainly correct, it would mask the deeper origin of the principle of legitimacy, for what we might be inclined to want to know is why such a choice (in the original position) is one to be entertained in the frst place. And, in the end, this is what I would like to discuss, for it is such a deeper origin that allows us to readily connect the political liberal conception of toleration to the liberal principle of legitimacy. Note, in addition, that this point is going to be an important one for structural reasons given how I have laid out the political liberal account of toleration. If accepting the liberal principle of legitimacy really is what allows us to give a specifc class of reasons their sui generis status, and if the latter idea is crucial for understanding the structure of toleration (more on this later), then the justifcation for the liberal principle of legitimacy will turn out to be the central element of the justifcation for liberal toleration. There are, as far as I can see, at least two ways to approach this issue (but see Estlund, 1998 for a third option). To be fully frank from the outset, I cannot do justice to both of them. Nor, I think, is this, strictly speaking, a requirement of the theory-building exercise I am attempting in this book. For now, I think it is simply important to briefy lay out the two options that are available and to explain how they differ and the extent to which they ft the overall argument presented in this chapter and to offer some brief comments on how I am inclined to adjudge the relative merits of both approaches. I shall call the frst the offcial view (i.e. Rawls’s). The second option is, I think, an attempt to deviate from the offcial view by making it ‘thinner’ and yet truer to its own internal commitments (see Wenar, 1995). The offcial view is based on a specifc interpretation of the idea of reasonableness. Reasonable persons are understood, shortly put, to have a sense of justice and

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to accept the burdens of judgment (but see Chapter 5 in this book for a lengthier discussion). If persons have a sense of justice, they will be capable of understanding, applying, and acting from the principles of a conception of justice, and they will be willing to propose terms of cooperation that others can be expected to publicly endorse as free and equal. Rawls’s description of a reasonable person’s commitment to reciprocity is surely robust, and yet one might ask what the content of those terms of cooperation that are offered will be like, for, even in the presence of a commitment to propose terms that others can reasonably accept as free and equal, what those terms are is not self-evident (see McKinnon, 2006: 70 ff.). And here, reasonable persons will basically realise that they will fundamentally and persistently disagree about the content of those terms if they insist on drawing them from their comprehensive view of the world. Not only will they realise that deliberations about the fair terms of cooperation in light of their comprehensive view of the world is unlikely to bring them to agreement in judgment, they will also believe that this lack of agreement is itself reasonable and not to be regretted, for it is the normal result of the exercise of human reason within the bounds of free institutions. And the justifcation that brings reasonable persons to the latter conclusion is none other than that they accept what Rawls calls the burdens of judgment. The burdens of judgment, Rawls tells us, are ‘of frst signifcance for a democratic idea of toleration’ (1996: 58). I think it is relatively clear, by now, that it is no exaggeration to call Rawls’s view ‘toleration from reasonableness’ (see McKinnon, 2006: 67–80), for it is the acceptance of the basic elements of the description of reasonable persons that justifes the acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy and thus of liberal toleration. Reasonable persons want to live with others on terms that those others can reasonably accept and realise that those terms, given the burdens of judgment, cannot be justifed by appeal to reasons derived from their comprehensive commitments. Is there an alternative to the aforementioned picture? The answer, I believe, lies in the extent to which we believe the burdens of judgment to be crucial for the overall argument in favour of the liberal principle of legitimacy. Put differently, we can ask whether there is a ‘thinner’ characterisation of reasonable persons that would allow us to depict them as still committed to the liberal principle of legitimacy and yet not because they are also committed to the idea that reasonable disagreement is to be explained in terms of the burdens of judgment. This seems to be Leif Wenar’s strategy (1995). Glossing over several features of his argument, we can say that, in his view, we should consider reasonable persons to be characterised by the possession of the two moral powers and by a commitment to propose and abide by fair terms of cooperation if others are similarly motivated (1995: 38–41). In addition, Wenar makes two sets of assumptions: a) that everyone accepts the content of justice as fairness, including the conception of persons and society, the appropriateness of the original position as a modelling device, and that it is in fact the case that just as fairness would be selected from the standpoint of the original position; and b) that all members of society are themselves clear about the way(s) in which political values are to ft into their comprehensive views (1995: 39). He then concludes that,

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even accepting the limited characterisation of reasonable persons he has offered, we could still claim that what he calls the ‘limited conception’ of justice would be a political conception in Rawls’s sense of the term, that it would be able to gain the allegiance of adherents of different comprehensive views, and yet would still provide a suffcient basis for a stable commitment to public reason and thus to toleration. He then goes on to claim that the burdens of judgment are not a necessary feature of the argument in support of a political conception of justice. It is worth quoting him at some length: What is the role of the burdens of judgment in justice as fairness? Rawls asserts that their main purpose is to underwrite toleration and thus public reason. . . . Yet this cannot be right: as we have just seen, toleration and public reason are already secured by the first and second attributes of the reasonable person [i.e. the ones I mentioned earlier describing Wenar’s account] – and in particular by the desire to propose and abide by fair terms of cooperation. People with this desire want to cooperate with their fellows according to rules acceptable to all. They believe it illegitimate to use political power to repress comprehensive doctrines simply because these are different from their own doctrines, as there can be no publicly shared justification for such repression. There is nothing else here for the burdens of judgment to do, beyond what the limited conception of the reasonable person has already done. (1995: 42) In fact, Wenar adds to the aforementioned argument that if there is something that the burdens of judgment do achieve, it is making the overall structure of Rawls’s view not political on Rawls’s own terms and thus reasonably rejectable by at least some who would otherwise be willing to join a liberal consensus on justice as fairness (1995: 43). In a slogan, we can say that if Rawls is committed to applying toleration to philosophy itself, Wenar wants to deepen the commitment. Furthermore, Wenar offers a diagnosis for the Rawlsian tendency to ‘overreach’ beyond the bounds of the political (restrictively defned), and that is Rawls’s preoccupation with stability. For, according to Wenar, it is precisely in light of a specifc account of the genesis of pluralism (i.e. as a result of the burdens of judgment) that ‘we will see why an overlapping consensus is the only just and feasible choice for unity’ (1995: 47). Yet, rejecting the burdens of judgment is emphatically not rejecting a commitment to toleration, for there is nothing incoherent or implausible in the idea that a reasonable (in the limited sense developed by Wenar) person, committed to a reasonable comprehensive doctrine, would want to tolerate others just in light of her commitment to live with them on fair and publicly acceptable terms. And this is so even if she believes others to be not only deeply wrong about their comprehensive view of the world, but wrong in a way that cannot be explained without deep regret about their ‘mistakes’ (i.e. not as a result of the burdens of judgment). Rawls suggests that the burdens of judgment imply no hesitancy about one’s comprehensive view of the world (1996: 62–63). Wenar, instead, suggests that for

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many persons and doctrines, even those whose adherents are willing to offer and abide by fair terms of cooperation, to see other views of the world as deeply fawed is part and parcel of what it means to be committed to the truth of their own view (see 1995: 43–46, esp. 46). As I mentioned earlier, it would be beyond the scope of this chapter to provide a full analysis of the respective merits of both approaches to liberal legitimacy. In addition, my sense is that, for the purposes of the ‘structure’ of the theory of international toleration I am setting out in this book, the choice between the two approaches is not central. Here, the reader might be inclined to ask why, if that is the case, I am spending time discussing the issue. My sense is that while the structure of the overall theory of international toleration I am discussing would not be fundamentally altered by choosing one approach or the other (i.e. Rawls’s or Wenar’s), the overall theory, namely,‘its structure coupled with its justifcation’, would. And it thus seems relevant to ‘describe’ the theory more fully, that is to offer a more precise account of the overall theory, to say something about the reasons that lead the citizens of a liberal democratic polity to accept the liberal principle of legitimacy. Preliminary qualifcations aside, what can we say about the merits of the two respective approaches? I will limit myself to note two points concerning Wenar’s critique that have led me to believe that Rawls’s solution is to be preferred. The frst is, simply put, that one might wish to know the reason why a given citizen who rejects the idea of the burdens of judgment would nonetheless be prepared to offer fair and publicly acceptable terms of cooperation to other citizens. As Jonathan Quong argues, this is an important question because it allows us to give shape to reasonable citizens’ moral motivations and thus to the bases of their commitment to the liberal principle of legitimacy (Quong, 2010: 296). It is, of course, possible to offer an alternative account, and clearly, the burdens of judgment need not be, or at least not their exact content, the only option available in order to describe the contours and origins of citizens’ moral motivation. In fact, in Chapter 5, I shall claim that the nature of the burdens of judgment might very well change according to the kind of political domain under consideration. At the same time, however, it would seem to be desirable to provide some kind of functional equivalent to the Rawlsian story. A second and related point concerns the issue of stability. Here, too, I can do no more than to offer what I take to be a mere suggestion. Crudely stated, the suggestion is that it is unclear to me that we can completely separate the account of liberal legitimacy from the idea of stability for the right reasons. Or, at least that, in a Rawlsian framework, the separation between the two might be more traumatic than one could initially suppose. This is a point I will also tangentially address in Chapter 4 when discussing stability for the right reasons in the context of my novel interpretation of Rawls’s argument for international toleration. To see why, we should recall that the desire to offer fair and publicly acceptable terms of cooperation is always coupled with the rider,‘provided that others are similarly motivated’. Leaving aside the relevance of reciprocity, we can certainly entertain the following

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question: how exactly are we to know that other citizens are similarly motivated to us on this specifc point? In the absence of a credible story concerning the ‘path’ from irreconcilable differences to the possibility of stability for the right reasons, my sense is that this kind of question becomes more diffcult to answer. In addition, and given the ‘costs’ incurred in light of the restraint that is required of those who are indeed prepared to offer fair and publicly justifable terms of social cooperation, we can say that those who restrain themselves would want to know not only that a similar commitment on the part of other citizens is present but also that it is secured by the best possible source of motivational power, namely, a plausible account of others’ moral make-up and how the latter might incline them to ‘restrain’ themselves as well.

IV. The partition model and the problem of stability Taking a cue from Wenar’s interpretive insight, let us discuss the role of stability within the broader philosophical framework I have tried to articulate in this chapter. Here, I shall claim that there is an initial intuitive sense in which the concern for stability and its companion idea of an overlapping consensus might be problematic for the reading of Rawls’s Political Liberalism (1996) I have offered so far, even in light of its admittedly limited purposes. In this and the next part of the chapter, I will try to show that this is not the case. The context in which Political Liberalism is set clearly fts some of the basic elements of what I have described, in Chapter 1, as the circumstances of toleration. Ab initio, Rawls tells us that persons in a liberal democratic society are deeply divided when it comes to their religious, moral, and philosophical commitments. That such persons are reasonable and that the views they subscribe to are also reasonable does not invalidate the basic point that comprehensive doctrines, as Rawls calls them, are irremediably at odds with one another. Political Liberalism thus starts from this basic premise. And, clearly enough, such doctrinal conficts are far from purely abstract and idle. For a comprehensive doctrine, reasonable or not, will certainly affect the kinds of reasons for action that a person who subscribes to it will have. Put differently, aspects of a comprehensive doctrine, for example, a conception of the good, will surely (by defnition?) constitute a central source of reasons for action for an adherent to such doctrine. And since such doctrines are diverse and in fact irreconcilable, it is not diffcult to see that they will, most likely, be the source of reasons to oppose one another in the public domain; reasons, for example, to use political power to try to suppress other ways of life to which their comprehensive doctrines tells them, they are and should be opposed. In this picture, as we have seen previously, the Rawlsian idea of developing a political conception of justice, and of public justifcation more broadly, can be interpreted as an attempt not to draw on what are, ex hypothesis, irreconcilably conficting accounts deriving from the various reasonable comprehensive doctrines that populate a liberal democratic society. Yet, the basic point is that the society for which Rawls is developing his view of political liberalism is one that will clearly offer its members substantial scope for

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exercising restraint vis-à-vis other ways of life and where the conception of justice that has to serve as the basic standard of justifcation between citizens does not aim at dissolving those conficts. In Jones’s words: Rawls’s political conception of justice is designed to leave in place, rather than to displace, the various (reasonable) comprehensive doctrines held by his citizens. So whatever reasons those comprehensive doctrines give their adherents for objecting to conflicting doctrines held by others will continue to be reasons for them in Rawls’s just society. That is why Rawlsian citizens are called upon to engage in toleration. While they may have good reason (from within their own doctrines) for objecting to and repressing the doctrines and ways of life of others, Rawls gives them strong countervailing non-doctrinal reason not to use political power to act on these doctrinal reasons. . . . [T]here is ample scope for Rawlsian individuals to object to one another’s doctrines and conceptions of the good and therefore ample opportunity for them to engage in toleration. (Jones, 2003: 105) As Jones tells us, the latent confict between even reasonable persons in a liberal democratic society is ‘obscured’ by the fact that Rawls tends to refer to them as citizens (2003: 105–106). Yet, citizens are persons too, and the fact that they occupy the role of the citizen, and that they are required, according to Rawls, to disregard non-public reasons in a specifc class of situations when they act as citizens, does not cancel the fact that they have reasons from within their comprehensive doctrines that apply to them as persons rather than as citizens. I think that it is worth expanding on the idea that roles can be the source of conficting reasons, for it explains one of the main concerns within Political Liberalism. To see why, let us go back to the remarks by Alvarez (2010) I cited in the frst part of the chapter concerning what I defned as position-relativity of at least some normative reasons. A clear illustration of the idea of position-relativity of some reasons for action is provided by hedonic normative reasons. Getting an ice cream is usually something that one has reason to do only if one likes ice cream, and though not uncontroversial (especially if you are Italian), most allow the idea that liking ice cream is not a requirement of practical reason or of leading a good life. The question for us here is: what are the possible sources of the position-relativity of at least some ‘moral’ normative reasons? And I think that the answer ‘social roles’ might very well be a good one. For a social role is usually defned as ‘a system of rules which defnes an offce or a position or a function, with its ends and aims, rights and duties, powers and immunities, expectations and sanctions for non-performance’ (Wenar, 2018). If one accepts that occupying a role provides one with ends and aims, rights and duties, and so on that one would not otherwise have, then surely it will also, a fortiori, be the case that occupying a role might be the source of reasons that are specifc to the agent in question (i.e. specifc to the agent occupying the role in light of the fact that she occupies such a role).

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The fact that roles are sources of reasons is often compounded with (or even explained by) the fact that we do not simply ‘occupy’ a given role as we occupy, say, a given portion of space. Rather, roles are sources of reasons also in light of the fact that we tend to identify with them and, following Michael Hardimon, we can say that: If you identify with a role, its norms will function for you as reasons. If you are a judge who identifies with the role of judge, the fact that this is something judges do (in the normative sense) will give you a reason for doing it. And conversely, if you regard the fact that this is something judges do as giving you a reason to do it, you conceive of yourself as a judge. Were you to say – ‘I recognize that this is something judges do and I recognize that I am a judge (that I occupy this legally specified position), but why should I do that?’ – you would not conceive of yourself as a judge, as someone for whom the norms of the role provide reasons. . . . To regard a given consideration as a reason for acting is to conceive of oneself as the sort of person for whom that consideration is a reason. The process of coming to identify with a social role is at once a process of coming to regard certain considerations as reasons and a process of coming to conceive of oneself as a person of a certain kind. (1994: 358) Hardimon’s passage might also be reformulated by drawing on Christine Korsgaard’s idea in her The Sources of Normativity (1996: 101), that the reasons that apply to us will depend on what she calls our ‘practical identity(-ies)’ (and, perhaps more controversially, that our obligations are related to what is forbidden by those identities). Social roles are clearly part of our practical identities and thus, we might conclude, coupled with the statement of the relatively uncontroversial additional premise that being a citizen is a social role, that we have moral normative reasons as persons occupying the role of the citizen in a liberal democratic society (i.e. reasons that we have in light of the fact that we occupy such a role). In fact, there is ample support in Rawls’s Political Liberalism for the latter conclusion. The idea is openly discussed in the context of his remarks on moral psychology. The most relevant passages pertain to Rawls’s introduction of what he calls ‘conception-dependent desires’ (1996: 83 ff.). There, Rawls’s main claim is that one of the most important sources of motivation attached to the political liberal conception of the person is to realise the ideal of liberal democratic citizenship as developed within Justice as Fairness (see also Ebels-Duggan, 2010; Boettcher, 2012 for a critical discussion). Clearly enough, the latter topic would deserve much more space than is available here. For, as James Boettcher argues, the status of public reason(s) generally, and of the nature or ‘kind’ of duties it generates more specifcally, is a complex one (2012: 156–157). In addition, even accepting the role-based framework I have sketched, the latter does not determine, or at least not in a complete and uncontroversial way, the nature of the reasons (and thus, we might add, of the moral duties that explain the sui generis role of those reasons) that are derived from within the framework itself.

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For example, Boettcher suggests that what we can call a pure role-based framework is more appropriate for public offcials than for citizens generally and that the latter are better portrayed as being under a more general, but ‘role-mediated’, duty of mutual respect to abide by the requirements of public reason (2012: 166 ff.). To be fully frank, I fnd Boettcher’s approach on the whole attractive but cannot hope to discuss its details here. I shall limit myself to suggesting something that is close to, but different from, what Boettcher himself argues, namely, that at least when it comes to the different roles we occupy other than the role of the citizen, then some of the reasons that apply to us might be role-mediated instances of more general (comprehensive) reasons that apply to persons in light of their overall comprehensive commitments. (Here, I employ the language of reasons rather than duties for the sake of simplicity.) At the same time, and in contrast to Boettcher’s approach, I shall largely assume that the reasons that apply to both citizens and public offcials are derived from the role they occupy (in the more demanding sense of occupying outlined earlier). Let us now return to the issue of conficts between reasons. The usual concern that many have, at least when they are of a liberal inclination, is the kind of relationship we can imagine to exist between what we can call role-based reasons, and other reasons that are not (see Wenar, 2018). The latter question is not usually expressed in terms of ‘reasons’, strictly speaking, though it clearly can be so expressed, for when we seek to contrast role-dependent and role-independent sources of normativity, we might very well describe this kind of contrast as one between different kinds of reasons (i.e. between, for example, role-based moral reasons and those that are not). However, note also that this is not the only kind of confict of reasons we can imagine if we entertain the idea that roles can be the source of reasons. To illustrate, in a modern society, we tend to occupy several roles, and thus we might have to balance, one way or another, reasons that originate from those roles. This, I take it, is a familiar predicament for any parent who gets home from work too late to help with school homework, or any academic torn about how to behave when a friend applies for a job in one’s department (the acuteness of the latter confict usually varying according to country of residence) and so on. Thus, we can say that conficts of reasons, either between role-based reasons and those that are not, or between reasons originating from different roles, are part and parcel of the moral texture of everyday life. Not only that, we can also add that the strains that these conficts imply are usually substantial, at least phenomenologically speaking. Going back to the Rawlsian argument, we might be able to recast the problem highlighted by Jones in the following way. In a liberal democratic society, persons occupy different kinds of roles. They are, for example, citizens, parents, children, members of religious associations, professionals of some kind, and so on. These roles will be, at least some of the time, sources of conficting (moral) reasons. And these conficts will necessarily exercise them, morally speaking. Here, the function of a comprehensive doctrine might not be entirely clear, but we can think of it in at least two ways within the role-based framework that I am suggesting, for a comprehensive doctrine and its associated conception of the good might itself be the source of reasons that we consider not to be role-based. After all, one might observe,‘holder

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of comprehensive doctrine X’ is a description, not a role. Yet, a comprehensive doctrine and its associated conception of the good might also provide the material, so to speak, that allows us to interpret the very meaning of some of the roles we occupy in our social world and thus shape the kinds of role-related reasons we have as, for example, parents and children, husbands and wives, priests and managers, and so on. In this picture, then, what the Rawlsian citizen is asked to do is basically to give some kind of regulative priority to a subset of the reasons (i.e. those connected to the role of the citizen) that apply to her in a specifed domain. Nonetheless, the fact that, ultimately, and within the limited scope in which her role as a citizen is required to be, coarsely put, dominant in her deliberations, she assigns a special status to the reasons that derive from one of the roles she occupies, does not cancel the fact that the other roles exist and are still sources of reasons (or that one might have reasons that do not directly derive from any role, but to broader moral and philosophical commitments). For even defeated reasons (as opposed to ones subject to cancelling conditions, or apparent reasons), as we have seen, are genuine reasons. In this picture, it seems plausible to then ask whether a liberal society can be stable for the right reasons, for this is another way to ask about the means available to a conception of liberalism to deal with the strain that is originated by the clash that reasons deriving from the different roles they occupy (I simplify here) might have on the members of a pluralistic society. Putting things in a slightly different way, let us go back to Raz’s discussion of second-order reasons. Here, we can point out how occupying the role of the citizen in the right way, and thus partly disregarding the reasons one has as a person committed to a specifc comprehensive view, might be one illustration of the phenomenological strain (1975: 74) that exclusionary reasons can have on an agent. This is especially the case when such reasons dictate actions that are in contrast with what the balance of frst-order reasons would suggest, for the citizen-person, deliberating from within her comprehensive view of the world is very likely to have frst-order reasons to oppose alternative views. And these reasons might very well provide all-things-considered reasons for action. Yet, the fact that ex hypothesis, if (politically liberal) toleration (of a specifc kind) takes place, she concedes that the reasons that derive from her comprehensive view of the world are excluded by some kind of second-order reason(s) is clearly not the end of the story, for in the absence of schizophrenia, she is bound to feel some strain. Just how much strain is, to be sure, not something we can know in the abstract and might depend on the case at hand.

V.

The partition model and the idea of an overlapping consensus

Rawls’s proposed solution is to imagine a different kind of picture of a stable society compared to his account in the third part of A Theory of Justice. I shall not try to account for that change (but see Weithman, 2011 for an authoritative reconstruction). Yet it is worth highlighting what that solution is and why it might create

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some tension with the reconstruction of Political Liberalism I have offered so far. In other words, what seems relevant for our purposes here is how we can present the confict, if there is such, between different kinds of reasons if an overlapping consensus is obtained. For if such a consensus is on hand, one might wonder whether it would ‘remove confict between the demands of an individual’s comprehensive doctrine and the demands of the political conception of justice’ (Jones, 2003: 107). We would then be entitled to ask:‘if there is a place for toleration in Rawls’s political liberalism [or whether], it is merely provisional: that, once the goal of overlapping consensus has been achieved, toleration will become redundant?’ (ibid). The basic idea, when an overlapping consensus is obtained, is that citizens support a liberal conception of justice for reasons that are internal to their comprehensive doctrine. Thus, the main ‘visible’ change from Rawls’s A Theory of Justice (1971) is that there are several ways, potentially as many as there are (reasonable) comprehensive doctrines in a society, for congruence broadly understood to be obtained. Nonetheless, this plurality of ways to fnd a place for the political conception of justice, guaranteed by the conception’s ‘modularity’, are structurally the same in one important respect, namely, that all citizens would then see themselves in a position where the balance of their frst-order reasons dictates congruence with what justice requires of them. In this picture, it would be the balance of their frst-order reasons itself, including such reasons that they derive from their respective comprehensive doctrines, that would dictate the fact that they should not try to use political power to impose aspects of their views on others. Would toleration disappear in that case? More precisely, what would be the role of second-order reasons if frst-order reasons already point citizens in the right direction? And what could be said that citizens are opposed to if the balance of their frst-order reasons is already in favour of toleration, so to speak? However, the conclusion that citizens would not be opposed to other ways of life does not follow. To be more precise, the fact that they are not, all things considered, opposed to them does follow. What does not follow is that they would not have pro tanto reasons for opposition. What would be the case is that, were an overlapping consensus to be obtained, citizens would have different kinds of reasons to be tolerant. Toleration would be suggested by the balance of their frst-order reasons and by the fact that they have second-order reasons that point them to the same conclusion (i.e. second-order reason to, for example, disregard their comprehensive reasons at least in a specifc class of cases). Going back to the Razian discussion of the phenomenological strain that one might feel when the presence or existence of a second-order reason ends up dictating a different course of action compared to the one that would be justifed in light of the balance of frst-order reasons, we can say that, were an overlapping consensus to be obtained, such strain would disappear. But what would not be lacking are pro tanto reasons to oppose other ways of life. Nonetheless, note that the absence of what we see as a peculiar source of tension, the one between the balance of frst-order reasons and second-order reasons (or more precisely, what one ought to do all-things-considered once second-order reasons have been introduced), would indeed allow us to portray society as more

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stable. It would be more stable insofar as it would reduce, perhaps even eliminate, the conficts between the reasons that apply to persons in (at least some of) their different roles within a political society. And this would certainly allow us to characterise that kind of society as stable in an important and peculiar sense of the term ‘stability’, that is, stability derived from unity between the person and the citizen for each member of society, guaranteed by the absence of a peculiar kind of strain on their role-derived reasons and unity as citizens jointly and collectively in light of the shared or public knowledge that the aforementioned strain is absent and that the role of a conception of justice is more secure as a result. In addition, note that while such reassurance might not be central to the idea of toleration itself, that is, to understand the justifcation of toleration, it is important (as I have argued in contrasting Rawls’s and Wenar’s views) to understand the extent to which citizens can rely on each other’s commitment to toleration. Given how radical and pervasive conficts between different ways of life can be, this is no small achievement. So, while there is a sense in which an overlapping consensus would make our reasons for toleration overdetermined, there is also a clear sense in which we should be inclined to look favourably upon such ‘overdetermination’ (see Raz, 2006: 1021 ff. for a discussion of overdetermination and its relationship with authority). Finally, let me turn to Rawls’s remarks about the relationship between political and non-political values. As I have stressed several times, my principal concern is not interpretive. Yet, considering the details of Rawls’s text on this point, I believe, reinforces the reading of the role of an overlapping consensus in the framework I have presented in this chapter. One potential issue here is that Rawls’s text employs the idea that persons might be called upon to perform a balancing exercise between political and non-political values. But this seems to be in contrast with the main aim of my enquiry, namely, to model the argument for toleration in Political Liberalism as an instantiation of what I have called the partition model. So, in Political Liberalism, Rawls tells us that: Given the existence of a reasonably well-ordered constitutional regime, two points are central to political liberalism. First, questions about constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice are so far as possible to be settled by appeal to political values alone. Second, again with respect to those same fundamental questions, the political values expressed by its principles and ideals normally have sufficient weight to override all other values that come in conflict with them. (Rawls, 1996: 137) On the next page, Rawls asks how we should interpret the question of whether political liberalism is possible. And he believes that the question can be stated in the following terms: how can the values of the special domain of the political – the values of a subdomain of the realm of all values – normally outweigh whatever values may

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conflict with them? Put another way, how can we affirm our comprehensive doctrine and yet hold that it would not be reasonable to use state power to gain everyone’s allegiance to it? (Rawls, 1996: 138) Rawls claims that the answer to this question has two parts: The first part says that values of the political are very great values and hence not easily overridden: these values govern the basic framework of social life – the very groundwork of our existence – and specify the fundamental terms of political and social cooperation. (Rawls, 1996: 139) After having enumerated the values of the political, Rawls then adds the second consideration that should count in favour of the conclusion that political values should normally be able to ‘outweigh’ non-political values, namely, that there are numerous historical instances of: reasonable ways in which the wider realm of values can be understood so as to be either congruent with or supportive of, or else not in conflict with, the values appropriate to the special domain of the political as specified by a political conception of justice. (Rawls, 1996: 140) Are these quotes in contrast with the interpretation I have offered so far? The answer is no. What I have argued previously is that to the extent that we accept the validity of the liberal principle of legitimacy and some of its corollaries, then we can accept the role played by a political conception of justice as the only appropriate source of reasons for the justifcation of the exercise of political power in an appropriately delimited part of the political domain (i.e. constitutional essential and matters of basic justice). This is one important way in which persons meet the requirements attached to the ideal of the citizen. Yet, in the initial passage from Rawls I cited earlier, where he asks how ‘we’ can affrm a comprehensive doctrine and yet refrain from using political power in ways that are congruent with what such doctrine prescribes, the ‘we’ in the quote clearly refers to persons as persons in the wider sense of the term. That is, the question is one that is asked of persons as committed to a certain view of the fundamental aspects of the human existence, not to persons understood simply as citizens. The question then is whether we can conjecture that ‘we’ would be able to, as persons who are also, but not exclusively, citizens of a liberal democracy, not only accept the liberal principle of legitimacy but also feel that such acceptance is congruent with our wider view of ourselves. And, in this context, it clearly makes sense to claim that political values are great values that would normally be able to outweigh other values (see also March, 2006).

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Second, note that the context of Rawls’s discussion is his lecture on the idea of an overlapping consensus, and the question he is asking pertains to the stability of a well-ordered society. Thus, the second part of his answer to the question of whether political liberalism is possible, that is, his reference to the historical record, is a reference to the idea that we cannot only theoretically, but also realistically, hope for the argument in favour of the ‘regulative’ role of political values to be overdetermined, that is, dictated both by the fact that we have reasons to assign a special regulative role to political values (as reasonable citizens) and by the fact that such values can be congruent with the non-political values we hold as true (as persons).

VI. Toleration and political liberalism In this fnal section of the chapter, I shall try to offer a synthetic reconstruction of how the main elements of a conception of toleration can be systematically combined within the framework of political liberalism, at least insofar as we picture this framework through the lenses of the partition model. The reconstruction will be synthetic for the simple reason that, I hope, the chapter has offered a more detailed appraisal of its constituent parts. What is still missing is the overall picture and how such parts ft together into a coherent whole. Before doing so, however, it is worth dwelling on what the chapter did try to establish. One important point I would like to reiterate, one that I have already stressed in Part II of the Introduction to the book, is the specifc goal that the theory of international toleration I am setting out to defend is attempting to achieve. There are many possible justifcations for tolerating persons, beliefs, collective agents, and so on. Some would want to restrict the kinds of reasons and/or values that we can draw upon to offer a justifcation for toleration. Yet, as I have argued in Chapter 1, I think we should acknowledge that, while some reasons and/or values would be inappropriate, we should not restrict ourselves to just a couple of options. In the fnal part of Chapter 1, and all along this chapter, however, my goal has been far more limited than providing an all-encompassing model for a general justifcation of toleration. Instead, I have limited the scope of my enquiry, either explicitly or implicitly, to a specifc kind of scenario. The scope of my enquiry can be outlined as follows: Scope of the Enquiry: to offer a general model (i.e. the partition model) of toleration based on moral reasons (and one that is compatible with mutual respect between tolerator and tolerated), that pertains to a specific part of the domain of the political (constitutional essentials matters of basic justice, or whatever functional equivalent is appropriate, see Chapter 5), and where the conflict between reasons to oppose and reasons to accept a given object of toleration both belong to the same domain of reasons (i.e. the domain of moral normative reasons broadly construed). Two observations are in order about the latter specifcation of the scope of my enquiry. First, while what we can call the restrictions on scope do entail some loss

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of generality, I think that, at least from the perspective of liberal political philosophy, they still allow us to capture something that is key, namely, what we can call the ‘core’ of the political liberal view of toleration within the bounds of a pluralistic society: to fnd a central role for toleration within the framework of a fair scheme of cooperation between free and equal citizens who respect each other. Second, note that even within such a society, we would still have other reasons for, and ways of, tolerating. Being committed to political liberalism of some kind, for example, is usually not reason enough to be blind to the importance of peaceful co-existence and the superiority of a modus vivendi compared to outright confict, or the fact that while many of our compatriots are often not going to display the virtues of reasonableness, this is usually not reason enough to deny them the protection accorded to all liberal democratic citizens. True as these statements are (and I genuinely think that they are true), I still believe that, as a normative project, the core of the political liberal account of toleration lies elsewhere and that the restrictions on the scope of my enquiry refect where the genuine normative action is. These clarifcations in place, let us return to a synthetic reconstruction of the partition model as I have developed it over the course of this chapter. In order to see the frame of this overall picture, we need to go back to Rainer Forst’s work on toleration and consider the idea that toleration is a normatively dependent idea. According to Forst, we cannot fully understand or argue for a given conception of toleration unless we use the language of justice and refer directly to what justice requires of us: The reason for my claim that a conception of justice is necessary in arguing for a conception of toleration is that the context in which the question of toleration between citizens arises is a context of justice: what is at issue here is the just – that is, mutually justifiable – legal and political structure for a pluralistic political community of citizens with different ethical beliefs. Claims for toleration are raised as claims for justice, and intolerance is a form of injustice, favoring one ethical community over others without legitimate grounds. Hence, toleration is a virtue of justice. (Forst, 2003: 76) The basic idea here is that to be tolerant is simply to support a political society in which important forms of diversity are protected by the rights guaranteed by a liberal conception of justice. Thus toleration, in this picture, is simply the result, so to speak, of a specifc conception of justice. For it is the content of such conception that tells us that, for example, specifc kinds of rights are to be protected, and it is the protection of such rights that provide, in turn, substantive guarantees for relevant forms of diversity. Here, I believe that Forst is exactly on the right track. At the same time, I think that his account needs to be pushed further in order to be used as an interpretive key for understanding toleration in the broadly Rawlsian view of political liberalism (a task that, to be fully clear, Forst does not set for himself). In the Rawlsian picture an important question is why we should grant such a central role to a conception of justice. Put differently, claims of toleration are indeed

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‘raised as claims for justice’, and yet in a Rawlsian framework we would want to know why they need to be answered by appeal to a specifc class of values and reasons, and only those values and reasons. Forst does offer an answer to that question, but he suggests that such an answer would be part of what justice itself requires of us, namely, that arguments to the effect that something is required as a matter of justice need to be of a specifc kind (i.e. succinctly put, they need to meet the requirements of reciprocity and generality). Political liberalism instead suggests a division of labour model between different concepts in political morality. For political liberalism the answer to the question of why we should understand demands for toleration as demands of justice, and thus settle the questions raised by such demands in light of a specifc class of reasons and values, is connected to the legitimate use of political power in a liberal democratic society, since, as we have seen at some length earlier, it is our acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy that pushes us to give a political conception of justice (more specifcally, the reasons that are derived from it) a sui generis role when it comes to the justifcation for the exercise of political power. So, toleration is, as Forst correctly argues, a normatively dependent concept. Yet, at least insofar as political liberalism is concerned, such dependence is multilayered and involves both the idea of legitimacy and the idea of justice. The main justifcation for the conception of toleration in political liberalism is derived from the acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy. Put differently, the justifcation for the political liberal view of toleration is the justifcation for giving the reasons that are derived from a political conception of justice a specifc role when citizens adjudicate (and thus exercise power over one another) matters pertaining to constitutional essentials and basic justice. Instead justice specifes and gives content to the boundaries of toleration. It corresponds, in other words, to kinds of freedoms, rights and liberties that create space for, and protection of, different ways of life within a political society. This is the synthetic picture of the partition model of toleration in political liberalism. In closing, allow me to show that the view of the partition model I have offered is both fully consistent with my discussion of the concept of toleration in the previous chapter and can in fact allow us to make some progress with respect to the alternative ways of understanding the relationship between the acceptance and rejection component of toleration. In the previous chapter, I have dedicated extensive space to a discussion of what toleration is. Following Cohen, I have claimed that we should understand toleration as ‘(1) an agent’s (2) intentional and (3) principled (4) refraining from interfering with (5) an opposed (6) other (or their behavior, etc.) (7) in situations of diversity, where (8) the agent believes she has the power to interfere’ (2004: 78–79). In a political liberal framework, we can give a more specifc meaning to all the main elements in the defnition: The Partition Model, Political Liberalism and Toleration: Reasonable persons (1) intentionally and in a principled way (2–3) (in fact for moral reasons –

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i.e. their acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy) refrain from interfering, that is, exercising political power over one another (4 and 8), in a context of profound diversity (and thus opposition) dictated by their allegiance to different comprehensive doctrines (5–6–7), at least when it comes to decisions that concern constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice. Finally, note how the partition model can subsume both what I have called the balancing model and the perceptual models of toleration. Balancing reasons does fnd a proper place within our framework, for, as we have seen, when the issue of stability comes up, and that is an important issue, we can certainly entertain the idea that the very realisation of an overlapping consensus will depend on the balancing of reasons that derive from a political conception of justice and the reasons that derive from the comprehensive doctrines to which the citizen-person is committed. Yet, the balancing model, as we have seen in the previous chapter, seemed to offer less guidance than one might have wanted to receive about the overall relationship between acceptance and rejection components of toleration (at least in a range of important cases). This guidance is now available, and the balancing model can be simply subsumed within the partition one. At the very least, this seems to be the case when it comes to the political liberal account of toleration. The same, I think, can be said about the perceptual model to the extent that we are permissive enough about how to interpret its underlying intuition. Recall that the perceptual model suggests we should judge agents and their actions differently. The reasons we have to disapprove of the agent’s actions do not extend to the agents themselves, for when we judge those agents, other and more important reasons come into play. Yet, one might be inclined to ask when, why, and how such distinction between different kinds of reasons is to apply. And, I think, there is no clear answer that the perceptual model can give us when we ask those questions. The simple reason is that it is not very easy to fnd a model for partitioning reasons of the kind that is implicit in the perceptual model. The existence of a partition between the reasons we have to judge a person as opposed to the reasons in light of which we should judge her actions and beliefs is not clear to me. None is, I think, provided by Heyd, and we can reasonably infer that the reason for this is that none would be easy to provide. It is, however, relatively clear what the partition model I have put forward would be answering to those questions. The proper ‘perceptual’ distinction is not between a person and her actions or beliefs, but between different social roles that a person occupies (and thus between different classes of reasons that derive from such roles). The justifcation for the fact that the reasons that derive from the role of the citizen within a specifc part of the domain of the political are qualitatively different is that this follows from the acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy.

Conclusion In this chapter I have offered an account of liberal toleration based on the partition model. Yet, the overall aim of this book is to put forward a liberal theory of

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international toleration. Thus, starting from the next chapter, I shall address the task of extending the model of liberal toleration to a different kind of domain. As we will see, such an extension will require, frst of all, a clearer picture of the agents that are to be considered central in the theory, and, in addition, given the nature of the relevant agents, a more complex discussion of who exactly tolerates whom within the theory. These are the tasks I will take up in the next chapter together with the development of a set of specifc desiderata that, I shall claim, a good theory of international toleration should be able to meet.

Bibliography Alvarez, M. (2010), Kinds of Reasons. New York: Oxford University Press. Alvarez, M. (2016), “Reasons for Action: Justifcation, Motivation, Explanation”, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasons-just-vs-expl/ [accessed 1 July 2019]. Audi, R. & Wolterstorff, N. (eds.) (1997), Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious Convictions in Political Debate. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefeld. Boettcher, J.W. (2012), “The Moral Status of Public Reason”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 20 (2), 156–177. Cohen, A.J. (2004), “What Toleration Is”, Ethics, 115 (1), 68–95. Dancy, J. (2000), Practical Reality. New York: Oxford University Press. Ebels-Duggan, K. (2010), “The Beginning of Community: Politics in the Face of Disagreement”, The Philosophical Quarterly, 60 (238), 50–71. Edmondson, W.A. (1993), “Rethinking Exclusionary Reasons: A Second Edition of Joseph Raz’s Practical Reason and Norms”, Law and Philosophy, 12 (3), 329–343. Ehrenberg, K. (2011), “Joseph Raz’s Theory of Authority”, Philosophy Compass, 6 (12), DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2011.00445.x Estlund, D. (1998), “The Insularity of the Reasonable: Why Political Liberalism Must Admit the Truth”, Ethics, 108 (2), 252–275. Ferrara, A. (2008), The Force of the Example: Explorations in the Paradigm of Judgment. New York: Columbia University Press. Ferrara, A. (2019), “Sideways at the Entrance of the Cave: A Pluralist Footnote to Plato”, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 45 (4), 390–402. Forst, R. (2003), “Toleration, Justice and Reason”, in Castiglione, D. & McKinnon, C. (eds.), The Culture of Toleration in Diverse Societies: Reasonable Tolerance. New York: Manchester University Press, 71–85. Freeman, S. (2007), Rawls. London: Routledge. Greenawalt, K. (1988), Religious Convictions and Political Choice. New York: Oxford University Press. Hardimon, M.O. (1994), “Role Obligations”, The Journal of Philosophy, 91 (7), 333–363. Heuer, U. (2004), “Raz on Values and Reasons”, in Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz, edited by Pettit, P., Scheffer, S., Smith, M. & Jay. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, P. (2003), “Toleration and Neutrality: Compatible Ideals?”, in Castiglione, D. & McKinnon, C. (eds.), Toleration, Neutrality and Democracy. New York: Springer Publishing, 97–110. Korsgaard, C. (1996), The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. March, A.F. (2006), “Liberal Citizenship and the Search for an Overlapping Consensus: The Case of Muslim Minorities”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 34 (4), 373–421.

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McKinnon, C. (2006), Toleration: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge. Meckled-Garcia, S. (2003), “Toleration and Neutrality: Incompatible Ideals?”, in Castiglione, D. & McKinnon, C. (eds.), Toleration, Neutrality and Democracy. New York: Springer Publishing, 77–95. Nussbaum, M.C. (1985), The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quong, J. (2004), “The Scope of Public Reason”, Political Studies, 52 (6), 233–250. Quong, J. (2010), Liberalism without Perfection. New York: Oxford University Press. Rawls, J. (1971/1999), Theory of Justice, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (1996), Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Raz, J. (1975), Practical Reasons and Norms. New York: Oxford University Press. Raz, J. (1988), The Morality of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Raz, J. (2006), “The Problem of Authority: Revisiting the Service Conception”, Minnesota Law Review, 90, 1003–1044. Reidy, D. (2000), “Rawls’s Wide View of Public Reason: Not Wide Enough”, Res Publica, 6 (1), 49–72. Scanlon, T.M. (1998), What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vallier, K. (2014), Liberal Politics and Public Faith: Beyond Separation. London: Routledge. Weithman, P. (2011), Why Political Liberalism? On John Rawls’s Political Turn. New York: Oxford University Press. Weithman, P. (2017), “In Defense of Political Liberalism”, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 45 (4), 397–412. Wenar, L. (1995), “Political Liberalism: An Internal Critique”, Ethics, 106 (1), 32–62. Wenar, L. (2017), “John Rawls”, Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford. edu/entries/rawls/ [accessed 22 June 2007]. Wenar, L. (2018), “Rawls and Roles”, in Pellegrino, G. (ed.), Legitimacy, Democracy, and Disagreement: Essays in Honour of Sebastiano Maffettone. Rome: LUISS University Press, 9–23.

3 A LIBERAL THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL TOLERATION Meaning and desiderata

Introduction As we have seen in the introduction to this book, pluralism is the defning feature of global politics. Yet, a great deal of liberal international political theory works under the ‘assumption’ that the only permissible way of organising political society is according to a fully liberal democratic model: liberal political theory lacks a fully developed account of international toleration. The latter is, as I have argued, an unhappy predicament. The overarching aim of this book is to put forward a liberal account of international toleration that is both faithful to (one understanding of) liberalism and at the same time explains why we can accept some nonliberal and non-democratic political communities as members in good standing of international society. In this chapter, I contribute to that task by exploring the meaning of ‘international’ toleration and by providing a set of desiderata that the theory should meet. The role of the chapter is thus to begin the conceptual shift between a concern for both the concept of, and a conception of, toleration in the standard domain of domestic political societies to the one of international politics broadly defned. The chapter acts as a bridge between the frst two chapters of the book (Chapters 1 and 2) and the fnal two chapters of the book (Chapters 4 and 5). A ‘liberal theory of international toleration’ requires an account of ‘international’, not just an account of (political) liberal toleration. Relatedly, as we shall see later, the theory also requires an account of its subjects and objects, namely, an account of who tolerates and who is tolerated within the theory. It needs, that is, an account of the main actors who populate the theory. I shall start by discussing the meaning I assign to ‘international’. My basic contention is that to offer an account of the term basically entails selecting a specifc approach to the overall theory. I conclude that the best way forward, for the

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purposes of the approach that is taken in this book, is to consider ‘international’ as standing for a society constituted by ‘bounded self-governing political communities understood as moral collective agents’. I call these, following Rawls, peoples. In Part II, I then explain this defnition in greater detail and offer an account of the functional role (within the theory) of each distinct element of the defnition. Finally, after having observed that the account of ‘international’ I have offered cannot fully determine the nature of the subjects and objects ‘of toleration’ within the theory, I explain why I believe that the theory will still have peoples centre stage. In the third and fnal part of the chapter, I offer an account of the desiderata that an attractive liberal theory of international toleration should be asked to meet. I start by offering a general discussion of what desiderata are and are for. The basic idea is that desiderata should be interpreted as provisional fxed points that express the considered convictions concerning good-making features for a given theory. I then move on to consider what such desiderata might actually be for the liberal theory of international toleration I am putting forward. I set out three distinct ones. The frst is that the theory is in fact compatible with what is considered to be a basic tenet of liberalism. The second (and more controversial) is that its scope is wider than those agents that subscribe to a liberal democratic understanding of justice. The third is that the theory is compatible with mutual respect between its actors and with the integrity of those who tolerate and those who are tolerated. I explain the considered convictions that support these desiderata and explain why, given what we have seen in Chapter 1 and Part I of this chapter, the theory I am developing is likely to ‘test’, or put pressure on, some of them.

I.

The meaning of international toleration

What do we mean by ‘international’? A theory of international toleration requires an account of the meaning of the word. The upshot of my discussion is that in my account of international toleration, the expression ‘international toleration’ stands for a theory of toleration between ‘bounded self-governing political communities understood as moral collective agents’. The latter is the defnition of the relevant agents in the theory. As it can be easily gleaned from the expression employed to defne the agents, the latter is very close to the Rawlsian idea of a ‘people’. This is not, I hasten to add, coincidental. In the next chapter of the book, I shall consider Rawls’s The Law of Peoples (1999) more directly and shall offer what I consider to be a novel interpretation of the argument for toleration in Rawls’s international theory. Thus, one way in which my present discussion can be interpreted is an explanation of the genesis of the choice of peoples as the main actors in the Rawlsian account of international ethics. Nonetheless, my sense is that the present discussion has broader signifcance and that its exegetical aspects are not the only relevant ones. It is fruitful to dwell on the word ‘international’ itself. I use the word ‘fruitful’ for one could certainly stick to the use of the aforementioned defnition and treat it as an axiomatic assumption within the theory (especially in light of its avowed connection to Rawls’s work). Instead, I shall take a different approach and basically

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attempt to explain why one might get to, so to speak, that kind of defnition. I use the word ‘explain’ rather than ‘justify’ advisedly. Put differently, my attempt is to try to offer some intuitive support (rather than a full-blown argument) for the axiomatic choice pertaining to the defnition employed. Axioms, clearly enough, are not susceptible to being proven within the framework in which they are supposed to be employed as axioms, but that is not equivalent to stating that nothing can be said for them or that their appeal cannot be explained by using theoretical resources that lie outside of the framework for which they are supposed to operate as axioms. Finally, note that while my main goal here is, as I have just said, to ‘explain’ the genesis of a given theoretical choice, I have tried to offer a fuller justifcation for such kind of choice in previous work (Maffettone, 2017; see also Wenar, 2004, 2006). I shall proceed in the following way. I shall contrast two meanings of the word international. More specifcally, we can understand these two meanings as two endpoints of a conceptual spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, the relevant subjects (and thus what international would stand for, roughly speaking) are defned in purely formal-legal terms. At the other end of the spectrum, the relevant subjects are defned purely in terms of their ethical or moral features. As an instantiation of the formal-legal end-point of the spectrum, I shall use the traditional defnition of the state borrowed from international law and politics. As an illustration of the second end-point of the spectrum, I shall use the idea of nations. Finally, I provide a caveat concerning the way these two end-points of the spectrum should be interpreted. The caveat is, simply put, that these are not to be judged in terms of their descriptive accuracy, but rather by their heuristic value. They should be considered as something that closely resembles ideal types rather than statements about the true features or nature of the entities described. Their heuristic value, more precisely, is that by idealising these ‘objects’ we can more easily see that each has an attribute of value given reasonable assumptions about the goals of a normative theory of international toleration. Let us start with considering an idealised (and some would contend old-fashioned) conception of the state in international law and politics. In this conception, states are understood as the only relevant legal persons in international law (see Portmann, 2010), they are defned in terms that make no reference to their moral attributes (internally), and, fnally, they are considered collective agents mainly, if not exclusively, guided by their rational interests (externally, see Donnelly, 2000). According to a standard understanding of international law, states are defned, within the framework provided by the 1933 Montevideo Convention, as having four features: a) a permanent population; b) a defned territory; c) a government; and, more controversially, d) the capacity to enter into relations, and thus agreements, with other states (see Malanczuk, 2002). When it comes to the nature of the government or regime that controls the state, as Malanczuk adds: it is important to note that, in principle, international law is indifferent towards the nature of the internal political structure of states, be it based on Western conceptions of democracy and the rule of law, the supremacy of

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a Communist Party, Islamic perceptions of state and society, monarchies or republics, or other forms of authoritarian or nonauthoritarian rule. The rule is crude and only demands that a government must have established itself in fact. The legality or legitimacy of such an establishment are not decisive for the criteria of a state. (2002: 79) Some would certainly object that the latter account is dubious, for the developments of the legal international order over the past six decades seem to point in a different direction. Important elements include the further development of jus cogens, the emerging recognition of natural persons (but also international organisations and other kinds of non-state actors) as legal persons in the international order, the widespread development of international human rights agreements, the emergence of a doctrine of limited sovereignty and of a global duty to protect individuals from internal state abuse (e.g. R2P), and the increased relevance of the principle of self-determination in the international legal system (for an account of these changes see Cassese, 1995). I do not wish to deny that these are important aspects of the emerging legal international order. However, it should also be stressed that international law and practice has yet to fully incorporate the moralised version of states that is implicit in these comments. Furthermore, as I stated earlier, my concern here is not the accuracy of my description of states but giving substance to one of the two end-points on the spectrum I have introduced. What is the upshot of this kind of characterisation? Its relevance lies in the fact that it signals something that is important about states, namely, as legal persons in international law, and given their defnitional features, states can be considered as possessing what we can call ‘international agency’, that is, the ability to act as a unitary entity on the international stage. This, concretely, and in line with central aspects of the idea of legal personality, would normally include the ability to enter into formal and informal relations with other states and thus be party to agreements, form institutional structures, sign treaties, and so on. In short, according to the depiction of the state I have canvassed so far, these are to be understood as amoral corporate subjects with the ability to act in some meaningful sense on the international stage. At the opposite end of the spectrum, and once again bearing in mind the heuristic rather than descriptive value of my present argument, we fnd an idealised conception of nations. Following David Miller, we can defne a nation as: a community (1) constituted by shared beliefs and mutual commitments, (2) extended in history, (3) active in character, (4) connected to a particular territory, and (5) marked off from other communities by its distinct public culture. (1995: 27) In this picture, nations are ethically signifcant. Such signifcance can be supported in different ways but is usually developed in terms of the intrinsic value of nationality

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and/or according to arguments connecting nationality to individual well-being (often in conjunction to claims about autonomy), and/or instrumentally in terms of the role played by solidarity in bolstering the functioning of state institutions (see Moore, 2001: 19). At the heart of the ethical signifcance of nationality, furthermore, lies the idea that co-nationals have special obligations to one another. Thus, questions concerning the ethical signifcance of nationality are often couched in terms of questions pertaining to the ‘bonds of attachment that co-nationals feel toward those who share the same national identity, and the moral importance that should be placed on that’ (Moore, 2001: 25). Finally, and most importantly, nations acquire their moral relevance in virtue of some feature of their (internal) moral make-up. This may strike the reader as a trivial point, but, in essence it is a way to make clear that the moral signifcance of a national group is subject to moral constraints concerning the nature of the group, the content of its cultural and political practices, and, more broadly, the way it treats its members (and, to some extent, outsiders). However, at least in the idealised version I am presenting, national groups are not considered per se as legal persons in international law; they lack the ability, if unsupported by a state, to be actors in international society; and their claims to external self-determination may pose a credible threat to the stability of the international legal and political order (see Buchanan, 1991). Here, too, some will be unconvinced by the kind of description of a nation I have offered. For nations do strike many as collective agents; they do have, at least in some cases, the ability to be international actors in some capacity (Scotland is a perfect example), and they often, if not always, have aspirations to political independence that are connected to those two aforementioned features. Leaving aside the heuristic character of my idealised version of the nation, it should be noted that the claim here is not that nations are not (or cannot be) collective agents, rather, the claim is that in this idealised version I am presenting, they are not, ex-hypothesis, agents in international society. That is, they are not unless they are supported in some capacity by a state. How should we choose between these two end-points of the spectrum I have introduced? At its heart, the basic dichotomy I have presented is one between rational amoral subjects which possess what I have called international agency, and ethically signifcant subjects, that is, political groups with a moral character that lack such international agency. A choice between these two ideal types is likely to be diffcult. At the very least, some tension will be felt if one subscribes to two distinct desiderata that a normative theory may reasonably want to adopt, namely, moral and theoretical plausibility coupled with the ability to offer real world guidance on what ought to be done. Here, it should be clear that I am largely assuming that these really are important desiderata for a theory, though, of course, some would disagree (see Valentini, 2012 for a discussion). Yet, assuming that they are, the intuitive tension I referred to is relatively easy to portray. For, if we assign moral rights and duties to states (or at least to states described as corporate persons with purely rational interests), we seem committed to assigning these (moral) rights and (especially) duties to entities that do not seem to have the relevant kinds of features to act in accordance with them. On the other hand, to assign these same moral rights and duties

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to nations, while much more plausible from a moral point of view, since, as moral agents, nations might plausibly have the ability to act according to, or in light of, such moral rights and duties, the problem we face is going to be that the ascription of those rights and duties might have limited practical value, from the perspective of international society, given that nations (as nations) lack international agency. In this picture, Rawls’s decision to opt for the idea of ‘peoples’ is far less mysterious than it might otherwise seem (see 1999: 23 ff.). Rawls’s solution can be interpreted as an attempt to fnd a reconciliation within the tension I have just described. The reconciliation he attempts is complex. Peoples are described as moral agents: they are reasonable as well as rational actors, and constrain the pursuit of their rational interests to the dictates of a just Law of Peoples. Thus, peoples accept limits to their internal and external sovereignty. In addition, peoples are, as we will see in more detail in Chapter 4, well-ordered, something that imposes more stringent constraints on the features a political community should possess in order to claim certain moral rights and equal standing within the Society of Peoples. Thus, as Rawls tells us, peoples are not states. At the same time, however, peoples are not nations either. Following Mill, Rawls thinks that peoples have common sympathies, but, ultimately, they do not seem to ft the standard conceptions of nationality (and some would add that that is because, if such conception is too ethically thick, the latter would be incompatible with a political liberal approach). Furthermore, Rawls pictures peoples as (externally) self-governing in a much stronger sense than most nations (unsupported by a state) are in the real world. Clearly, in Rawls’s mind, peoples have what I have called international agency and are conceived to be the main actors in international society. Thus, according to Rawls, peoples are ‘the actors in the Society of Peoples, just as citizens are the actors in domestic society’ (1999: 23). Some would be inclined to ask the following question: aren’t peoples just an idealised and moralised version of states? The answer to that question is, I believe, largely ‘yes’. Yet, I think that the explanatory story that I have offered is important, for, in its absence, one would be entitled to ask exactly why a given theory ends up with ‘idealised and moralised states’ centre stage. Put differently, what is important, in my view, is not exactly the label we use. Instead, what seems more interesting is what brought us, to consider a given kind of agent as the most ftting one in light of the purposes and features of the theory of international toleration we are trying to lay out. Nonetheless, the question by the hypothetical reader does have some value, for its answer allows us to clarify something relevant. While there are no perfect referents in the real world for the idea of a ‘people’, there is something we can associate to it, provided some specifc constraints are met. Peoples are states, yet not in the traditional (international) legal sense of the idea, but rather in an idealised and moralised sense connected to their internal make-up and external behaviour. So far, I hope to have shown that it makes sense to see peoples as constituting the basic buildings blocks of our social and political ontology ‘in a theory of international toleration’. This is not, however, an uncontroversial claim. Especially if one thinks about the relationship between this social and political ontology with the ‘real world’. For example, when Allen Buchanan (2000) quipped that Rawls offered

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to us ‘rules for a vanished Westphalian world’, he was precisely concerned with criticising an approach that seemed to take for granted a vision of global political society based on the interactions between political communities, for, Buchanan continued, there are important things that such an approach would be constitutively unable to tell us, especially in light of the increased globalisation of political life and the proliferation of internal political strife and secessionist struggles. At the same time, many still do believe that something like peoples, or their non-moralised counterparts (i.e. states), are far from disappearing in a globalised world. As an example of this kind of view, consider Andrea Sangiovanni’s empirical premise in his reciprocity-based internationalism: There are at least two key ways in which the global order is distinct. First, while of course the global order is also sustained by our compliance, trust, resources, and participation, the range of areas over which it has authority, even in the most comprehensive inter-, trans-, and supranational institutions such as the European Union, is comparatively narrow. Second, while some international regimes claim to represent individuals independently of states, as in some human rights regimes, the global order presupposes the existence of states. Without states, the global order would lose the capacity to govern and regulate those delegated areas within its jurisdiction. This is only in part because the global order lacks an autonomous means of coercion. More fundamentally, the global order does not have the financial, legal, administrative, or sociological means to provide and guarantee the goods and services necessary to sustain and reproduce a stable market and legal system, indeed, to sustain (on its own) any kind of society at all. (Sangiovanni, 2007: 21) To be clear, Sangiovanni is not concerned with peoples, strictly speaking. In addition, there is certainly room for disagreement with his account. Yet, this kind of view highlights how one can, despite a political ontology of international society based on political communities, take into account some of the main features of the present global order (i.e. a globalised one) in terms of the delegation of jurisdictional (and other forms of) powers from political communities to other subjects. Allow me to illustrate this kind of approach even further. How should we conceive of the international order? More specifcally, is there a way of conceiving such an order that would allow us to both give a central role to political communities and yet do so without denying the importance of, for example, transnational economic and technological developments? A familiar account that seems to chime well with these aforementioned requirements has been, in my view, authoritatively provided by Dani Rodrik (2011). One of Rodrik’s main contributions over the past decade has certainly been to offer a relatively simple theoretical framework to understand the challenges posed by global economic integration (see also Rodrik, 1997). His recent efforts have presented the political economy of global governance in the shape of a ‘trilemma’. The trilemma imposes a set of trade-offs between choices

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that we are forced to make in light of three moral and political objectives we would normally assume to be desirable. These are: a) international economic integration; b) self-determination; and c) democratic forms of governance. The trilemma is essentially explained by the fact that markets are not self-suffcient and thus require institutional backing at the national or local level in order to work effciently. At the same time, however, there is a wealth of ways in which we can (locally) organise the institutional pre-requisites for functioning markets, and these ways of organising the institutions of economic governance are clearly intimately linked, at least in the context of self-governing units, to local political preferences, for, in the end, they constitute an important aspect of the shape and character of the societies in question. And yet, these legitimate differences will clearly have implications in terms of our ability to further integrate economic markets across the world (and thus reap the signifcant benefts attached to such integration), for such market integration, once again, given the reliance of markets on background institutions, will put pressure on the regulatory diversity among different political units. In light of these relatively simple assumptions about the relationship between markets, political institutions broadly construed, and differences in the way in which the latter two can be productively related, Rodrik concludes that we are likely to face the following trade-offs: If we want to maintain and deepen democracy, we have to choose between the nation state and international economic integration. And if we want to keep the nation state and self-determination, we have to choose between deepening democracy and deepening globalization. Our troubles have their roots in our reluctance to face up to these ineluctable choices. (Rodrik, 2011: XIX) What, if any, is the relevance of Rodrik’s story for our current purposes? My sense is that, just like Sangiovanni’s, the kind of picture of the global (economic) order provided by Rodrik sees political communities as central. At the same time, the trilemma does not do so by discounting the relevance of transnational economic processes (i.e. international or global market integration). Instead, it re-describes these processes as constituting both challenges and opportunities that political communities have to address and manage in light of what we can presume to be important normative goals (such as self-determination and democracy). And, while Rodrik’s solution pertaining to the best way to manage the trilemma is not our immediate concern, he does believe that such a solution is within grasp, at least if we relax the amount of international economic integration we fnd desirable, all things considered. Once again, note that my goal in briefy presenting these arguments is not, strictly speaking, that we should discount Buchanan’s (legitimate) observation that we have to abandon a straightforward Westphalian picture of the world order. Rather, the point is simply to convey the idea that to think in terms of, or more specifcally to frame a given theory in terms of, political communities of some kind does not imply to imagine a world in which nothing else of relevance (besides what

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these political communities may do to their citizens and to each other) happens (see also Williams, 2011). Allow me to be completely transparent about what my latest remarks can achieve. My sense is that no knock-down argument can be offered at this stage in our current political predicament in international (or global) politics about what is the most fruitful or accurate social and political ontology for international (or global) society. The only thing I hope to have shown is that the one that seems to be implicit in the very structure of the theory of international toleration defended in this book is far from implausible, or at least, much less than some would be prima facie inclined to judge it. At the same time, and given the absence of a strong argument in favour of my choices, if the reader is unconvinced by the claim that something like peoples can be plausibly portrayed to be central, then she should see it as an assumption about the nature and scope of the theory. Predictably, in that kind of scenario, the applicability of the theory would be more limited. Yet, the key issue, in my view, is that the theory would not be incoherent as a result. Let us take stock. What is the relevance of the aforementioned discussion for the purposes of my present concerns? A theory of international toleration needs to offer an account of what international stands for. An account of what international stands for is a necessary pre-requisite for specifying both the subjects and objects of toleration according to the theory (i.e. a necessary condition to be met before the task of theory-building can proceed). In this work, I shall consider the main actors to be self-governing bounded political communities understood as moral collective agents. I shall, following Rawls, call these agents peoples. But the choice of a label is, in my view, immaterial. What is relevant is why we select a given label. In this part of the chapter, I have provided an account of the genesis of this choice and of its plausibility even in light of our appreciation that we live in a globalised world. As I have stated ab initio, I view this as an explanatory exercise that can offer some intuitive support for the choice in question rather than an argument for it. Yet, this explanatory story has value insofar as it allows us, as I have noted previously, to portray a given choice as an intuitively plausible and attractive one.

II. International toleration: subjects, objects, and further distinctions What do ‘we’ tolerate when we tolerate internationally? Who tolerates and who is tolerated? As I have argued in the previous section of the chapter, I intend to frame the theory I am putting forward in terms of self-governing bounded political communities understood as moral collective agents (i.e. peoples). Yet, to say that peoples are the main actors in the theory is not a conclusive specifcation of the subjects and objects of toleration. First, more should be said about the different components of the expression,‘self-governing bounded political community understood as a moral collective agent’. Second, even accepting some account of the various terms within the latter expression, who tolerates whom or what, is not, given the nature of the agents in question, self-evident. Or so I will claim.

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Let us discuss these two points in order. Why do we need such a prima facie cumbersome defnition of the relevant agents in the theory? The reason is that each element of the defnition of the relevant agents is important; it has a functional role. Let us start by more precisely defning what I mean by the expression that describes the main agents in the theory. The defnition has the following central features: a) a reference to agency; b) the ascription of moral character to the relevant agents; and c) the (implicit) introduction of a criterion of demarcation between different agents. Let me address these three main features in order. A people is, as we have seen in passing earlier, to be understood as an international collective or group agent (here I use the expressions ‘collective agent’ and ‘group agent’ interchangeably) that is constituted by natural persons who stand in a specifc relationship with a government and to each other. So far, I have largely taken for granted the idea of international agency, so it is worth saying more about: a) what international agency presupposes, namely, an account of group or collective agency and b) the way in which the defnition of a people expresses the idea of international agency. Here, I shall follow Philip Pettit (2006). According to Pettit: If a group is to count as a group agent then at least three conditions must be fulfilled. First, there must be certain goals that the group pursues, whether pre-set goals or goals identified over time by pre-set procedures; the group will pursue these so far as members act jointly to promote them or authorize an individual or group of individuals to do so in its name. Second, the group must endorse a common body of judgments about those issues that arise in the course of pursuing its goals; issues to do with whether to revise or remove or add certain goals, with how to order the goals amongst themselves, with what opportunities are available for their pursuit, and with what means promise to be most effective. Third, under intuitively normal conditions, the group must form its goals and judgments in a more or less rational manner and act rationally so as to satisfy those goals, according to those judgments. At the least, the group must be responsive to the recognition of any theoretical or practical form of irrationality; it must be disposed to mend its ways on having such irrationality pointed out. (2006: 46) And, as Pettit continues, peoples, if well-ordered, are able to meet the requirements of group agency. Once again, it is worth quoting him at some length: The members of any well-ordered people will be party to certain shared ideas that are capable of being articulated into a theory of justice. And they will control the government that represents them, they will constitute it as their representative, to the extent that the government is ordered or regulated by those common reasons, and by the corresponding conception of justice. So far as the government operates under the control of such common reasons, and ultimately under the control of the conception of justice implicit in

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them, it will be truly representative of the people. And so far as government is representative in this way, the people will get to be established as an agent that is domestically and internationally effective. The people-as-representedin-government will meet the three conditions for group agency. It will act for the realization of certain ends; it will act under the guidance of a body of judgments that members authorize as common property; and it will display a modicum of rationality in how it holds and acts on those ends and judgments. The judgments endorsed as common property will be the judgments that government makes when it acts under the constraints imposed by common reasons; what makes them common property will be the reliance on and enforcement of this sensitivity to such ideas. (2006: 48) The last two quotes, to be sure, do not provide a full account of international collective or group agency, let alone a defence of such an account. Yet, for the purposes of my enquiry, I think that providing such an account is not, strictly speaking, a requirement. More precisely, one needs to be convinced (as I am) that such an account can be provided. However, I think that one can also be fairly non-committal about its actual contours. What is relevant, for the purposes of my enquiry, is that there can be a plausible account of international collective agency and that such an account would allow us to picture peoples (as I have defned them previously), or something suffciently close to peoples, as the kinds of agents that would ft such an account. I say ‘or something suffciently close to peoples’ for, in the end, the idea of a people is a normative one and can thus be adjusted to ft other aspects of the theory as a whole. Provided such adjustments are plausible and that one is able to check what their implications are for the rest of the theory, then there seems to be nothing illegitimate about them. To call a political community a people, we also need to say more about the relationships between its citizens, their government, and other peoples. It is the nature of these relationships, and more specifcally their moral content (i.e. the rules according to which these relationships are to be structured), that we can ascribe a moral character to peoples. To qualify as a people, a given political community is required to have a government claiming ultimate and ‘yet appropriately limited’ authority over its citizens and with respect to the decisions its makes concerning how to act toward other political communities. The appropriate limits to the internal authority of the government are to be given by a domestic conception of justice that meets specifc requirements. What such requirements should be can only be stated (as opposed to fully explained and defended) in this present chapter. We can think of those limits as the essential constituents of the idea of well-orderedness, which includes respect for human rights, the basic elements of the rule of law, and the minimal requirements for internal self-determination. The external aspects of the limits on the authority of the government lie in its capacity to act in accordance with, I simplify here, the principles of justice that are provided by a liberal political conception of international justice.

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Finally, the defnition of a people also contains the word ‘bounded’. By using it, I intend to convey the idea that the ultimate, but limited, authority exercised by the government only applies to the ‘unit’ in question. More specifcally, I shall assume that the referent of ‘bounded’ is characterised by territoriality, and so that the unit over which the relevant jurisdictional claims are made are, bar exceptions, territorial in kind. What is the ‘functional role’ played by these defnitions? A theory of international toleration requires subjects and objects. That is, it requires some to tolerate and others to be tolerated (perhaps occupying both roles at once, see the following and Chapter 5, Part III). Assume, for the sake of argument, that peoples are the relevant actors in the sense that they are the subject and object of toleration. I say ‘assume’ because, as we shall see shortly, more needs to be said to reach that conclusion. First, in the absence of self-government, we would probably lack a clear criterion for ascribing the actions of a government to a political community, and, as a consequence, we would not be able to portray a people as a collective or group agent (at least insofar as we accept Pettit’s account). Second, consider the fact that peoples are understood as ‘moral’ collective agents in the sense specifed a few paragraphs earlier. Both in light of my explanatory remarks concerning the genesis of the choice of peoples as the basic building blocks for the theory and in several passages in Chapters 1 and 2, the focal case we are interested in when developing a moral theory of international toleration is one in which ‘we’ tolerate something that is opposed on moral grounds and for which there are moral reasons to refrain from interfering with it. It thus makes sense to believe that the relevant actors need to be capable of acting for moral reasons, something that seems to require that we see them as moral agents. Finally, unless we have a form of demarcation between the boundaries of different political units, we would seem to be unable to specify who tolerates whom, since we would be unable to clearly state ‘where’, so to speak, one people ends and another begins. Let us move to the second main question I intend to discuss in this part of the chapter. Up until now, I have basically assumed that if peoples are the main actors in the theory, then it is peoples who tolerate and are tolerated. The assumption seems natural enough, but it is not a theoretically innocent one. First, consider the distinction between an agent and its actions (something we already touched upon in Chapter 1 when discussing the so-called ‘perceptual model’). To say that an actor is the relevant agent in a theory does not entail that the theory is bent on judging the agent in question. The theory might very well limit itself to investigating the actions of a class of agents. This distinction seems particularly relevant when it comes to toleration since, as we have also seen in Chapter 1, some would be inclined to say that we can tolerate actions and beliefs, not agents. While I do not fnd the latter option entirely plausible as a general model for the kind of conception of toleration I am trying to develop, I think it is still worth considering the question in light of the ‘special nature’ of peoples as collective agents rather than natural persons, for shifting the objects of toleration from natural persons to collectives of some sort might incline us to lay more emphasis on the collectives’ actions as opposed

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TABLE 3.1 The subjects and objects of international toleration

Object/subject of toleration

Citizens

Peoples

Peoples

S1

S2

Policies and decisions

S3

S4

Source: Compiled by author

to the collectives themselves. Thus, in the present context, the question is whether a theory of international toleration should be understood as a theory that is concerned with the actions, that is the policies and decisions, of a people or the people itself. In a similar fashion, we can ask: what are the proper subjects of toleration? If a people is an agent constituted by a group of persons who stand in some specifc kind of relationship to a government and to each other, then, there is at least the possibility that the relevant subjects of tolerations (namely, the agents that are ‘doing the tolerating’) may either be people itself or its citizens. These two sets of choices are presented in Table 3.1. How should we proceed? Which option should we select? Let us start by discussing what are the proper objects of toleration. To do so, note something that is peculiar to peoples, at least if one defnes them the way I have defned them. The peculiarity is that when it comes to peoples, the distinction between actions and agent is not very clear cut, but far from it in fact. There is a sense in which, if we think of ourselves as natural persons, we are defned by what we do. Yet, at least insofar as natural persons are concerned, there is no doubt that the latter would be a highly contentious defnition of personal identity, for, as many would point out, natural persons may also be defned (i.e. their identity) in terms of what they feel, say, think, and in relation to what has happened to them in the past, and so on. When it comes to peoples, however, the structure of the problem seems different, for we defned what a people is by using a (partly) moralised defnition that referred to specifc properties connected to the internal and external policies and decisions adopted by the agent in question. A necessary requirement to be considered a people just is to adopt certain policies and decisions vis-à-vis citizens and other peoples and their citizens. This peculiar feature of our defnition of a people is particularly useful to guide our choice since it basically tells us that the two rows in Table 3.1 do not present us with a real (or at least a clear-cut) distinction. Thus, it seems plausible to conclude that the real choice we face is between S1 and S2. Let us now move on to consider the subjects of toleration, namely, those agents that would be doing the tolerating within the theory. Some might claim that there could be a sense in which natural persons belonging to a given people might be tolerating the actions or policies of other peoples (and thus, following our discussion in the previous paragraph, the people itself). However, my intuition is that these are unlikely to be focal cases for the theory as a whole. First, consider the concept of toleration as we have defned it in the frst chapter. Can we say that a person meets the power condition and the interpretation of interference we have opted for if the object of

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the potential interference was considered to be another people? Now, clearly, there is a sense in which, once the subjunctive characterisation of the power condition is adopted, we can entertain, at least conceptually, the possibility. Yet, this seems to be an unlikely and relatively marginal scenario. Second, and relatedly, note that natural persons are unlikely to meet the condition of international agency as we have specifed it earlier. Thus, S2 seems to suggest itself as the most relevant kind of scenario. To conclude, the theory of liberal international toleration I have described in the frst two parts of this chapter takes the following form: a) its main actors are bounded self-governing political communities understood as moral collective agents called peoples; and b) peoples are the subjects and objects of toleration. In the next part of the chapter, starting from these features of the theory, I construct what I take to be plausible desiderata that the theory needs to meet.

III. a.

Desiderata for a liberal theory of international toleration What desiderata are and are for

Constructing desiderata for a theory is a complex endeavour. On the one hand, doing so allows us to narrow the scope of the possible shapes that the theory might take. Desiderata, in other words, allow us to have a more focused target when it comes to what the theory should achieve. On the other hand, however, if desiderata are to offer this kind of guidance to theory-building, they have to be enunciated before one has actually developed the theory in question. Yet, one might feel uncomfortable in putting forward what are essentially normative guidelines for a theory that one has yet to explain and justify. This kind of exercise might strike the reader as (bar some innocuous formal ones such as clarity, coherence, and so on) the introduction of an unwarranted set of pre-theoretical goals. Thus, it is important, in my view, to clarify what the status of desiderata is. I believe there are two distinct points to make here. The frst is that desiderata can be used as an explanatory and expository device. We might already have a theory in mind, and its shape might actually be what guides the introduction of desiderata ex-post. It just so happens that these would be the desiderata that the theory we already happen to have does in fact meet. This, of course, would entail that the desiderata cannot play the role I have initially suggested they might play. Since, in this frst account of their role, they are introduced after we have developed the theory, they cannot, logically, guide the theory formation process. Nonetheless, even understood in this fashion, desiderata can play an important, albeit explanatory and illustrative, role. They can, in other words, allow the reader to get a set of guidelines for what the theory is aiming to achieve before she actually delves into the theory itself. At the very least, this suggests that constructing desiderata might be a useful kind of presentation device to help the reader understand the deeper aims of a given theory. Yet, there is also a second sense in which we can develop desiderata and use them to guide our theoretical efforts (one more in line with my initial remarks).

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Desiderata can be understood as considered convictions we have about a given set of issues. So, for example, we have the considered conviction that slavery is wrong. We can then say that a desideratum for any theory of justice is that it can account more systematically for this considered conviction. However, in line with the idea of refective equilibrium, and leaving aside the specifc example of slavery, there is no guarantee that the theory will in fact be able to account for this considered conviction. We might thus have to revise the considered conviction once the theory is on hand. In my view, this is perfectly compatible with the idea that to establish a desideratum is helpful in narrowing down the scope of the theory’s goals. And this is because, even if we end up, eventually, rejecting the desideratum, the latter has still offered the theorist initial guidance in order to develop the theory. The point of having desiderata, then, is not to commit the theory to a pre-theoretical set of normative goals; rather, it is to guide the theory-building exercise. It helps us in setting up the kinds of aims that the theory should plausibly pursue in light of our considered convictions about the theory’s object. Yet, the fnal test for the content of the theory is not whether it meets the desiderata. It is, instead, that the desiderata and the theory are in refective equilibrium. Desiderata thus offer, paraphrasing Rawls, provisional fxed points.

b.

Desideratum 1: a liberal theory

In the Introduction and in Chapter 2 of the book, I offered an initial clarifcation of the meaning I assign to ‘liberal’. By a liberal theory of international toleration, I mean a theory of international toleration based on the idea of political liberalism. In the Introduction, I described, very briefy, the idea of political liberalism as one that is based on respect for persons and on the mutual justifability of basic social political arrangements to all that live under them. Unpacking the basic elements of political liberalism a bit further, it seems relatively clear that the idea of respect for persons and mutual justifability are themselves relying on what we can call deeper foundations. I shall mention one, without necessarily arguing that it is the only or most important. It is, however, as we shall see, the one that is more likely to be ‘tested’ by a theory of ‘international’ toleration. The foundational commitment of any liberal approach (and, a fortiori, of a political liberal approach) I have in mind is the commitment to normative individualism. Political liberalism, much in the same way as most conceptions of liberalism, is committed to the idea that what ultimately matters are persons, not groups. Thus, political liberalism, and liberalism more broadly, is clearly premised on the rejection of value collectivism. According to Michael Hartney,‘value collectivism [is the view that] a collective entity can have value independently of its contribution to the wellbeing of individual human beings’ (cited in Altman and Wellman 2009: 37). The idea of value collectivism is problematic insofar as its content proposes to attribute value to a collective entity not on the basis of what it can contribute to the life of individuals but based on further properties of the collective entity itself. Groups can, of course, have normative signifcance even in a liberal framework. But their

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relevance, normatively speaking, is derivative, namely, it is derived from the signifcance (I here broaden the idea of ‘well-being’) that those groups have to those who belong to them. I shall have more to say about this issue in the fnal part of Chapter 5, but, for now, I think these cursory remarks will do. What is the upshot of this very brief discussion? The commitment to normative individualism is to be understood as a side-constraint on the development of a theory of international toleration that is congruent with political liberalism and the liberal tradition more broadly. The frst desideratum for the theory is, then, that it should not violate such a side-constraint. Clearly enough, a theory that is congruent or respects normative individualism is not ipso facto a liberal one. At best, it might give us prima facie reasons to believe that to attach the label ‘liberal’ to the theory is not inappropriate. The latter is, admittedly, a weak condition, and yet, as I hope to show, it is not a trivial one to impose given the nature of the theory. So, why is this the case exactly? The fact that a theory of international toleration is framed in terms of peoples might suggest that it is peoples themselves who have moral signifcance. If peoples are the main actors in the theory, then one might conclude that it is peoples who have ultimate moral signifcance within the theory. Furthermore, as I will argue next, one of the desiderata of the theory of international toleration is that its scope should be broader than those political communities committed to liberal democratic forms of governance. Put differently, an attractive account of international toleration, I will argue, should be able to explain why we should tolerate at least some nonliberal peoples, and to tolerate a class of nonliberal peoples entails to tolerate at least some nonliberal ways to organise social and political institutions. Thus, the fact that a theory of international toleration allows some nonliberal ways to organise political institutions to be members in good standing of the Society of Peoples suggests that persons will have different entitlements, that is, unequal ones, depending on where they happen to be situated, politically speaking.

c.

Desideratum 2: the scope of toleration

For any theory of toleration, two elements can be distinguished: the structure and justifcation of the theory and its scope. The structure and justifcation of the theory, at least in the way I conceive of them in this book, offer an account of how and why we might be led to tolerate something. For example, in the previous chapters, I have analysed different ways of modelling the relationship between the opposition components and acceptance components within the defnition of the concept of toleration. My basic conclusion was that we should adopt what I have called the partition model. The partition model, coupled with an account of (i.e. a justifcation for) priority of one class of reasons over other classes of reasons in a given domain, explains how and why we tolerate whatever it is we tolerate according to a particular approach to toleration. However, note that the latter point does not, strictly speaking, tell us anything about the scope of toleration. The scope of toleration, at least in the sense I am using the expression here, is the actual set of (putative) objects of toleration that are indeed tolerated according to a given theory

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of toleration. Clearly enough, the two, the structure and justifcation of toleration and the scope of toleration, are intimately connected. Yet it would be a mistake to think that one simply determines the other, or, more precisely, that knowing the structure and justifcation of an account of toleration can determine the scope of toleration for a given theory of toleration without further argument. To see why, consider the structure and justifcation of toleration if we follow what I have called the partition model. If we do, then we have to devise a distinction between two or more classes of reasons and explain why one class of reasons should normally enjoy a sui generis kind of priority over other classes of reasons. However, the latter strategy cannot, by itself, explain how the model applies to a given case or set of cases. For the sake of illustration, let us go back to Forst’s distinction between ethical and moral norms and principles (2013). The criteria for the partition depend, according to Forst, on whether a given reason in support of a specifc conclusion, policy, and so on can be inter-subjectively validated (leaving aside, for the time being, the exact meaning of that requirement). Now, even accepting this kind of view, it seems rather patent that disagreement is possible concerning specifc instances: some will believe reason R to belong to the class of reasons that can be inter-subjectively validated, while others might disagree. The theory itself, without further argument, cannot determine the correct answer to the latter disagreement. I think that there are moral reasons for some form of distributive equality, you disagree and retort that distributive equality is part of a wider ethical outlook that you can reasonably reject. The argument can, and indeed often does, continue, but pointing out the features of the account of toleration I have in mind is unlikely to resolve it: whether or not we can impose distributive equality as a political norm is not something we can determine in that way. What is the upshot of this discussion? Basically, that it makes sense to think about the scope of toleration independently from its structure and justifcation. The structure and justifcation of a theory of toleration constrains the kind of scope toleration might eventually have within the theory but it cannot, without further argument, determine it. Yet, in my view, we can go even further. We can say that the scope of toleration is an important domain where we normally have distinct considered convictions. To wit, consider an account of toleration for a liberal democratic society. Consider the kinds of differences that such a society normally displays and consider what led you to think about toleration in the frst place. Clearly enough, not all such differences will be ‘rescued’ by the theory of toleration you might be interested in building. In the end, if you are devising a normative theory of toleration, the goal is to offer critical guidance for how to relate to diversity, not simply an account of how we can be reconciled with such differences no matter their nature. At the same time, we would be rather surprised and theoretically unhappy if the theory of toleration we are devising ended up telling us that none of the differences we observe in a liberal democratic society, that is, one of the main reasons we started to think about toleration in the frst place, should be tolerated. This would strike us as an implausible result. At the very least, it would lead most theorists to check again to see if by changing some elements of the theory they can offer a view that, while

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still normatively attractive, is more hospitable to diversity. Theory and considered convictions seem more fruitfully portrayed as in conversation, or equilibrium, even if one does not want to give excessive priority to how things are as opposed to how things ought to be. Thus, we can say that our considered convictions concerning toleration would normally take the following shape: a theory of toleration is usually called for to systematise our normative judgments concerning diversity in a given domain, and it should thus try to avoid results that make that diversity disappear, normatively speaking. Note that this is compatible with a vast array of different ‘scopes’ for toleration. The considered conviction is not, then, a considered conviction about the specifc scope of toleration; rather, it is a considered conviction about the general features, as it were, of the scope of toleration. How does this apply to a liberal theory of international toleration? In part, our considered convictions on this specifc subject matter will depend on what we take to be the main set of issues and circumstances we are observing and that have pushed us to theorising. As I have argued in the Introduction to this book, we live in a politically diverse world, that is, a world in which different forms of political organisation co-exist. What is more, such different forms of political organisation are not only different, but they also, intuitively, strike us as offering different sets of opportunities for human fourishing: some excellent, some good, some decent, some appalling, some tragic. One question we might wish to ask, the main question for the purposes of this theory, is how exactly we should relate to these differences if we approach them from a liberal perspective. We might be, and in fact many are, tempted to say that since liberalism represents, at the very least from a liberal perspective, and perhaps from a wider and more universal perspective, the best possible way to organise social and political institutions, then the latter should be the only permissible way to do so. Yet, I sincerely think that this would be an impoverished account of toleration – one in which we only tolerate what we accept. Such an idea, as I have claimed in the Introduction, might not constitute more than an intuitive argument for tolerating at least some nonliberal societies, but its appeal does constitute reason enough to look for an argument that explains why we should, and thus to construct a theory that can account for such considered conviction in a more systematic fashion. Put differently, a liberal theory of international toleration that only allowed liberal political communities might look like a theory that obliterates the main reason we are interested in theorising about international toleration in the frst place. Thus, we can conclude that a desideratum, a provisional one, as they all are, for a liberal theory of international toleration is that it can offer an account of the scope of toleration that is hospitable to at least some nonliberal societies.

d.

Desideratum 3: mutual respect and integrity

As we have seen previously, when speaking of the scope of toleration, a desideratum of the theory of toleration that I am putting forward is that it is hospitable to at

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least some nonliberal ways to organise social and political institutions. One question that might spring to mind once that much has been ascertained concerns the kind of relationship we can imagine to exist between liberal and nonliberal societies according to the theory. The answer to the latter question, I believe, takes us back to several aspects of the discussion of the concept of toleration in Chapter 1 and of the idea of liberalism (i.e. political liberalism) I have claimed to be at the core of the approach I am taking. More specifcally, in the Introduction to this book, I have claimed that my aim is to develop a theory of international toleration inspired by the idea of political liberalism and that respect for persons is one of the key elements of the latter approach to liberalism. Putting these two elements together, then, we can further ask whether the theory of international toleration I am putting forward is compatible with the idea of mutual respect. Stated differently, and using the language of desiderata, it certainly seems a desideratum of the theory, given its intellectual sources, that the theory is indeed compatible with mutual respect among those to whom the theory applies. Finally, we can add the following observation. At least in part, mutual respect among those to whom the theory applies will depend on whether the theory allows those to whom it applies not to feel their integrity put under excessive pressure. Clearly, that is a very broad desideratum (as I shall consider mutual respect and integrity as, together, constituting a single complex or layered desideratum). Yet, we can proceed, much in the way we have done earlier, by asking where, structurally speaking, the theory might test the ideas of mutual respect and integrity. In other words, where is the theory, given its structure, overall purposes and scope, likely to be in tension with the desideratum of mutual respect and integrity? My sense is that the answer is that this tension will be felt in three distinct ways: frst, when it comes to the relationship between tolerator and tolerated; second, when it comes to the integrity of the tolerator; and third, when it comes to the integrity of those who are tolerated. For the time being, assume that, in our account, liberal peoples are tolerators in the theory and that a given class of nonliberal peoples are tolerated. We shall relax this assumption in a moment, but to start from it is useful to understand the tensions we are likely to face. In this picture, we can ask: a) is the relationship between liberal and nonliberal peoples one that is compatible with mutual respect? b) is toleration of nonliberal peoples on the part of liberal ones compatible with the integrity of liberal peoples? c) is toleration by liberal peoples compatible with the integrity of nonliberal peoples? The frst question is the most obvious one in many ways. Yet, even the second and third deserve, in my view, to be entertained. For toleration might have costs for those who are tolerated, and these we should most certainly consider, but toleration will often also have, as Tim Scanlon has convincingly argued (2003), costs for those who tolerate since they have to live with things of which they disapprove. Here, the reader might complain that I am using the words respect and integrity without offering a specifcation of their meaning. She is right. More should be said about the meaning I attribute to respect and to integrity. Respect is a complex idea, and my goal is not to offer a general defnition of the term. Nonetheless, I shall say something about what I intend to refer to when I invoke the ideas of respect

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and integrity. In addition, there is a non-trivial concern about the way these terms might or might not apply to collective agents such as peoples. Let us start with the idea of respect. Briefy, my basic claim is that we need not offer a general defnition of what respect means in order to be allowed to state what respect, or more specifcally mutual respect, is ‘not’ compatible with. The basic intuition is that, if we have a certain conception of the relevant agents, then we can reject at least a subset of ways in which these agents might relate to one another as incompatible with mutual respect, and this is so even in the absence of a precise defnition of the term in question. While a full specifcation of the conception of the relationship between the agents within the theory of international toleration I am elaborating will have to wait until the next two chapters, I shall ask the reader to assume that these agents should be understood as free and equal. And my claim is then that, at least among free and equal agents, relations of subjection are incompatible with mutual respect. In turn, a relation of subjection is here defned as a political relation where power is exercised by one agent over another in an asymmetric and unaccountable way. I should stress that whether the latter is a good account of ‘mutual respect’ is, for my present purposes, not crucial. If the reader is unconvinced by this kind of defnition, then she is free to alter the ‘label’ of the desideratum I am discussing in this part of the chapter to whatever she feels best captures the expression I am currently describing as ‘something that is incompatible with mutual respect’. What is relevant is that her considered convictions are in line with what I am suggesting here about the undesirability of the exercise of asymmetric and unaccountable power among free and equal agents. What about integrity? And in what sense are we speaking of peoples and their integrity? By integrity, at least for the purposes of the theory, I simply refer to the relationship between an agent and its moral commitments broadly defned. Once again, the defnition is not meant to be a general one or a conceptually accurate one of the specifc term. I am not, here, interested in what integrity really is. And, once again, if the reader feels she wants to alter the label, so be it. Rather, the point is to highlight one dimension along which the theory might put pressure on the relevant agents conceived as free and equal ones. And the claim here is that it might do so by driving too large a wedge between what the theory requires of the agents to whom the theory applies and their moral commitments broadly understood. Any theory of toleration is susceptible to face this kind of problem. For, at its heart, a theory of toleration, given the analysis of the concept we have offered in the previous chapters, is a theory that asks some to accept what they oppose and others to be the object of continued (if not acted upon) opposition. In addition, given that, as we have seen, we are interested in cases where the nature of the reasons to oppose a given object of toleration is moral, the link with integrity (as I have defned it) starts to become clearer. Consider the predicament of the tolerator. She will, by defnition, be asked to ‘live with’ what she morally opposes. And, looking at those who are tolerated, they surely have to ‘live with’ the idea that what and/or who they are and/or what they do is only begrudgingly accepted.

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Finally, consider the sense in which these remarks might apply to peoples. Let us assume, as I have suggested earlier, that one of the desiderata of the theory is that the scope of toleration be broader than liberal democratic peoples alone. For the time being, also assume that we can divide the world into liberal democratic (liberal for short) peoples and a sub-class of nonliberal democratic (decent, for short) peoples who, while nonliberal, are members in good standing of international society. Imagine, in addition, that the theory of international toleration prescribes that decent peoples are to be tolerated by liberal peoples and that this is the reason why decent peoples are members in good standing of international society. Liberal peoples, the theory says, should tolerate decent ones. Yet, to tolerate decent peoples means to accept that a nonliberal way of organising a political institution is to be, however begrudgingly, accepted as a valid criterion for membership in international society. This is a diffcult task, since the fact that a people is not liberal means that it violates the rules of justice that liberal peoples believe play a crucial role in defning their (moral) political identity. Furthermore, if justice is the frst virtue of social and political institutions, and if a broadly liberal account of justice is the correct one, then decent peoples are unjust and liberal ones are required to accept this injustice and to do so for moral reasons. Now, consider the situation from the perspective of decent peoples. Decent peoples, much like liberal ones, see their (moral) political identity as defned by their view of how their institutions treat their members. They, too, from a (loosely defned) frst-person perspective, have an account of the most important virtues that a system of social and political institutions should display. Yet, they are required to accept that the reasons why they are members of international society is that they are tolerated by liberal peoples. More specifcally, they might be tempted to believe that they are members of this society ‘despite’ what they take to be the most important virtues to be displayed by social and political institutions and which defne their (moral) political identity. Note, furthermore, that this kind of account also partly explains the sense in which we are referring to the idea of integrity when it comes to collective agents. Namely, we are considering the idea that these agents are agents who have moral commitments just to mean that they have a collective (moral) political identity defned by the values, rules, and principles that inspire and structure their social and political institutions. To conclude, then, we can say that a theory of liberal international toleration that is inspired by a political liberal view should be compatible with mutual respect between, and the integrity of, those to whom the theory applies. In addition, I have also explained why a theory of international toleration is likely to put pressure on these provisional requirements. One fnal observation is in order. Allow me to restate why the aforementioned ideas of mutual respect and integrity, taken together, constitute a plausible desideratum for the theory. I think that two reasons should be distinguished. The frst is, as I have already stated, that meeting this desideratum seems to allow for better coherence with the political liberal approach. The second, and I think partly independent, reason for the desideratum to be considered as such is that meeting it would seem to make the overall account of toleration presented in

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this book more attractive. Now, clearly, what makes a theory attractive is vague in the abstract. And one might be tempted to say that a benchmark is needed in order to make that kind of judgement. If the benchmark is provided by political liberalism, then the second reason for having the desideratum might very well be reduced to the frst. Yet, in my view, the reductionist argument is only partially successful. For I think that we might legitimately portray the ideas of compatibility with mutual respect and integrity to be considered convictions one can entertain independently from one’s ‘preferred’ conception of liberalism. Thus, at the very least, we can say that while the desideratum does seem to require a set of prior normative commitments, these prior commitments need not be as narrowly defned as the ones that we would normally associate with the distinctive features of a politically liberal account.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have tried to accomplish three main tasks. In Part I, I have tried to offer an account of the genesis of the choice of the main actors within the liberal theory of international toleration. In the second part of the chapter, I have tried to defne the features of these agents in greater detail and have discussed what the subjects and objects of toleration should be within the theory. In the third part of the chapter, I have put forward a set of desiderata for the theory. The chapter thus gives us a more detailed account of what the shape of the theory of international toleration will be and of what we are aiming for in building such a theory (i.e. the desiderata). In the next chapter of the book, I turn to the structure, justifcation, and scope of the theory of international toleration. The way I approach the latter task is to propose what I consider to be a credible candidate for a theory of liberal international toleration.

Bibliography Altman, A. & Wellman, C.H. (2009), A Liberal Theory of International Justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Buchanan, A. (1991), Secession: The Legitimacy of Political Divorce from Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec. Boulder: Westview Press. Buchanan, A. (2000), “Rawls’ Law of Peoples: Rules for a Vanished Westphalian World”, Ethics, 110 (4), 697–721. Cassese, A. (1995), Self-Determination of Peoples: A Legal Reappraisal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Donnelly, J. (2000), Realism and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dworkin, R. (1983), “Comment on Narveson: In Defense of Equality”, Social Philosophy and Policy, 1 (1), 24–40. Dworkin, R. (1986), Law’s Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forst, R. (2013), Toleration in Confict: Past and Present, trans. Cronin, C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Maffettone, P. (2017), A Realistic Utopia: Global Justice and Public Justifcation. Rome: LUISS University Press. Malanczuk, P. (2002), Akehurst’s Modern Introduction to International Law. Milton Park, Oxfordshire: Routledge. Miller, D. (1995), On Nationality. New York: Oxford University Press. Moore, M. (2001), The Ethics of Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Pettit, P. (2006), “Rawls’s Peoples”, in Martin, R. & Reidy, D. (eds.), Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 38–55. Portmann, R. (2010), Legal Personality in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rawls, J. (1999), The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rodrik, D. (1997), Has Globalization Gone Too Far? Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics and New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Rodrik, D. (2011), The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Sangiovanni, A. (2007), “Global Justice, Reciprocity, and the State”, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 35 (1), 2–39. Scanlon, T.M. (2003), The Diffculty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Valentini, L. (2012), “Ideal vs. Non‐Ideal Theory: A Conceptual Map”, Philosophy Compass, 7 (9), 654–664. Wenar, L. (2004), “The Unity of Rawls’s Work”, Journal of Moral Philosophy, 1 (3), 265–275. Wenar, L. (2006), “Why Rawls Is Not a Cosmopolitan Egalitarian”, in Martin, R. & Reidy, D. (eds.), Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 95–113. Williams, H. (2011), On Rawls, Development and Global Justice. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

4 THE LIBERAL THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL TOLERATION A candidate

Introduction In Chapter 1 of this book, I explored the meaning of the concept of toleration. In Chapter 2, I focused on a specifc conception of toleration. I explored how what I called the ‘partition model’ could help us in illuminating the theory of toleration in political liberalism. Then, in Chapter 3, I have tried to further specify the additional concerns that an ‘international’ theory of toleration would raise. These were of two kinds, the frst pertained to the fact that a theory of international toleration necessarily takes us into less familiar territory. What the relevant agents are, and in what sense they can tolerate one another, were not elements we could have derived from our discussion of the partition model in Chapter 2, and thus laying them out was a necessary step in the process of theory construction. I then went on to discuss additional constraints on the theory in the form of desiderata. Desiderata are only provisional fxed points, yet they nonetheless offer some kind of guidance concerning the attractiveness of a theory. In this chapter, I move on to present what I take to be the best exemplar of the theory of international toleration, namely, Rawls’s The Law of Peoples (hereafter LP). Thus, conceptually, the book moves from concept, to conception, to additional constraints on a conception, to the exposition of a potential candidate theory. In the next chapter, I shall address whether we can effectively claim that the candidate theory discussed in this chapter really does meet all of the relevant constraints developed in the initial part of the book and can thus be portrayed as an extension of the partition model to international society. I shall briefy lay out Rawls’s account of international toleration and will then spend signifcant time to develop what I take to be an original, and I believe sounder, interpretation of his views than the ones available in the literature. The crux of my interpretation lies in a different conceptualisation of the role of the criteria of

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decency. Succinctly stated, such criteria require a political community to be externally peaceful. They also require that its domestic institutions respect basic human rights, the main aspects of the rule of law, and prescribe a non-trivial role for political participation. One of the most tempting conclusions, from an interpretive point of view, is to believe that the criteria of decency can act as suffcient conditions in Rawls’s account of international toleration. Yet, as I hope to show, this cannot be the case, for the criteria, both their content and the process by which Rawls arrives at them, are not consistent with the role that some (see Caney, 2002) have, at least implicitly, attributed to them (i.e. suffcient conditions). A more nuanced option is to believe that respecting the dictates of the criteria of decency should be considered as a necessary and jointly suffcient condition for toleration. I shall argue that, from a purely logical or formal point of view, that is strictly speaking correct, and yet that stated in that way, the proposed interpretation is misleading, for it ends up masking rather than illuminating the real structure of toleration in LP. Instead, the alternative I put forward argues that we should see those criteria as only indirectly necessary. Put differently, we should portray them as a signalling device for what we can presume the relationship between a (decent) people and a liberal conception of international justice to be. The best account of the structure of toleration in LP is then presented and extensively defended. The basic idea in such an account is that the only necessary and suffcient condition for a political community to be considered as a member in good standing of international society is that such a political community respects for the right reasons the principles of a liberal conception of international justice. In this picture, the criteria of decency are a way of describing the minimal necessary conditions that a political community must meet for it to have the correct kind of relationship to a liberal conception of international justice. I shall thus spend a signifcant amount of time trying to argue that this is the best way to understand such criteria. A further surprising aspect of this interpretation is that congruence with a liberal conception of international justice can be obtained by nonliberal political communities. This will necessarily raise the concern that this must be the case because liberal political communities have weakened their preferred view of international justice precisely for the latter result to be obtained (see Beitz, 2000; Pogge, 2001, 2004, 2006). If this were to be the case, however, the argument for toleration in LP would be irremediably circular. I don’t think this is the case, however. In order to arrive at the latter conclusion, I shall propose an argument that links liberal peoples’ interest in self-determination to the ‘thinness’ of the Rawlsian conception of international justice. Finally, allow me one comment about how to approach the chapter. The chapter, as I have stressed, is tasked with offering what I take to be an original interpretation of a specifc aspect of Rawls’s LP. And I sincerely believe that it has some independent value as an exegetical enterprise. Yet, the reader should bear in mind that the interpretation of LP plays a larger role in the book as a whole.

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More specifcally, the interpretation lays out a candidate theory of international toleration. And there seems to be a clear sense in which the two enterprises are distinct, for one can believe the interpretation of Rawls’s work that is provided to be unsatisfactory, at least to some degree, and yet see such interpretation as providing the basic elements of a fruitful Rawlsian theory of international toleration. By fruitful, I simply refer to the idea that the theory of international toleration, even if interpretively not satisfactory, might nonetheless be a good illustration of the shape of a candidate theory of international toleration given the various constraints on that theory that have been discussed in the frst three chapters of the book. Whether there is a conclusive reason to believe that the candidate Rawlsian theory really is such a theory will need to wait for the work performed in the next chapter of the book, and yet this chapter might still provide prima facie reasons to believe so.

I.

The structure of the Rawlsian theory: three options

According to Rawls, representatives of peoples, initially framed as liberal societies, would (behind an appropriately framed veil of ignorance) select eight principles to govern their foreign policies (Rawls, 1999: 37). These principles largely refect what we can describe as the main normative ideals latent in the public political culture of international society (Wenar, 2004). They take for granted the end of colonial rule as a legitimate form of political relationship between political communities. They ascribe value to collective self-determination but recognise the limited nature of state power over its citizenry and the link between the legitimacy of state rule and respect for basic human rights. They incorporate a basic presumption against outside interference in the political life of peoples bar cases of aggressive war and internal repression. More controversially (at least from the perspective of international law), they acknowledge the obligations of well-ordered peoples to aid societies who are not well-ordered because of their unfavourable social, economic, and political circumstances. This is the frst part of LP’s ideal theory. The second part extends this approach to nonliberal societies and aims to provide an account of international toleration. For Rawls, toleration does not simply entail refraining from coercion (Rawls, 1999: 59); it means to respect those who are tolerated, and in the specifc case of LP, to respect decent peoples as members in good standing (bona fde) of the Society of Peoples. There are many possible ways of organising decent political institutions (Rawls, 1999: 64), yet all decent political societies share certain features. Decent peoples: (a) respect basic human rights and the main elements of the rule of law; (b) their foreign policy is not aggressive nor expansionist in character; and (c) they consult their members, through appropriate forms of political representation when important decisions have to be made (Rawls, 1999: 64–65). These three criteria (call them ‘the criteria of decency’), when considered together, mean that the behaviour and features of a decent people meet the standards required to ‘override the political reasons we might have for imposing

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sanctions’ (Rawls, 1999: 83). Furthermore, according to Rawls, representatives of decent peoples would choose to abide by exactly the same eight principles of international justice endorsed by liberal peoples and to do so for the right reasons, not simply as a matter of political prudence. Decent peoples are thus part of an international overlapping consensus on the very same principles of justice that liberal peoples would select as the guide to their own foreign policy and to structure their mutual undertakings. The admittedly brief summary of Rawls’s account of international toleration presented earlier emphasises how both the criteria of decency and allegiance to the eight principles of LP are relevant in determining which nonliberal peoples are to be tolerated. Yet it does not clarify how these two elements interact (conceptually speaking), and which of the two (if any) should take priority when we assess the case for (i.e. the justifcation for) tolerating a nonliberal political society. How are the criteria of decency and the allegiance to the eight principles of LP to be related in the structure of Rawls’s argument for international toleration? At least three options seem to be available. First, we can picture the criteria of decency, by themselves, to provide suffcient conditions for tolerating a society that meets them (call this the ‘decency is suffcient’ option, or DIS). Any political society that meets these criteria should be tolerated, while allegiance to the eight principles of LP would only provide some form of independent confrmation that a society that meets these criteria can adopt a foreign policy consistent with the foreign policy of liberal peoples. Second, we can picture the criteria of decency, again, by themselves, as providing a set of necessary conditions for toleration. In this picture, the criteria of decency could be coupled with the endorsement of the eight principles of LP and then be pictured as jointly suffcient for tolerating a political society (call this the ‘decency is necessary’ option, or DIN). This would entail, for example, that a political society that meets the criteria of decency ‘and’ endorses the principles of LP is to be tolerated, but that a society that does not meet those criteria, and yet still endorses the principles of LP, should not be tolerated. Third, we can imagine the criteria of decency as ‘minimal necessary conditions’ that a society must satisfy in order to be able to endorse for the right reasons the eight principles of LP and thus be tolerated (call this the ‘overlapping consensus’ option, or OC). This would entail that a society that fails to meet those criteria cannot be described as being able to endorse the eight principles of LP. Here, note that in OC, the judgment concerning whether we should tolerate a political society ultimately rests on its ability to endorse the eight principles of LP rather than whether it meets the criteria of decency. The latter, in OC, only provides evidence of what the possible relationship between a people that meets those criteria and the eight principles of LP is – not a benchmark for toleration. In other words, in OC, the scope of toleration is co-extensive with the scope of those who are able to endorse the eight principles of LP, while the criteria of decency only serve the purpose of further specifying the features of this particular ‘set’ of peoples (more on this later; see Table 4.1 for the features of the three options I have set out).

102 Liberal theory of international toleration TABLE 4.1 The structure of the toleration argument in LP

Criteria of decency

Support for the principles of LP

Structure of the toleration argument

DIS

Suffcient conditions

Secondary compatibility check with liberal foreign policy

Fully based on the criteria of decency

DIN

Necessary conditions

Jointly suffcient when coupled with the criteria of decency

Partly based on the criteria of decency

OC

Determine relationship with principles of LP

Provides necessary and suffcient conditions

Based on the overlapping consensus

Source: Compiled by author

II.

The structure of international toleration in LP: arguing for OC

What is the best way of understanding the structure of the Rawlsian account of toleration? DIS strikes me as the least convincing option (see also Porter, 2012). To see the criteria of decency as providing, by themselves, suffcient conditions for tolerating a political society, independent from allegiance to the eight principles of LP, would leave unspecifed the criteria’s origin and political force. The criteria of decency are not the result of the application of the Rawlsian contractualist methodology to a special class of nonliberal societies. Rawls is clear that in the case of a decent people ‘there is no original position argument deriving the form of its basic structure’ (Rawls, 1999: 70). Justice as fairness only uses the original position three times, twice for liberal societies and once for nonliberal but decent ones (ibid). It does not attempt to derive the criteria of decency or any principle of internal political organisation for decent nonliberal societies from the standpoint of an appropriately framed nonliberal original position. It is thus unclear what the moral standing of these criteria would be if we interpreted them as simply self-standing normative criteria for the political organisation of a people. From a liberal perspective, the features of a people specifed by the criteria of decency are clearly insuffcient as standards of political justice and would not represent an acceptable interpretation of the rights and prerogatives of liberal citizenship. The criteria of decency per se do not seem to justify toleration. This is especially the case in the Rawlsian picture where toleration is based on mutual respect and entails equal standing in international society, not simply the choice of refraining from the use of coercion. DIN and OC are probably both more plausible and closer to Rawls’s text – at least if it is read charitably. Recall that DIN states that the criteria of decency are necessary conditions for toleration and jointly suffcient with allegiance to principles of LP to determine whether a society should, in the end, be tolerated or not. One may initially fnd DIN unconvincing because it may suggest, paradoxically, that a liberal society could fail the toleration test. If the criteria of decency are

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necessary conditions for toleration, can it be the case that a liberal (and thus not decent) people fails to meet those criteria? No, because the criteria of decency refer to a subset of the rights and liberties afforded to liberal democratic citizens; if the criteria of decency represent necessary conditions, then, a fortiori, any set of characteristics containing them (such as liberal democratic rights) can plausibly be said to meet those conditions too (Rawls, 1999: 63). Nonetheless, DIN still suffers from the same basic problem of DIS. Beyond the mere intuitive fact that respecting human rights and the main tenets of the rule of law, being peaceful and allowing for political participation – the criteria of decency – are no doubt ‘good things’ worthy of some form of moral consideration, it simply provides no clear argument as to why it is exactly those features that should act as a form of threshold for deciding which polities are to be tolerated (and thus deserve equal standing in international society) and which are not. The choice of the criteria of decency as a threshold for toleration suggests a form of ad hoc stipulation that we may use to guide our practical behaviour in view of the establishment of some form of modus vivendi, rather than a clear argument to extend equal respect and equal standing to those who are tolerated. For example, why should we not tolerate a political society that respects human rights and is externally peaceful but does not allow for internal political participation, and which nonetheless pledges allegiance to the same principles that liberal peoples give to themselves? What would be our intuition in this case? If we sense that democratic participation is a moral requirement of liberal justice (something which I will largely assume), then we have to recognise that decent societies are not democratic and that to set the bar at the level of a decent consultation hierarchy (or something equivalent to it) does not explain why it is exactly ‘that’ level of departure from democracy that we are prepared to respect and not something else. Put differently, just as for DIS, DIN seems unable to explain the analytical origins of the criteria of decency, and this impinges on their ability to provide a convincing answer to the question of toleration. Some may suggest that I am not treading carefully enough here: am I implying that political participation should play no role in an account of international toleration? While many believe that democracy is crucial for tolerating a political society, and some, like Rawls, seem to suggest that a measure of (non-democratic) political participation is necessary to tolerate a people, my argument seems to imply something more radical, namely, that no form of political participation is relevant when it comes to a conception of international toleration. I disagree – my aim so far has been much narrower. The point I am trying to make is that while we have some intuitive understanding of why,‘hypothetically’, democratic political participation, something that is at the core of modern liberalism, ‘may’ play a role in deciding which people should be tolerated (in the peculiar sense of being afforded equal standing in international society), it is unclear how we can form a ‘weaker and yet non-arbitrary’ standard of representativeness that can play the same role. Rawls simply provides no clear argument to support the idea that a non-democratic account of political participation can act as a necessary condition for tolerating a political society.

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Let me be as clear as possible on this issue. My point, so far, has emphatically not been that political participation, as specifed by Rawls for a class of decent peoples (i.e. decent hierarchical peoples), is not worthy of some kind of moral appreciation. In fact, I shall offer an extensive discussion in favour of the latter conclusion in the last part of Chapter 5, and to a lesser extent, in the Conclusion to this book. And even without drawing on those discussions, the idea that political participation, even of a non-democratic kind, can have value can easily be understood by comparing political communities in which there is some with ones where there is none. To wit, if we compared two different societies, one in which a decent consultation hierarchy is in place, and one in which it is not, it would seem plausible to conclude (perhaps even patent) that the former is in some sense better, morally speaking, than the latter, all other things being equal. Instead, my argument so far has simply attempted to show that it is unclear why a non-democratic account of political participation can play such a prominent role (i.e. to act as a necessary condition) within the structure of Rawls’s view of toleration. That political participation of a non-democratic kind is of moral value simply does not, per se, provide an argument to that effect. A further possibility is to see the role of political participation as what we can call a ‘signalling device’ in Rawls’s argument for international toleration (see also Riker, 2014). To illustrate, note that my discussion in the previous paragraph assumed that what makes political participation necessary are what we can call its ‘intrinsic moral properties’. Yet, there is more than one way in which a feature of a society, call such feature F, can be necessary to it (the society) being tolerated. F can be necessary because the absence of F is, ‘by itself ’, morally intolerable. But it can also be the case that the absence of F is not what triggers the failure of the necessary condition directly or that in any case it is not the absence of F that matters, morally speaking, but what the absence of F allows us to conclude concerning some further feature of the society in question. For example, call a second feature of the society in question G, and let the conclusion that a society should be tolerated be T. It can be the case that: 1 2

¬F⇒¬G ¬G⇒¬T

Here, ex hypothesis, it is the absence of G that matters, morally speaking, when considering toleration. Yet, note that it is still the case, logically speaking, that ¬ F implies that we should not tolerate the political society in question since: 3

given 1 and 2 we also have ¬ F ⇒ ¬ T

However, clearly, our full statement of the reasons that lead us to that conclusion would be very different depending on whether F is morally intolerable per se of simply acts as a signalling device for something that is itself intolerable. So, even a sympathetic reader may want to remark that the role of political participation as a necessary condition for toleration could be more instrumental than I have so far

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suggested. For example, it could be argued that it is not political participation per se that matters, morally speaking, for an account of international toleration. Rather what matters is the type of knowledge that the absence of political participation allows us to gain. This is, I believe, a crucial insight, and it is thus important to develop it. In the end, I shall claim that this way of thinking about the theory will lead us to either an implausible conclusion, or, if properly interpreted, lead us back to OC and will in fact strengthen it, by more explicitly laying out some of its key features. Much of the conclusion depends on what we believe F, G, and T to stand for in Rawls’s theory. Clearly, the options are potentially numerous. However, in what follows, I will only discuss two main ones. The frst option, or option 1, is what we can call the well-orderedness option. Option 1 – well-orderedness option: in LP the absence of political participation may tell us that the society in question is not well-ordered, and, in turn, it could be the fact that the society is not well-ordered that allows us to conclude that it should not be tolerated. In this picture, what seems to be doing the work, morally speaking, is the idea of well-orderedness of which political participation is, as Rawls’s text tells us, only but one aspect. Should we consider well-orderedness a necessary condition for toleration? My reply here is that I don’t think we should consider well-orderedness, per se, as necessary for tolerating a society. In order to see why, let’s start with Rawls’s understanding of well-orderedness. Rawls tells us that a society is well-ordered when: a b c

Everyone accepts, and knows that everyone else accepts, the same conception of justice; The society’s basic structure is publicly known, or with good reason believed, to satisfy those principles of justice; Citizens have a normally effective sense of justice, which enables them to understand and apply the publicly recognised principles of justice and act as those principles require. (see Rawls, 2001)

With this defnition in mind, note that, strictly speaking, the idea of tolerating only well-ordered political societies has a counterintuitive implication. At face value it seems to suggest that we can imagine a liberal political society that falls outside the scope of international toleration. By this I mean that if we take Rawls’s defnition of a well-ordered political society, we can imagine a liberal society, call it L, that has the following features: i ii

L protects the basic liberties of the liberal democratic tradition; The conception of justice J that is used to provide a benchmark for the organisation of L’s basic structure is reasonably rejected by at least some of the citizens

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iii iv

in L because its justification rests on some form of comprehensive understanding of liberalism (see Freeman, 2007b: 378–379); From i, ii, and above a, we can conclude that L is a liberal society but not a well-ordered one; Given iii, and taking well-orderedness to be a necessary condition for toleration, we can conclude that L should not be tolerated.

As I said, I believe that the conclusion in iv is counterintuitive. One way to interpret Rawls’s view of well-orderedness is to say that a well-ordered political society is an ideal: the ideal of political society as a form of political community where citizens are able to draw on common normative resources in an exercise of mutual reason-giving when they exercise political power over one another. The example of the liberal and yet not well-ordered society simply tells us that the standard way of describing Rawlsian liberalism as ‘political liberalism’ is more complex than we often realise insofar as the ‘liberal’ and the ‘political’ may very well come apart. Indeed, the very defnition of a decent people suggests that much: not all wellordered societies need to be liberal. What is less intuitive, from the perspective of international toleration, is that not all liberal societies are ipso facto well-ordered. Given the problems highlighted with giving the idea of well-orderedness a central role in the structure of toleration in LP, let us move on to consider what I think is the alternative option in light of what I argued was a central insight in the argumentative strategy, namely, to see whether there are features of a political community that can be indirectly relevant to understanding the structure of toleration by explaining how a given society can be plausibly portrayed to relate to a conception of international justice. I shall label this alternative approach the ‘agential view’. Following the agential view will, I believe, allow us to gain a better understanding of OC. Option 2 – the agential view: according to option 2 there is a powerful sense in which we are required to assess the internal make-up of a political community if we wish to have a complete picture of the structure of international toleration; what the assessment of these features tells us is the extent to which such a political community can reliably be portrayed as the kind of political community that can support, for the right reasons, the conception of justice that regulates the relevant domain in question. I will discuss the agential view in greater detail later, for explaining it will take us beyond the structure and justifcation of toleration and will require a longer appraisal of the scope of toleration. Nonetheless, it is worth emphasising some of OC’s features. First, consider the substantive, as opposed to the merely logical, argumentative strategy adopted in OC. OC suggests that once a liberal conception of justice is in place for a given political domain, what is required for toleration is nothing more than the knowledge that those who subscribe to that conception, that is, those who can comply with it for the right reasons, are to be tolerated. I think

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the latter is, with some non-trivial additions, a highly plausible account of the structure of toleration, and I shall say more about this in the next chapter, when I will attempt a more explicit reconstruction and generalisation of the partition model for international society. Accepting the validity of this kind of approach for the sake of argument let us consider what, for lack of a better expression, happens next. The next question one will be inclined to ask is: what are the general features of an agent that we can reliably portray as capable of complying for the right reasons with a liberal conception of justice? Put differently, in OC, the main issue is compliance for the right reasons with the principles of a conception of justice. Only then, in order to say more about toleration by going beyond what are, strictly speaking, views about its structure, does OC suggest that the internal make-up of a political society becomes relevant. Second, consider what is by far the most important element of OC. The most important feature of OC is that the scope of toleration is co-extensive with the ability of a people to endorse (for the right reason) the eight principles of LP. Should allegiance to the principles of LP count for so much in view of Rawls’s account of international toleration? The best way to see why it should is to ask a different question: what would be the grounds for not tolerating a society that complies with, and does so for the right reasons, exactly the same conception of international justice that liberal peoples themselves give to one another? It must be recalled that the eight principles of LP are initially developed precisely to provide a normative benchmark for liberal peoples’ foreign policies. They are the conception of international justice that liberals themselves decide to give one another to regulate their mutual undertakings. But then, why should a nonliberal people abiding by the same rules, and in the same way (i.e. for moral reasons),that liberals give to one another not be tolerated? Wouldn’t it be inconsistent for liberals to argue that peoples who are prepared to respect, for the right reasons, exactly the same norms they think should organise international society, are not to be tolerated because they are not internally liberal – something that is not inherently required by Rawls’s liberal conception of international justice? It seems natural, in my view, to believe that tolerating a political society should be based on its ability to follow norms of international conduct that we deem to be acceptable from a liberal perspective. This does not imply, as we will see later, that such norms will tell us nothing about the internal organisation of a people, but it does suggest a different way of assessing such internal political make-up: in terms of its ability to sustain congruence with the principles that regulate an account of liberal foreign policy. Adopting OC, we see allegiance to the eight principles of LP as the determining feature of the structure of Rawls’s toleration argument. Yet OC also places clear emphasis on the criteria of decency, depicting them as minimal necessary conditions that a society must meet in order to be able to endorse the eight principles of LP and thus be tolerated. Put differently, OC is able to combine two important elements of a plausible reconstruction of the Rawlsian view. On the one hand, it does not imply that the criteria of decency, by themselves, are able to settle the question of international toleration; as we have seen, this is not a tenable view because

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the criteria of decency alone fail to provide a convincing argument to that effect. Nonetheless, OC still grants the criteria of decency an important role. It depicts them as minimal necessary conditions that any form of political community must meet for there to be a plausible claim that it can endorse the eight principles of LP in the right way. In other words, the criteria of decency provide the widest possible net we can cast to ensure that the political societies that meet those criteria will also be able to comply with the eight principles of LP for the right reasons. This reconstruction raises at least two distinct issues. The frst concerns the role of the criteria of decency. The second concerns the content of the liberal conception of international justice (i.e. the eight principles of LP) as developed by Rawls. I will address both of them in the next part of the chapter. In the process of addressing these two concerns, I shall argue for the following conclusions. First, the criteria of decency will come to have two distinct roles. Their main role will be to offer an account of the preconditions for complying with a conception of justice for the right reasons. Their ancillary role is what I will call ‘plausibility congruence’, that is, our ability to check, in refective equilibrium, that the very idea of a decent people is neither politically implausible nor excessively morally unattractive. Second, I shall argue that there are legitimate reasons, reasons that are independent from a concern for international toleration, that would justify the choice of the principles of LP by liberal peoples.

III. The scope of international toleration in LP: the role of decency Why have criteria of decency at all if the scope of toleration is ultimately decided in terms of a society’s ability to endorse the eight principles of LP? As I have just argued, there are two distinct roles that such criteria play (for an excellent discussion see Avila, 2007). Proceeding in reverse order, let me frst address what I take to be their ancillary role, namely, what I have defned as their role in supporting ‘plausibility congruence’. Even accepting the primary role of the eight principles of LP, the principles themselves cannot give us a concrete picture of a kind of people who would be able to endorse them. This seems particularly important for Rawls’s account of international toleration because it is precisely by specifying the content and meaning of the criteria of decency and of what they entail that we are able to give shape to the possibility that a nonliberal people who endorses the eight principles of LP can in fact exist. Neither the fact that such peoples exist, nor what they could look like, can simply be inferred from the eight principles themselves. The criteria of decency, then, help us give shape to the scope of international toleration in a way that the principles of LP do not. To wit, Rawls’s description of Kazanistan is important because it allows us to imagine a politically and socially plausible political community. Explaining what the criteria of decency stand for, that is, what kind of social world they might give rise to, is thus important to give more precise shape to the scope of toleration and can be, as a result, seen as a good-making feature of the overall account of toleration. Even accepting that the criteria of decency cannot form the basis of our argument about toleration, they

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can nonetheless still help us by giving content to our picture of a decent society, and thus to help us confrm in refective equilibrium that our argument for international toleration is sound. By providing an understanding of how citizens of a decent people are treated by their government and institutions, it helps us ensure that the general principles that guide our account of international toleration are at least compatible with our considered convictions about minimal human welfare and dignity. The criteria of decency, then, do not provide reason enough to extend equal standing to decent peoples, but they can plausibly be seen as providing reason enough to allow that an argument that does is not necessarily to be rejected (but see Neufeld, 2005, for a different view). Let us now move on to what I have claimed to be the main role of the criteria of decency, namely, their specifcation of a set of conditions that a given actor should satisfy for us to believe that it can comply, for the right reasons, with the liberal conception of international justice. How can the criteria of decency tell us that about a people? The basic reason is that unless a political community can be depicted as a moral collective agent, then it is not possible to portray it as the kind of actor that is able to comply with principles in the required way. Put differently, and as I have already discussed at some length in Chapter 3, a political community that is not a moral collective agent would be incapable of complying with principles of international justice for the right reasons. To avoid confusion, let me be more specifc about the terminology I am employing here. When I use the expression ‘moral collective agent’ I refer to a subset of what are often called ‘group agents’ in the literature (see Pettit and List, 2011; Pettit, 2006; see also Chapter 3 in this book). The qualifer ‘moral’ is what individuates the relevant subset. It does so by specifying a feature of the group agents in in question, namely, the ability of these agents to follow moral norms, and, more precisely, to limit their rational interests in light of what the relevant moral norms require of them. When I use the expression ‘to comply for the right reasons with’ I refer to the idea that such compliance is both dictated by moral reasons and is the result of agents acting out of those reasons, not simply in accordance with those reasons. Thus, agents that comply for the right reasons with a given norm, according to the terminology I am employing here, do not simply follow a given set of moral norms but act out of respect for those norms; the norms are thus not simply complied with but internalised by the agent (see Raz, 2001). So, strictly speaking, it would be more accurate to say ‘compliance for the right reasons and in the right way’, but I shall use ‘for the right reasons’ as a shorthand for the longer and more accurate expression. Once this terminology is in place, it then seems plausible to hold the following four propositions: a b c

all peoples, as defined by Rawls, are moral collective agents; decent peoples are moral collective agents; a reasonable interpretation of the two aforementioned propositions is that they are entailed by the fact that the criteria of decency set a lower bound for moral collective agency;

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d

given my definition of compliance for the right reasons, unless a people is a moral collective agent, it would not be able to comply for the right reasons with a conception of international justice.

I believe that these propositions, with the partial exception of proposition c, are relatively uncontroversial, at least if we take them to be interpretive claims concerning LP. What is less clear is why one should care about the fact that they are true. More specifcally, to simply argue that a decent people is a moral collective agent and that unless it is that sort of agent it would not display the relevant sort of relationship with a set of principles, given a specifc defnition of that relationship, cannot explain why that specifc defnition of the relationship is required in the frst place. In what follows, I shall try to lend some support to the plausibility of propositions a through d and will then move on to consider why compliance for the right reason might be a normatively relevant requirement to impose. To lend some support to propositions a–d listed earlier, I shall start by employing David Reidy’s account of what he calls ‘corporate artifcial moral persons’ (2004). The label used by Reidy is different from the one I employ here, but nothing hangs on the terminology. Reidy writes: A corporate artificial moral person, a people, must first possess an institutional ‘body’ minimally sufficient to enable it to act on the global stage. This need not but often will be a government operative within a fixed territory. It must also possess to the requisite minimum degree the capacities essential to moral agency. On Rawls’s view, these are, as is well known, the capacity to form, revise, and pursue a determinate conception of its good, what Rawls calls the capacity for rationality, and the capacity to propose and honor fair terms of cooperative interaction, or the capacity to be reasonable. A people secures the former through its internal culture and deliberative practices when these are sufficiently unified and stable to enable it to form, revise, and pursue rationally a determinate conception of its good. It secures the latter through institutional arrangements and cultural commitments sufficient to enable and incline it to subordinate to the demands of justice the rational pursuit of its own interests in its relations with other persons, whether corporate and artificial or natural. (2004: 295) Reidy then goes on to explain that liberal peoples are a clear example of a kind of political community that would ft this defnition (2004: 295). To see why this is a plausible view, consider what denying its truth would entail. If a political community were not a collective agent because it, for example, lacked an institutional body of the relevant kind, it would not be clear how it could follow the principles of justice that regulate the domain (no matter the reasons for compliance). In fact, again, as we have seen in Chapter 3, it would be diffcult to even explain who really complies with principles of justice. The leaders or government of such a

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political community might respect the conception of international justice. But the allegiance to the principles would be the government’s not the community’s as a whole. Now imagine that a political community did not meet the requirements for moral agency as applied to collective agents. If that were the case, the political community would be incapable of subordinating its interests to demands of justice, and its compliance with any conception of international justice would at best be contingent and clearly not in line with the idea of compliance for the right reasons, as I have specifed previously. So much so for liberal peoples. What can we say about decent peoples? For while it seems clear that a liberal democratic political community will qualify as a moral collective agent, what remains to be seen is whether we can conjecture the existence of a different kind of political community, one that is neither liberal nor democratic, that can in fact meet the requirements of collective moral agency as specifed earlier. Here too, I think, it is instructive to quote Reidy at some length: peoples are corporate moral agents, the parts of which are themselves individual human persons or moral agents not human beings simpliciter. Within a people, both ruler and ruled are regarded and treated as human persons, even if not free and equal person[s] in the liberal democratic sense. Both share in some meaningful sense in the constitution and governing of a political agency, the authority of which is, in turn, justified by reference to the good of all as real constitutive parts of that agency. From the fact that a people is a corporate moral agent the parts of which are individual human persons it follows that peoples will constitute and govern themselves internally as genuine systems of cooperation organized or governed by conceptions of justice. These need not be liberal or democratic, but they must be genuine systems of cooperation governed by conceptions of justice. Several things follow. First, peoples are always more than a mere system of coordinated social interaction aimed at and justified by reference to some collective or external good. A people is always a system of social cooperation aimed at and justified by reference to the good of its members, all of whom regard themselves and one another as moral persons. There is no place for slavery or servitude within a people. And the subsistence and security interests of all are secure. And within a people there is some institutional mechanism through which general information regarding the interests or good of all members is reliably placed before those vested with the authority to make decisions for the collective. There is also some institutional mechanism for the expression of dissent. Second, peoples honor internally (the central elements of) the rule of law, including the requirements of formal justice. So much is required by the moral status of members as persons and by the generic demands of justice, whether liberal and democratic or not. (Reidy, 2004: 297) Thus, according to Reidy, there is in fact a set of political communities that can qualify as moral collective agents even though they are not organised along the lines

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of a liberal democratic polity. In fact, we can generalise Reidy’s view by saying that any society that possesses the relevant institutional attributes that enables it to act as a collective agent, and that is organised in order to be a genuine system of social cooperation, as opposed to a system of command by force, can be a moral collective agent. In turn, it is precisely the role of the criteria of decency, properly developed and interpreted, to distinguish between genuine systems of social cooperation and forms of social organisation that are not. It thus follows, as argued earlier, that all peoples are moral collective agents, that nonliberal decent ones are moral collective agents, too, and that the role of the criteria of decency is to offer a characterisation of the lower bounds for the requirements of a moral collective agency. In short, the best way to portray the content of the criteria of decency, those that refer to the principles of internal organisation of a political community, is to see them as conditions for the existence of a moral collective agent. And being a moral collective agent would allow us to portray a given political community as in principle capable of complying with the eight principles of LP for the right reasons. Finally, note the following. In Chapter 3, I relied on Philip Pettit’s account of collective or group agency. My sense is that Reidy’s characterisation is congruent with (or, perhaps more accurately, complementary to) Pettit’s one. Yet, there, I also stated that the precise contours of an account of a collective or group agency need not detain us, for as long as it could be made to ft with the purposes that such an account has within the overall theory, then we could adjust the theory of a group or collective agency and the defnition of a people to one another. Something similar, I believe, applies here concerning Reidy’s thesis that decent peoples are moral collective agents. I am thus inclined to conclude that, within limits, I can stay similarly non-committal about the correctness of Reidy’s view. Put differently, we should bear in mind that both views (Pettit’s and Reidy’s) are to be considered as ‘modules’ that one needs to be able to ft within the theory as a whole. Such modules have a role to play, but such a role does not individuate a unique solution for their content or make-up. Instead, it simply offers constraints on what they can be. And such constraints, coarsely put, are that they should allow us to portray ‘something like’ peoples as collective agents and ‘something like’ decent peoples in particular as meeting the conditions of a moral collective agency. And, in both cases, there is room for a process of mutual adjustment between the defnition of a what a people is and what the criteria of decency are on the one hand, and what one believes to be the best account of collective or group agency and of a moral collective agent on the other. One would have to check what the ‘downstream implications’ (so to speak) for the theory as a whole would be (and thus check if these are morally plausible, for example), but from a theoretical point of view, there is nothing illegitimate about this modus operandi. Let us move on to the second, and main, concern I raised earlier when laying out propositions a–d. Recall, that the concern was, broadly stated, whether any account of a moral collective agency should play the role that I am assigning to it. In other words, why should we require of a political community that it should be a moral collective agent and thus that it should be able to comply with the principles of

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justice in the relevant sense I outlined earlier? In what way should this be relevant to the scope of an account of international toleration? My sense is that the basic issue is what kind of role we should assign to the Rawlsian concern with stability for the right reasons when it comes to toleration. I touched upon this issue in Chapter 2. A full discussion of its import lies outside of my main concern in this book. Instead, I shall offer two sets of remarks. The frst is that, looking at stability, it becomes clear that a specifc set of assumptions about the nature of the agents in a theory is relevant. Second, and in line with my discussion in Chapter 2 of the book, I shall claim that the role of stability considerations, at least when we are concerned with an account of international toleration, is to solve a special kind of mutual assurance problem that is likely to develop over time (here I follow James, 2012). To see the link between the idea of a moral collective agent and stability for the right reasons, consider the following. Imagine that one believes stability for the right reasons to be an important concern for liberal political morality. What would then follow in terms of one’s views about the nature of the agents that populate the theory of justice for a given domain (the one you are addressing)? At the very least, we can say that it seems reasonable to infer that the agents populating the domain in question should be capable of realising the kind of stability with which we are, ex hypothesis, concerned. In addition, one would hope that the make-up of these agents, one that we are hoping will make them capable of achieving stability for the right reasons, will not be unreasonably demanding given our understanding of the world as it could be, even if very favourable circumstances are obtained. Thus, stability for the right reasons suggests two main pre-requisites. The frst is that agents are capable of compliance motivated by moral reasons. The second is that what such compliance requires them to be (i.e. constitutively) cannot be unreasonable. The frst condition tells us that such agents should be capable of a kind of allegiance to the conception of justice that is not dictated by the balance of power or the concordance of interests with the conception, and can thus rely on sources of motivational power that are far more secure as they are the result of moral conviction, not variable material concerns and circumstances. The second condition suggests that while moral allegiance is desirable, it needs to be of a kind that does not presuppose, for example, too much moral homogeneity among the agents in question. For we can certainly entertain the possibility that the agents who populate the domain we are addressing have an identical internal make-up, one that would allow us to reduce our concern for stability to an argument about, for example, the congruence between their good (understood as a uniform account valid for the kind of agents they are) and their desire to comply with the principles of justice for the right reasons. But this, we might end up thinking, is not something we can reasonably expect to happen in the world as we know it, and this is so even if very favourable circumstances are obtained (or more precisely, for the world as we know it if we are addressing the most relevant domains in which we tend to be interested, such as domestic political society and international politics). Thus, we might end up asking ourselves the following question: what is the least demanding account of the agents of our theory, the one that relies on the ‘lightest’ assumptions (i.e. that allows

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us not to assume strong forms of moral homogeneity) that we can use to obtain stability for the right reasons? I shall not rehearse Rawls’s answer in Political Liberalism, but I believe that his account of decency in LP tries to answer exactly that question (here I follow Reidy, 2017; see also Kim, 2014). Yet, so far, we have established the link with stability for the right reasons in a conditional form, that is, presupposing an interest in such stability. What might we say in order to offer at least an initial account of why such interest would be important to a theory of toleration (international or otherwise)? Recall that the interpretation of the structure of the argument for toleration in LP I offered in Part II of this chapter tells us that toleration extends to those who can follow the liberal principles of justice that regulate the domain. Nonetheless, the question that one might legitimately ask is whether any kind of compliance with those principles will do. For we can certainly conceive of agents that simply comply with such principles out of fear, inducements, or out of what they perceive to be their rational interests at a given point in time. And yet those agents might, over time, or from the beginning, come to resent, or regret, the fact they have to comply with (as opposed to act from the principles of) the conception of justice. They might feel that their compliance is largely the result of features about the world that they cannot control, features about the world they would not be able to alter but wish they could. In this kind of picture, those who are complying with such principles for the right reasons, and thus constraining their rational interests accordingly, might feel that they lack an important form of assurance that their compliance will not in fact become the object of opportunistic behaviour. Mutual trust might be harder to form, and the spectre of a mutual assurance problem might begin to loom large, inducing even those who do affrm the conception of justice for the right reasons to feel some ‘strains’ to their commitment. It would thus seem natural that those who are prepared to abide by the principles of justice for the right reasons might also believe that it would be important for others to do the same and for such compliance for the right reasons to thus become an integral part of the kind of respect for the principles of justice that justify toleration (see James, 2012: 103 ff.). Finally, note that solving a problem of mutual assurance is not to be exclusively interpreted as a practical necessity, though, of course, it is that too. For if the only concern one had was the practical dimension of the problem, then more than one solution would be available. The Hobbesian one based on absolute sovereignty and coercion, while less directly applicable to international society, would still conceptually qualify, for example. The point then is also to consider the expressive value of a particular kind of solution to the mutual assurance problem. The expressive value of a particular solution, I think, tells us something about the nature of the society in question (see Weithman, 2010). More specifcally, thinking about what we can call the moral solution to the mutual assurance problem will allow us to think of a particular social world as in some sense attractive, for its endurance over time would be dictated not by force or exclusively by the rational interests of the agents in that social world but would instead express some deep form of commitment that they

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share about living together according to principles they believe to be reasonably acceptable to all of them.

IV. Liberal peoples and the principles of LP One of the key questions the reader might raise concerns the content of the liberal conception of international justice that Rawls puts forward. Recall that the structure of toleration, according to OC, requires toleration for those agents that comply for the right reasons with a liberal conception of justice that regulates a given domain. Thus, a crucial aspect of the view is clearly connected to what such a conception actually requires of the agents. For example, imagine that the liberal conception of international justice contained the full rights accorded to the citizens of a liberal democratic political community. In that case, the scope of toleration would clearly be different, and it would, necessarily, coincide with the set of liberal democratic political communities and only those political communities. Note, furthermore, that this is likely to be a plausible outcome given the genesis of Rawls’s account of international justice. Rawls develops such a conception by conjecturing that it would be the result of a frst round of the international version of the original position in which only liberal peoples are represented. It would thus not be implausible to conclude that a natural outcome of such an approach would be for the resulting conception of international justice to require all political communities to be internally liberal. And yet, this would be an outcome that would put pressure, to put it very mildly, on what I have claimed to be one of the main desiderata of an attractive conception of international toleration, namely, that its scope is wider than the set of liberal democratic political communities. So, the question of why Rawls conjectures that the representatives of liberal peoples would not select a conception of international justice that requires all peoples to be internally liberal, so to speak, is a crucial one (in the rest of this section I shall closely follow Maffettone, 2015). Why are liberal peoples prepared to agree to the eight principles of LP instead of a more demanding set of principles that requires all peoples to be internally liberal? One may legitimately suspect that the only reason for doing so is to artifcially alter the conclusions of the frst (liberal) international original position with the aim of accommodating decent peoples (see Pogge, 2006). This would be problematic because the principles of LP would not constitute a liberal conception of international justice but a conception of international justice already geared to refect a concern for international toleration. If this were to be the case, allegiance to the principles of LP would ‘presuppose’ an account of toleration and would thus not be able to provide one (as OC suggests). There are two reasons for the principles of LP not to require internal liberal political institutions. First, the rights protected by a liberal constitutional regime are already guaranteed within the different domestic jurisdictions of liberal peoples (Freeman, 2007a: 276). In the frst original position in LP, representatives of peoples know that they are representatives of ‘liberal’ peoples. Thus, they know that the main aspects of a liberal democratic regime are already part of the domestic

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basic structures of the peoples they represent. What would be the gain in duplicating these features at the international level? Put differently, if we assume, as Rawls does, that we are within ideal theory – that is, we assume that all liberal societies are well-ordered according to their liberal conceptions of justice and face favourable conditions – what is the point of replicating internationally the protection of something that is already secured domestically? One possible reason for duplication might stem from a relaxation of the aforementioned ideal theory assumption. Making a given set of rights an integral part of an international law of peoples is to afford that set of rights a more robust protection. In other words, if all liberal peoples are collectively responsible for the protection of basic liberal rights in the jurisdictions of each liberal people, then those rights will be, ceteris paribus, more secure. If the violation of all relevant liberal rights (however this set is defned) is legally felt in all liberal peoples wherever it might happen, there will be a greater chance that those rights will be secured if conditions for their protection become less favourable within any given liberal polity. Yet, this argument drives together ideal and non-ideal theory scenarios in an improper way (see also Arvan, 2014, 2019 for a discussion). We cannot premise the main reason for duplicating a set of liberal rights within LP on the fact that those rights can be violated in a given liberal polity; the latter idea would entail that the content of a conception of international justice should depend on assumptions concerning non-ideal theory. But this is not how Rawls’s model of theory construction proceeds. Note also that, if accepted, the ‘duplication strategy’ would not only be redundant. It would also have costs in terms of each liberal people’s self-determination. Rawls’s critics seem to rely in their argument on the following, apparently inconsequential, assumption; call it (A). (A): If liberal peoples protect X at the domestic level, then their representatives in the first original position of LP will agree to incorporate X within the international principles of LP (where X is the preferred set of fundamental liberal rights). Assumption (A) looks rather innocuous and might be plausibly represented as an extension of the contractualist mode of reasoning that is at the core of LP. (A) is also what seems to guide the intuition that liberal peoples would agree on a more expansive set of liberal rights in the frst international original position of LP. Yet, looking at (A) more closely, the emphasis on ‘domestic’ and ‘international’ should signal that there is a clear difference between the frst and second parts of the proposition: when we transpose aspects of liberal democratic institutions into an international law of peoples, those aspects are transformed from a matter of domestic policy into a matter of international concern (see Beitz, 2009), and, in so doing, the amount of control that liberal peoples have over domestic political affairs is curtailed (see Buchanan, 2013; Follesdal and Ulfstein, 2018). Would that be problematic from the standpoint of the frst international original position in LP? In order to understand the deliberations in the frst original

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position in LP we need to have an account of the basic interests of the agents who are represented in that original position (see Wenar, 2006). For Rawls, liberal peoples are well-ordered according to a liberal political conception of justice and ‘seek to protect their territory, to ensure the security and safety of their citizens, and to preserve their free political institutions and the liberties and free cultures of their civil society’ (Rawls, 1999: 29). The interests of liberal peoples thus include what we can call a concern for the free exercise of collective political self-determination. Such interest is not the only one they have and, of course, the curtailment of self-determination is not necessarily impermissible. For example, Rawls claims that the function of human rights is precisely to limit the internal political autonomy of peoples (Rawls, 1999: 25–27). But the observation fails to capture the basic issue at stake. The point is not that the self-determination of peoples is untouchable (it is emphatically not). Rather, the issue is whether assumption (A) cited earlier can be the basis upon which we decide whether or not to include a given set of liberal rights within an international law of peoples. Proceeding through (A) in order to understand what should be part of the principles of a liberal conception of international justice would simply bypass the relevance of self-determination. In doing so, we would fail to consider the types of reasons that representatives of liberal peoples have in the frst international original position of LP. Why would a more expansive and liberal egalitarian set of principles affect the self determination of liberal peoples? An example may be useful here. Imagine that all liberal peoples (L1 . . . Ln), at time T = t1, agree that the difference principle is a central feature of a liberal political conception of justice. If we accept the validity of (A), then it would seem natural to assume that the difference principle would have to be transposed into an international law of peoples and would be protected by international legal agreements. Now, further imagine that at time T = t2, a given liberal people (Ln; n = 2) decides, through democratic procedures, that it does not wish to adhere to the difference principle any more. Can L2 withdraw its allegiance from the difference principle? The answer is: no. Agreement on a public conception of international justice cannot be changed retrospectively by (the representatives of) one of the parties. The idea of a change of heart from times t1 to t2 is of course fctitious given that agreement on a public conception of justice is obtained by using a constructivist tool – the original position – which is a device of representation lacking a temporal dimension. The original position is a fctional ‘place’ we reason from, not an actual place in which time elapses, and much less a policy arena where one negotiates changes. Note, though, that the idea can be restated without taking into consideration these non-original-position-related features. The basic point is that the domestic public reason of a liberal democratic polity is not a static entity, nor is the public reason of an international society of liberal peoples. But how are we to know that the two will evolve in the same direction? And what happens when the two come into confict? While Rawls does not seem to offer an explicit answer in LP, the implicit idea is that we should try to avoid confict between these two

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public reasons by putting in place some form of partial division of labour: domestic conceptions of justice cover principles of social and political justice for the basic structure of a given liberal polity, while a law of peoples mostly concerns itself with foreign policy. And the (main) reason to proceed this way is precisely to protect the self-determination of liberal peoples, not to accommodate nonliberal societies. Note also that a strict separation between the two standpoints, that is, a strict division of labour between domestic and international public reasons, is not to be expected. As I have noted earlier, for Rawls, basic human rights are an important point of contact between the two. The issue, once again, is that the integration of the two has costs and implies trade-offs (Buchanan, 2013: 245 ff.). The trade-offs cannot simply be ignored. Whether or not we agree with the Rawlsian solution is a different issue. The crux of the matter is that in order to criticise it we need an argument that recognises these trade-offs, not one that ignores them. And that is precisely what accepting (A) implies. Rawls’s critics might retort that the example of the difference principle stacks the deck against them. At least from Political Liberalism onward (but see Estlund, 1998), a feature of Rawls’s theory is that liberalism can be interpreted in different ways and that what qualifes a conception of justice as liberal need not include the difference principle. What if, instead, we selected the basic constitutional liberties that are covered by the frst principle of Justice as Fairness? Surely a given liberal people could not claim that its internal democratic procedures have brought it to abandon basic constitutional freedoms. Surely, then, these rights should be part of an international (liberal) law of peoples? I believe that the answer is not as clear-cut. Even if we were to agree that the rights and liberties that are at the core of a liberal democratic constitution are defnitional of a liberal polity (e.g. those covered by the frst principle of justice as fairness), this does not entail, per se, that these rights and liberties should feature in an international law of peoples. If they did, the way in which these rights are implemented, the interpretation of their concrete meaning, and how they are entrenched in the domestic constitution of a liberal people would all be turned into matters of international concern and partially be removed from the democratic process of each liberal people. To illustrate, in A Theory of Justice (1971/1999) Rawls is clear that the frst principle of justice can only provide broad guidance and how the basic liberties that it refers to should be adjusted to one another to cohere into a single scheme of basic liberties. Such adjustment should, to some extent, track the specifc conditions of a given society and cannot be simply specifed ex-ante (1971/1999: 52 ff.; Pogge, 2007: 85 ff.). For example, one can conjecture that different basic liberties may have comparatively different values according to prevailing social, economic, and political conditions in different societies. In the same way, when Rawls discusses the curtailment of basic liberties, he states that the latter may happen only for the sake of the basic liberties themselves (1971/1999: 54). Yet, decisions concerning the curtailment of basic liberties require some sensitivity to local circumstances. For example, it would not be implausible to think that a liberal people that faces

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recurrent political terrorism could decide to have more restrictive provisions on political speech indirectly supporting the terrorists, and that such provisions should (in this specifc case) ultimately track the collective deliberations of the public in question, not the deliberations of the Society of Peoples. Finally, note that there is nothing relativistic about the idea that, even when it comes to basic liberties, there might be real disagreement about such aspects as their concrete meaning and best interpretation, or their relative priority and so on. As Michael Blake argues (2013: 62–63), even when we consider different accounts of justice to be strongly mistaken (for example, think of the choices made by a mildly libertarian society accordingly as seen or judged from the perspective of those who have a liberal egalitarian view of social, distributive, and political justice), there is a sense in which we are bound to respect these mistakes (for a different argument to the same conclusion see Hessler, 2005).

V.

Constitutions and ft: an excursus

The latter arguments are in my view important, so it is worth expanding on them. In order to do so, I shall start by asking a (deceptively) simple question: what are constitutions for (see Raz, 2001 for a discussion)? I will argue that there are three traditional answers to the question. The frst simply does not allow us to ‘see’ the problem that liberal peoples face in constructing a liberal theory of international justice. The second takes for granted one specifc answer to such a problem. Only the third, I shall claim, can fully capture what is at stake, at least in a political liberal framework, when it comes to a qualifed concern for self-determination. One way to approach this issue is to ask the reason according to which one should be inclined to believe that there should be some kind of special ‘ft’ between a people and its constitution. Living in the age of what might be labelled ‘liberal constitutionalism’, we often tend to take for granted a very specifc picture of what constitutions are for. The usual conception (almost a cliché) is of constitutions as written documents (or sets of unwritten norms) stating abstract ideals and principles, listing a number of basic rights that are targeted for special protection, and providing an articulation of the basic institutional architecture of the polity by specifying, for example, the proper relationships among executive, legislative, and judicial powers. This is what constitutional lawyers would call the ‘normative’ function of a constitution. Note how, in this picture, it is simply impossible to understand what the worry about ft even means. Why, after all, should we (the citizens of a given polity) care about, or be attached to, a given set of abstract ideals and principles specifying individual rights and formal relationships between different strata of the legal order? Why should these ideals and principles be, in some way, culturally ‘ftting’? On the contrary, adopting this type of functional outlook, one may intuitively think that constitutions are there to do exactly ‘the opposite’, namely, to constrain the sway of dominant political groups in order to protect cultural, religious, ethnic, and other minorities. Furthermore, if the putative modifcations to these ideals and principles

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‘borrowed’ from the outside (that is, from a conception of international justice and from international legal documents that specify the meaning and connected requirements of such a conception) were to provide a morally and/or epistemically superior interpretation of their meaning and purpose, then so much the worse for cultural ft. However, an appraisal of constitutions confned solely to their normative function would not offer an exhaustive picture of what constitutions are for. According to a second view, constitutions also have an expressive function (see Jackson and Tushnet, 1999). The tradition of ‘expressivism’ is a longstanding one. For example, in Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel (cited in Wood, 1991: 313) describes a constitution as ‘the work of centuries, the Idea and consciousness of the rational (in so far as that consciousness has developed in a nation)’. Within the functional framework provided by expressivism, the constitution embodies the history and character of a particular polity – it articulates the identity of a people. To illustrate, consider the preamble to the constitution of the Republic of Ireland (Government of Ireland, 1937): In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred, We, the people of Éire, Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial, Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation, And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations, Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution. In this picture, which acknowledges the expressive value of constitutions, we can at least make better sense of how the worry about ft may be generated. Insofar as we have reason to value the identity claims contained in constitutional documents, we can see why importing judicial interpretations of key constitutional values and principles from international legal documents adopted in light of an international conception of justice may be problematic. However, crucially (and rather unsurprisingly), the premise of the latter argument has to be correct for its conclusion to hold – and yet its premise is precisely what is at stake here. On pain of begging the question, the argument cannot simply start from the assumption that we should preserve the cultural identity of a people at all costs. There is, however, a third way of understanding the function of constitutions, one that, as I will argue next, allows us to recognise the importance and make sense of the ‘ft’ problem, while at the same time not requiring us to radically depart from a broadly liberal outlook. Following Frank Michelman, I shall refer to the

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third function of constitutions as ‘legitimation’. According to Michelman, legitimation refers to ‘the social and communicative processes by which a country’s people sustain among themselves a sense of assurance of the deservingness of its political regime of general and regular support’ (2015: 3–4). To glean how the function of constitutions can come to be understood in this way, let us briefy recount a by-now familiar story about political liberalism and reasonable pluralism. In doing so, I shall offer a sharp (and largely artifcial) contrast between two potential models of political society and the roles that we could imagine constitutions to have within them. The contrast drawn is artifcial in the sense that it is not meant to refect existing philosophical positions. Rather, its purpose is heuristic: to help us think about the legitimating function of constitutions as a companion idea to a specifc conception of the political world. Aletheia: Imagine a conception of the political world as having some form of ideal end point – a potentially static (moral) equilibrium. Reaching this kind of equilibrium allows us to have a final account of, and justification for, individual rights and duties, government authority, and the proper uses of state power. In this imagined political world, which I call Aletheia, we also happen to have a fully comprehensive account of all moral values that, in turn, provides us with a thick conception of persons and society, and with a perfectly coherent and rich moral psychology. All these comprehensive accounts are seen as the expression of a true morality. In this picture, we can conjecture that while constitutions are still important, their role cannot really be one of legitimating the legal order as a whole. In this kind of political society, constitutions are not much more than tools. In Aletheia, legitimation comes from rightness alone – and laws and constitutions simply stand for a specific branch of applied moral reasoning. Now, imagine that you are not really convinced about the kind of picture offered by Aletheia. You may think, for example, that the idea of a public morality with a comprehensive set of foundations does not sit well with free institutions, given that, even when the most favourable conditions are obtained, such institutions will generate deep forms of reasonable disagreement about comprehensive justifcations for the use of political power. Human reason, even when freed from prejudice and partisanship, leads to a social world populated by a plurality of outlooks relating to value, meaning, knowledge, and so on – a social world in which only the oppressive use of state power can eliminate fundamental differences of thought and belief concerning some of the deepest aspects of the human experience. Thus, in Aletheia we can conjecture that the use of state power will be oppressive. And yet to accept the oppressive use of state power is to accept that some will exercise power over others in a way that is incompatible with the basic respect for persons. If you think this is unacceptable, you may also think that a different conception of political society is called for. Momentarily fascinated by ancient Greek language, let us agree to call this different kind of political society Politeia.

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Politeia: In this alternative picture, which I call Politeia, political society is a form of ongoing conversation – some would call it a well-ordered political community. The moral equilibrium of a political community can only ever be provisionally fixed: it oscillates around a core set of political conceptions of right and justice, the proper interpretation of which is subject to endless debate and disagreement. Yet the fact that the conversation is ongoing, and that it is carried out within the framework of general ideas and principles that all citizens can reflectively endorse as free and equal, allows the inhabitants of this political world to live without feeling degraded as being the object of unreasonable exercises of political power. Here, clearly, the constitution – however interpreted – is not a tool for the implementation of true morality. Instead, we can conceive the constitution and its traditions of interpretation as being a locus of legitimation – one of the most important sources of the moral and political cohesion that allows for a kind of nonHobbesian stability, to follow Paul Weithman (2010). The legitimating function of a constitution, in turn, rests on some form of special relationship between the abstract ideals and principles that are part of any modern liberal constitution, and on a given legal and political order ruling over a specifc people in a specifc time and place. It is, after all, such a historically and geographically defned people who need to legitimise a specifc legal and political order through a specifc constitution. Put differently, seeing the constitution as a locus for the legitimation of the legal and political order as a whole requires us to understand the nature of the special ties between a polity and its constitution. And yet, crucially, there is no reason to believe that such specifcity can only be captured by identity claims of the broadly culturally communitarian kind. After all, some things are specifc to a people without necessarily concerning culture, strictly speaking. As Cécile Laborde has argued, national identities are multi-layered. Ethnicity, culture, and kinship co-exist with less exclusionary forms of shared experience, such as the commitment to a set of practices contained in a specifc political culture and to general political ideals and universal values (2002). One possible way to capture the idea of a non-exclusionary specifcity is to see it as grounded in the ongoing history of particular disagreements about the interpretation of constitutional principles and values. These disagreements are at the heart of what some have called constitutional cultures. Constitutional cultures can be seen as exercises in mediation between specifc historical experiences and abstract moral and political principles (see Habermas, 1994; Werner Müller, 2007) and are constituted by disagreements concerning the interpretation of abstract principles and ideals contained in constitutional documents. These disagreements create distinct constitutional identities as the historical product of ongoing ‘conversations between generations’ (see Ackerman, 1997). In this picture, it is precisely the ongoing process of deliberation about the meaning of these principles and ideals at the level of a specifc polity (that is, the process of constitutional deliberation at the level of the local juridical community) that helps to ground the very legitimacy of the

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legal and political order. Put differently, according to the functional framework provided by legitimation, we can say that constitutions are ‘special’ for the people over whom they apply (see also Fletcher, 1993). The latter is, however, not a claim about cultural ft of the communitarian kind. Rather, it is a claim about ‘political ft’: the ft between a constitution and the historical processes through which a people has contributed to shape its meaning and interpretation. Thus, we can say that there is at least one possible way of expressing concern about the effect of external infuences on democratic constitutions that does not require us to draw on a culturally communitarian view of the function of constitutions and yet explain why liberal peoples would think very carefully about importing any specifc articulations of such ideals and principles ‘from outside’. Note that the tension between a liberal conception of international justice that covered liberal constitutional essentials and a legitimating constitution would remain in place even if we were to agree to exactly the same list of fundamental ideals and principles to which any constitution would have to be committed in order for it to be morally acceptable from a liberal point of view. At least, when it comes to constitutional essentials, ‘borrowing’ from an outside source is problematic even if the borrowing concerns ideals and principles that match the ideals and principles of the ‘borrowers’ themselves. No matter how closely we see ourselves as committed to those ideals and principles, the way in which they are interpreted, their relative weight, their application to concrete cases, and the level of moral urgency that they lay claim to are likely to differ from one constitutional culture to another (see Ackerman, 2019; Ferrara, forthcoming). A similar point has been made recently in the context of his discussion of the most (normatively) desirable shape that the European Union should take, by Richard Bellamy (2019). Bellamy’s overall argument is complex and, at least for the purposes of this study, its full import should not detain us. Coarsely put, Bellamy believes that, in light of a republican ideal of non-domination, we should refrain from adopting a purely federal model for the European Union and that we should instead opt for a sophisticated kind of intergovernmentalism. However, one of Bellamy’s central theoretical distinctions does have direct bearing on our discussion, namely, the distinction he draws between a ‘civil model’ and a ‘civic model’ of political communities (2019: 30). According to the civil model, ‘both the design and competences of democratic institutions and the size and location of the political communities in which they operate should be determined by whatever scheme proves most appropriate to deliver effective and equitable policies in the most effcient manner’ (ibid: 31). Instead, the civic model ‘favours an intrinsic account of political community that regards the good of being an equal member of a democratic polity as possessing an independent value’ (ibid: 31). Crucially, according to Bellamy, these different models suggest two different conceptions of how to understand rights, citizenship, democracy, and sovereignty and how these ideas are related (ibid: 41 ff.). Once again, leaving aside the fner points of Bellamy’s discussion, the key insight is that even agreeing on some of the general features of the fundamental rights that should be guaranteed by any liberal democratic

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polity, questions pertaining to their meaning, specifcation, relative importance, and the institutional pre-requisites to their effective functioning cannot be taken for granted and cannot simply be ‘resolved’ once and for all at supranational levels of governance. For, in so doing, one would presume that citizenship and democracy have either purely instrumental value or that the rights and obligations that they are usually composed of are self-standing normative entitlements of persons as such, rather than representing the nature and content of the political bonds between the members of a specifc political community. As an illustration of my discussion in this part of the chapter, consider as an example the different ways in which constitutional provisions concerning freedom of expression (broadly construed) are articulated in the United States and Germany. Both are stable, wealthy, liberal, democratic constitutional orders. Both jurisdictions are also committed to the protection of freedom of expression. However, it clearly does not follow that one could simply transpose the basic elements protecting freedom of expression from one constitution to the other – and there are good reasons to refrain from doing so. The two constitutions have different juridical histories. First Amendment jurisprudence and the jurisprudence of Article 5 of the German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) are not easily interchangeable (Jouanjan, 2009). What is more, the German law in general and the Grundgesetz in particular are both clearly affected by German political history. For example, the Grundgesetz allows normal acts of legislation to impose limits on freedom of speech, while its Article 21 grants the German Constitutional Court power to ban political parties. In Germany, as in other European countries, the historical experience of genocidal fascist regimes has clearly affected the extent to which freedom of speech and freedom of expression more broadly are seen as justifably curtailed in order to protect wider societal interests. What is relevant from the perspective of the legitimating function of constitutions is that the content of the Grundgesetz and its traditions of interpretation are deeply connected to Germany’s political culture and history. The same can be said about First Amendment jurisprudence in the United States. Disagreements about the limits and implications of freedom of speech and expression are at the heart of both countries’ ‘conversations between generations’ (Ackerman, 1997). It is thus plausible to think that alterations to such provisions resting on external interpretations could legitimately be resisted (see also Blake, 2013: 62–63). Yet, such resistance would in no way detract from the commitment to freedom of speech and expression articulated by both constitutional orders. In short, my point is that, even considering the liberties covered by the frst principle of justice, there is a trade-off between their entrenchment in an international conception of justice and the self-determination of a given liberal polity. Those who wish to criticise Rawls have to acknowledge the tension and need to provide an argument to the effect that the balance of values suggested by Rawls is unsustainable. As Allen Buchanan correctly states (2013: 246–248), this ultimately depends on the type of account of global justice that one adopts and on the relative weight that one assigns to self-determination within such an account. One may legitimately

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disagree with Rawls, but the disagreement cannot be based on the accusation that Rawls is simply compromising the way in which he articulates the results of the frst international original position in order to accommodate nonliberal peoples. To sum up: a version of LP requiring internally liberal political institutions would largely duplicate what representatives of liberal peoples take for granted (that they all represent liberal peoples) and would also negatively affect one of the defning interests of those they represent (liberal peoples’ interest in self-determination).

Conclusion How far, if at all, should liberal societies tolerate nonliberal ones? A prominent answer to this question was put forward by John Rawls in LP. In this chapter, I have offered an account of Rawls’s work in LP that explains and justifes the conclusion that we should tolerate decent peoples. In order to reach the latter conclusion, I undertook a detailed analysis of the structure of Rawls’s account of international toleration. I started from the widely acknowledged idea, shared by his critics and defenders alike, that two elements are central to Rawls’s view: the criteria of decency that defne the features of a decent people, and the overlapping consensus on the eight principles of LP between liberal and decent peoples. I claimed that the best way of relating these two elements and the scope of international toleration takes the following form: the criteria of decency set minimal necessary conditions that a people must meet if said people has to be able to comply with (for the right reasons) the eight principles of LP and thus be tolerated (i.e. respected as an equal member in good standing of international society). According to this reconstruction of the Rawlsian toleration argument, the scope of international toleration is co-extensive with the scope of those peoples that are able to endorse, for the right reasons, the eight principles of LP. Can this account of a theory of international toleration be successful in meeting the constraints developed in Chapters 1, 2, and 3? To show that it can is the object of the next chapter.

Bibliography Ackerman, B. (1997), “A Generation of Betrayal?”, Fordham Law Review, 65 (4), 1519–1536. Ackerman, B. (2019), Revolutionary Constitutions: Charismatic Leadership and the Rule of Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Arvan, M. (2014), “Justice as Fairness in a Broken World”, Philosophy and Public Issues: Filosofa E Questioni Pubbliche, 4 (2), 95–126. Arvan, M. (2019), “Nonideal Justice as Nonideal Fairness”, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 5 (2), 208–228. Avila, M. (2007), “Defending a Law of Peoples: Political Liberalism and Decent Peoples”, Journal of Ethics, 11 (1), 87–124. Beitz, C. (2000), “Rawls’s Law of Peoples”, Ethics, 110 (4), 669–969. Beitz, C. (2009), The Idea of Human Rights. New York: Oxford University Press. Bellamy, R. (2019), A Republican Europe of States Cosmopolitanism, Intergovernmentalism and Democracy in the EU. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blake, M. (2013), Justice and Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Buchanan, A. (2013), The Heart of Human Rights. New York: Oxford University Press. Caney, S. (2002), “Cosmopolitanism and the Law of Peoples”, Journal of Political Philosophy, 10 (1), 95–123. Estlund, D. (1998), “Liberalism, Equality and Fraternity in Cohen’s Critique of Rawls”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 6 (1), 99–112. Ferrara, A. (forthcoming), “Unconventional Adaptation and the Authenticity of a Constitution”. Fletcher, G. P. (1993), “Constitutional Identity”, Cardozo Law Review, 14 (3–4), 737–746. Follesdal, A. & Ulfstein, G. (eds.) (2018), The Judicialization of International Law: A Mixed Blessing? New York: Oxford University Press. Freeman, S. (2007a), “The Law of Peoples, Social Cooperation, Human Rights, and Distributive Justice”, Social Philosophy and Policy, 23 (1), 23–61. Freeman, S. (2007b), Rawls, The Philosopher Series. New York: Routledge. Government of Ireland (1937), “Constitution of Ireland”, Government of Ireland. www.gov.ie/ en/publication/d5bd8c-constitution-ofreland/?referrer=/eng/historical_information/ the_constitution/february_2015__constitution_of_ireland_.pdf/ [accessed 3 November 2018]. Gutman, A. (ed.), Multiculturalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Habermas, J. (1994), “Struggles for Recognition in the Democratic Constitutional State”, in. Hessler, K. (2005), “Resolving Interpretive Conficts in International Human Rights Law”, Journal of Political Philosophy, 13 (1), 29–52. Jackson, V.C. & Tushnet, M. (1999), Comparative Constitutional Law: Cases and Materials. St. Paul, MN: Foundation Press. James, A. (2012), Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy. New York: Oxford University Press. Jouanjan, O. (2009), “Freedom of Expression in the Federal Republic of Germany”, Indiana Law Journal, 84 (3), 865–883. Kim, H. (2014), “A Stability Interpretation of Rawls’s The Law of Peoples”, Political Theory, 43 (4), 473–499. Laborde, C. (2002), “From Constitutional to Civic Patriotism”, British Journal of Political Science, 32 (4), 413–432. List, C. & Pettit, P. (2011), Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents. New York: Oxford University Press. Maffettone, P. (2015). Toleration, decency and self-determination in The Law of Peoples. Philosophy & Social Criticism, 41 (6), 537–556. Michelman, F.I. (2015), “Legitimacy, the Social Turn, and Constitutional Review: What Political Liberalism Suggests”, Critical Quarterly for Legislation and Law, 98 (3), 183–205. Müller, J.W. (2007), Constitutional Patriotism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Neufeld, B. (2005), “Civic Respect, Political Liberalism, and Nonliberal Societies”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 4 (3), 275–299. Pettit, P. (2006), “Rawls’s Peoples”, in Martin, R. & Reidy, D. (eds.), Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 38–55. Pogge, T. (2001), “Rawls on International Justice”, Philosophical Quarterly, 51 (203), 246–253. Pogge, T. (2004), “The Incoherence between Rawls’s Theories of Justice”, Fordham Law Review, 72 (5), 1739–1759. Pogge, T. (2006), “Do Rawls’ Two Theories of Justice Fit Together?”, in Martin, R. & Reidy, D. (eds.), Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 206–225. Pogge, T. (2007), John Rawls: His Life and Theory of Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Porter, T. (2012), “Rawls, Reasonableness, and International Toleration”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 11 (4), 382–414. Rawls, J. (1971/1999), A Theory of Justice, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (1999), The Law of Peoples: With the Idea of Public Reason Revisited. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (2001), Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Raz, J. (2001), “On the Authority and Interpretation of Constitutions”, in Alexander, L. (ed.), Constitutionalism: Philosophical Foundations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 152–193. Reidy, D. (2004), “Rawls on International Justice: A Defense”, Political Theory, 32 (3), 291–319. Reidy, D. (2017), “Moral Psychology, Stability and the Law of Peoples”, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, 30 (2), 363–397. Riker, W.J. (2014), “Human Rights without Political Participation?”, Human Rights Review, 15 (4), 369–390. Weithman, P. (2010), Why Political Liberalism? On John Rawls’s Political Turn. New York: Oxford University Press. Wenar, L. (2004), “The Unity of Rawls’s Work”, Journal of Moral Philosophy, 1 (3), 265–275. Wenar, L. (2006), “Why Rawls Is Not a Cosmopolitan Egalitarian”, in Martin, R. & Reidy, D. (eds.), Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia? Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 95–113. Wood, A.W. (ed.) (1991), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. Nisbet, H.B. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

5 RECONSTRUCTING THE LIBERAL THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL TOLERATION

Introduction In Chapter 4, I offered what I take to be a novel interpretation of Rawls’s account of international toleration. My basic contention was that liberal peoples should tolerate decent ones because the latter are able to (and in fact would) endorse the very same principles of justice that liberal peoples would agree upon to regulate their mutual undertakings. However, the way in which such an account interacts with the discussion of the conception of toleration developed in Chapter 2, and with general features of the partition model more broadly, is still obscure. In addition, I have not touched upon the extent to which the interpretation of LP’s account of toleration offered in Chapter 4 meets the desiderata outlined in Chapter 3 of the book. Yet, I started Chapter 4 by claiming that I took the Rawlsian account of international toleration to be a serious candidate to illustrate a specifc way of understanding international toleration, namely, a way that would be compatible with the basic features of my arguments in the frst part of the book. In this chapter, I will thus attempt to make good on the claims that I have made on behalf of my novel interpretation of the Rawlsian approach. My argumentative strategy will be as follows. In Part I, I shall hone in on the liberal principle of legitimacy. Given that, following from my discussion in Chapter 2, such a principle is the centre piece of an account of toleration that fts the partition model, then the frst goal of Chapter 5 will be to generalise the insight contained in the liberal principle of legitimacy and show that it can be deployed beyond the confnes of a liberal democratic polity, provided some conditions apply. In Part II, I move on to consider what I shall call the domain-sensitivity of the distinction between public and non-public reasons. The basic claim I put forward is that, once again, provided some specifc conditions are obtained, the distinction between public and non-public reasons will be affected by the domain in which

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the relevant agents are placed. The latter conclusion will require, inter alia, a discussion of the standard of reasonable acceptability. In Part III, I then draw on the conclusions reached in Parts I and II and try to apply the main insights created by the generalisation of the liberal principle of legitimacy and by the variability of the public versus non-public reasons’ distinction to offer an account of how the partition model works when we consider an international society of peoples. In so doing, I also show the relevance of the central insight elaborated in Chapter 4 to understand the international version of the partition model, namely, the importance to be assigned to the fact that an agent is able to comply for the right reasons with a liberal conception of justice. Finally, in Part IV, I extensively discuss the way in which the theory of international toleration elaborated in this book can be said to meet the desiderata developed in Chapter 3. I pay particular attention to the idea that a necessary (but by no means suffcient) condition to call such a theory liberal is to respect the requirement of normative individualism. One fnal preliminary comment is in order. My discussion of the way in which something like the partition model applies to international toleration has, in my view, independent interest irrespective of my claims concerning Rawls’s specifc approach. For in order to show that the Rawlsian view is congruent with a partition model, we will have to address the way in which such a model can be deployed in a political context in which we are far less used to seeing it ‘in action’, at least when it comes to toleration. To think in those terms is, in my view, useful irrespective of the correctness of my interpretation of the Rawlsian argument for international toleration.

I.

Generalising the liberal principle of legitimacy

Let us then go back to the partition model of toleration in political liberalism. What was its central insight? The basic idea is that political liberal citizens accept the liberal principle of legitimacy. Doing so, I have claimed in Chapter 2, allows them to give a sui generis status to a special class of reasons for the exercise of political power over a specifc part of the political domain. The sui generis character of those reasons was outlined as follows: when constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice are at stake, liberal citizens ought to consider only those reasons that derive from a liberal political conception of justice in order to support or justify the exercise of political power over one another. The claim that such reasons are sui generis was linked (i.e. modelled as) to the general account of the political liberal conception of toleration in a specifc way. In the context of constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice, a specifc class of reasons should be disregarded, and a second class of reasons should be the only source of reasons that can support the exercise of public political power. The special class of reasons to be disregarded, at least within a subset of the political domain and for a specifc kind of purpose, was comprehensive reasons, or, to be more precise, the reasons that derive from a comprehensive outlook and thus especially the reasons that derive from a conception of the good as developed within this comprehensive outlook. Instead, the reasons that

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should act as the only kind of support for the exercise of political power within a specifc part of the political domain were the reasons that one could derive from a liberal political conception of justice. Needless to say, this is a compressed version of the account I provided in Chapter 2. Nonetheless, even in this abridged restatement, it should be easy to gather that the main driving force for the sui generis status of a given class of reasons is the acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy. My task in this chapter is to extend this model of toleration beyond the confnes of its traditional domain of application, namely, the bounds of a liberal democratic polity. In order to do so, in Part I, I shall try to show that we can generalise the liberal principle of legitimacy and thus make it susceptible to be deployed in at least some circumstances that cannot be regarded as the ones for which it was initially framed (here see also Wendt, 2017). The liberal principle of legitimacy is stated, by Rawls, in the following way: Our exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of principles and ideals acceptable to their common human reason. (1996: 137) There are other ways to state the principle (see Freeman, 2007: 509 for a complete ‘list’), but such alternatives do not seem to alter the nature of the principle itself. Furthermore, according to Leif Wenar, we should interpret the liberal principle of legitimacy in the following way: According to this principle, political power may only be used in ways that all citizens can reasonably be expected to endorse. The use of political power must fulfill a criterion of reciprocity: citizens must reasonably believe that all citizens can reasonably accept the enforcement of a particular set of basic laws. Those coerced by law must be able to endorse the society’s fundamental political arrangements freely, not because they are dominated or manipulated or kept uninformed. (2017: section 3.1) Let us try to delve slightly deeper and see what this principle is telling us. First, one should observe that the liberal principle of legitimacy, and its associated criterion of reciprocity, are formulated for a very specifc political domain. This can be gleaned, among other things, by some of the referents that the principle takes for granted, for example, the word ‘citizens’, or the word ‘constitution’, or the expression ‘common human reason’. To be more explicit, the domain it takes for granted seems to be the domestic political domain of a (liberal) political society. For it is in domestic political society that we fnd constitutions and citizens characterised by their (or at least by their potential to be endowed with) common human reason. As a result, it seems intuitive that, were we to alter the political domain in which such a principle

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is deployed, then the statement of the principle would have to change as well. This way of moving forward would, of course, require some kind of justifcation (for the fact that a principle is formulated for a given domain does not in any way suggest that it can be ‘transposed’ to another), but for the time being, the only thing that I want to remark is that the principle, by design and construction, is domain specifc. The second general question we might be inclined to ask pertains to the meaning of the principle. Without laying any claim to completeness, several observations are worth making. The frst is how the agents in the domain are characterised. They are depicted as ‘free’ and ‘equal’. These are, as anyone familiar with the Rawlsian corpus knows, ‘thick’ terms. For the equality and freedom of the main actors in a liberal domestic political society is nothing less than a shorthand for the conception of the citizen who animates Justice as Fairness. I shall not say more about this aspect other than to observe, following Wenar (2017), that the basic insight is what we might, or might not, be entitled (morally speaking) to do once we conceive of those agents in that way. Namely, we are not entitled to relate to them in a way that presupposes something that is incompatible with their basic characterisation as free and equal: a conception of free and equal agents is at the very least incompatible with bare coercion, manipulation, and a distorted presentation of the epistemic bases of their choices. Third, consider the expression ‘in light of principles and ideals’. What are the referents for the expression? The intuitive answer, given the context of the formulation of the principle suggest the following form: a) ‘principles’ may stand for principles of justice, and principles of enquiry according to which the relevant kinds of information are to be used in public deliberation (i.e. guidelines for public enquiry); b) ‘ideals’, once again, given the context, may refer to political ideals that are familiar from the liberal democratic tradition, such as freedom, equality, fraternity (of a special kind), and of course fairness. Now, the relevant question, for our purposes, is whether we can reformulate the referents I have tried to spell out in terms of ‘reasons’. And the basic answer is that, in my view, we certainly can. Or at least this is what I have tried to show, at some length, in Chapter 2. Once again, compressing the presentation of the discussion in Chapter 2, we can cite things such as the justifcatory support for a principle as one way to characterise the fact that it provides reasons. In a similar fashion, we can think of the political ideals as connected to (if not derived from) political values embedded in a liberal political conception of justice and thus, one way or another, observe that values are the source of reasons, or at least we value something because it provides us with reason for behaving with respect to that thing in specifed ways. Fourth, consider the meaning of ‘may reasonably be expected to endorse in the light of . . . [reasons] acceptable to their common human reason’. Here, following from the discussion in the previous paragraph, I have substituted ‘principles and ideals’ with ‘reasons’. Thus, the remaining explananda are ‘may reasonably be expected to endorse’ and ‘acceptable to their common human reason’. Clearly enough, the frst explanandum refers to the idea of reasonable acceptability, a complex and debated idea in all forms of political liberalism (see for example, Larmore, 1996).

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For now, I shall not try to offer a detailed discussion of how to interpret the standard of reasonable acceptability (but see the following discussion). Instead, I shall limit myself to note that, given the assumption of reasonable pluralism, reasons derived, broadly speaking, from comprehensive doctrines would not meet the standard of reasonable acceptability (at least, in the traditional Rawlsian framework of a liberal political society). Finally, consider the explanandum ‘common human reason’. In a purely descriptive sense, the expression ‘common human reason’, at least in PL, seems to refer to persons’ moral powers and thus to the fact that as persons endowed with the two moral powers, they also possess suffciently ‘similar powers of thought and judgement’ such as the abilities to ‘draw inferences, weigh evidence, and balance competing considerations’ (Rawls, 1996: 55). Nothing, it seems to me, hangs on adding this expression to the liberal principle of legitimacy other than the assumption that the relevant agents possess at the very least some shared deliberative abilities and thus that their acceptance of a given reason cannot be purely irrational. Let us now try to generalise the formulation of the liberal principle of legitimacy and its associated criterion of reciprocity in light of the interpretive remarks I have just offered. By ‘generalise’ here I refer to the idea of making the formulation of the principle not strictly reliant of one specifc context of application. Previously, I have stated that this kind of approach, that is, transposing the principle to a different domain of application, may itself require some form of justifcation. The way I hope to offer some support for the transposition is, however, to start by presenting the liberal principle of legitimacy in a more general form and then ‘check’, so to speak, that nothing in the general formulation would strike us as implausible. This, the reader may retort, is a weak form of validation, and yet, in my view, it does offer some support to my effort at de-contextualising the principle, for in the absence of implausible implications, we can certainly entertain the thought that at least prima facie, the transposition of the liberal principle of legitimacy to a different domain should not be discounted (but see Ferrara, 2019). So, let us formulate the general version of the liberal principle of legitimacy and let us refer to it as GLPL: GLPL: The exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a set of basic political arrangements, the essentials of which all agents as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse. Here, note that the GLPL is not the most general presentation of the liberal principle of legitimacy, for in the formulation I have just offered of the GLPL, there is one important aspect that is kept in place. The aspect that is kept in place is that the relevant agents need to be understood, or conceived of, as free and equal. Two observations are in order here. First, note that to conceive of an agent as ‘free’ and ‘equal’ is clearly insuffcient for a full statement of what we can call the normative prerogatives of the agent. Put differently, and as the conception of the citizen in the Rawlsian framework clearly shows, ‘free’ and ‘equal’ are placeholders for a richer description of the features of the agent in a given framework. There might be certain ways of treating free and equal agents that we might intuitively fnd, ab initio,

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and without having the richer descriptions of the agents on hand, as incompatible with their ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’. Other than a thin negative benchmark, however, these placeholders cannot, by themselves, allow us to fully specify a clear picture of what they stand for. As a result, to keep ‘free’ and ‘equal’ within the GLPL is not to fully specify the nature of the agents (and thus restrict the scope or range of applicability of the principle in question), and such full specifcation is clearly going to be, in some fashion, context-sensitive. At the same time, it is clear that keeping ‘free’ and ‘equal’ within the GLPL does impose ‘some’ form of constraint on how the principle can be deployed, for lack of a better term. To see why, consider an even more general formulation of the principle. Let us call it the very general formulation of the liberal principle of legitimacy (VGLPL): VGLPL: The exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a set of basic political arrangements the essentials of which all agents as appropriately characterised within a given political framework may reasonably be expected to endorse. The VGLPL is clearly more general, for in the VGLPL, there is no restriction to how we can characterise the nature of the agents, not even the relatively thin (comparatively speaking) ones imposed by the placeholders ‘free’ and ‘equal’. If the goal is to formulate a general version of the liberal principle of legitimacy, why not adopt, other things being equal, the VGLPL? To see why, we need to recall the validation strategy for the generalisation of the liberal principle of legitimacy. As I argued earlier, generalising a given principle is not an innocuous enterprise, for the validity of a principle, and some would add, especially a normative principle, may be highly context-dependent (see, for example, Sangiovanni, 2008). The validation strategy I proposed was to frst formulate the principle in what we can at the very least describe as a more general form and then check that it had no counterintuitive implications. And this is where, I think, the VGLPL faces problems, for, in the absence of some, thin as those might be, restrictions on the conception of the agents, there is no clear way to predict what the outcomes of its application would be. And one might be inclined to think that, once such context-sensitive characterisation of the agents is made morally unattractive enough, the principle itself might lose any kind of connection to even a minimal understanding of liberalism. Here, the reader might be tempted to retort the following:‘don’t you think that the same applies to the standard of reasonable acceptability that is implicit in the principle?’ My sense is that the reader is both right and missing the point. How so? She is right insofar as even ‘reasonable acceptability’ is a placeholder in some respect. And thus, not specifying its meaning leaves the principle underdetermined. At the same time, however, the problem is a problem that seems to be orthogonal to the generalisation of the principle, for the same problem would clearly apply to the original formulation of the principle in the frst place. So, for now, I shall leave the expression ‘reasonably acceptable’ in place without discussing it and will return to it later.

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Going back to the GLPL, a further change stands out. The frst is the replacement of ‘a constitution the essentials of which’ with ‘basic political arrangements’. Recall that, when mentioning the fact that the principle was formulated for a specifc political domain, I cited the reference to a constitution as a clear example that the relevant domain was domestic political society, for given the context of Rawls’s enquiry, and taking the word ‘constitution’ at face value, that seemed to be a reasonable conclusion. However, clearly enough, the desire to generalise the liberal principle of legitimacy, at least for the purposes of my enquiry, is to extend such principle to a different political domain, namely, international society, or, more specifcally, given the specifc shape of the theory, to an international society of peoples. However, at least according to a traditional understanding of what constitutions are (see also Chapter 4, where I referred to the legally normative function of constitutions), international society seems to lack a close equivalent of a written or unwritten constitution (international society being the natural political domain where, given the purposes of this book, we might wish to deploy the more general version of the liberal principle of legitimacy). In this traditional view of what constitutions are, we can think of the following as an important subset of the key markers of a constitution: a) reference to their standing as superior law; b) their justiciability; c) their level of entrenchment (i.e. the special procedures required to amend them); and d) their ability to provide a modicum of continuity through time to the basic shape of the legal and political order (see Raz, 2009: ch. 13). At the same time, one should also recognise that something like a constitutional order might be slowly emerging in international society. For example, an important strand of international legal scholarship is now dedicated to the exploration of what is often referred to as the idea of global constitutionalism. According to Anne Peters, we can defne global constitutionalism as: an academic and political agenda that identifies and advocates for the application of constitutionalist principles in the international legal sphere in order to improve the effectiveness and the fairness of the international legal order. Global constitutionalization refers to the continuing, but not linear, process of the gradual emergence and deliberate creation of constitutionalist elements in the international legal order by political and judicial actors, bolstered by an academic discourse in which these elements are identified and further developed. The global constitutionalist discourse has challenged the traditional view that the international sphere is a sort of constitutional wasteland or empty quarter. (Peters, 2009: 397–398) Rather than adjudicate this kind of dispute (but see Cavallero, 2003; Walton, 2014 for two excellent discussions of Rawlsian global governance; see also Cohen, 2012), it might be more useful to think about the epistemic and normative work that reference to a constitution is doing in the traditional version of the liberal principle of legitimacy. Put differently, what does ‘constitution’ stand for in the principle and,

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if any, what would be its equivalent in a different political domain such as international society? Here, I think it is useful to refer to the slightly longer expression in which the word ‘constitution’ appears in the statement of the liberal principle of legitimacy, namely,‘in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which’. For, by so doing, it seems clear that the real referent for the expression as a whole is not the constitution itself but the congruence with the essentials of such a constitution. This observation allows us to ask the following question: what do we refer to when we say something like the ‘essentials of a constitution’? Clearly enough, this question is not one that can be convincingly answered (or at the very least, not within the confnes of the present enquiry) exhaustively and/or generally. Yet, given the context in which the liberal principle of legitimacy is originally stated, we might be tempted to think that the essentials of a constitution are just the fundamental, or basic, arrangements that structure a political community. These might include the basic values that lie at the heart of the basic structure of society, the division of labour (and powers) between different branches of government, the set of basic rights and liberties that lie outside of majoritarian decision-making, specifc forms of discrimination that might be prohibited in various domains, the form and extent of political autonomy to be enjoyed by sub-units within the political community, and so on. We can call these basic political arrangements (the label is not, in my view, particularly relevant), and this is simply because the essentials of a constitution are the kinds of features that give a given political regime its character. Leaving aside, for the time being, what these basic political arrangements are, or ought to be (for, ultimately, the liberal principle of legitimacy is normative rather than descriptive), for an international society of peoples, stating the GLPL in terms of ‘basic political arrangements’ does not strike me as unwarranted. As I argued at the beginning of this part of the chapter, the liberal principle of legitimacy lies at the core of the partition model. In the preceding pages, I tried to show that such a principle can be given a more general formulation, that is, one that is not necessarily linked to the internal life of a liberal political community. I have also hinted at, but not discussed, the fact that the idea of reasonable acceptability was central to the meaning of the principle. For, as I will argue shortly, it is by understanding the meaning of reasonable acceptability that we can understand the possibility that what is reasonably acceptable in one political domain might not be in another. Discussing such a possibility is what I turn to in the next part of the chapter.

II. The domain-sensitivity of public reasons As we saw in Chapter 2, the partition model operates as a partition between different classes of reasons and gives special or sui generis standing to one of those classes in light of the acceptance of the liberal principle of legitimacy. The partition between different classes of reasons, we can add, was between reasons derived from comprehensive doctrines (i.e. non-public reasons) and public reasons, that is, reasons derived from a liberal political conception of justice. The task of this part of the

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chapter is to establish an important, and in many ways analogous, conclusion to the one I hope to have established in the previous part of the chapter, namely, that we can generalise the distinction between these two classes of reasons in such a way as to remove or sever the direct link between such distinction and a specifc political domain. The basic idea is then to see whether we can think of the distinction between public and non-public reasons as one that can be affected by the political domain in which agents are placed. In order to do so, I believe, we need to start by looking more closely at the idea of reasonable acceptability. The idea that the nature of a class of reasons will be affected by the political domain in which agents are placed is, in my view, intuitively controversial. Why so? Why should it be controversial? One important source of discomfort is that to accept the idea that public reasons are public with respect to a given domain relativises the nature of the distinction between different classes of reasons that is at the heart of the partition model in a way that might strike us as implausible. To see the point in a slightly different way, let us go back to the Forstian version of the partition model as discussed in Chapter 1. At the heart of that model lies the Habermasian distinction between ethics and morality, and mutatis mutandis, for our purposes, between ethical reasons and moral reasons. I, of course, simplify considerably here, but the essential feature of the distinction does not strike me as one that is sensitive to the political domain of application, or at least, not straightforwardly. Thus, for example, the distinction between ethical and moral reasons, however one wishes to (plausibly) characterise it, is not one that is likely to be altered (or at least easy to alter) in a signifcant way if we shift its range of application to international society. Is there a way to defend the changing nature of public or political reasons? My sense is that to do so requires us to go back to the idea of ‘reasonable acceptability’ I touched upon, but left largely unaddressed, earlier. So, what does ‘reasonable acceptability’ stand for? I shall discuss the idea of ‘acceptability’ frst. More specifcally, I shall start by stipulating that the relevant meaning of ‘acceptability’ is here connected to the idea of having a specifc kind of reason to accept something. Following Vallier (2018), we can say that the acceptability of X (in the peculiar sense I have just attributed to the term) simply means to have suffcient reasons to accept X. Furthermore, drawing on Gaus (1996), Vallier defnes the idea of a suffcient reason as a reason that, for a given person is ‘both justifably affrmed by that person and . . . [the person] has no other reason that overrides or defeats it in the relevant circumstances’ (2018: 2.1). Having specifed the meaning of acceptability, let us return to ‘reasonable acceptability’. In the standard context of a domestic account of political liberalism, we might be inclined to think of reasonable acceptability as ‘acceptability to reasonable persons’. The main reason for equating the two lies in the non-derivative nature of the expression ‘reasonable person’ with respect to other expressions that, within Rawls’s work, use the word ‘reasonable’ as a qualifer (see especially Wenar, 1995). Thus, for example, we can defne a reasonable comprehensive doctrine as a comprehensive doctrine held by a reasonable person, or reasonable pluralism as the kind

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of pluralism that would be engendered by the use of reason under free institutions by reasonable persons and so on. I touched upon the defnition of reasonable persons in Chapter 2, but it is worth slightly expanding on those comments. Again, following Vallier, we can say that reasonable persons usually have the following dispositions (for a detailed discussion see also Freeman, 2007: 345–351): (1) A disposition to engage in public justification, or to offer justifications for her own preferred principles and abide by the justified principles proposed by others. (2) A disposition to recognize the ‘burdens of judgment’ which imply reasonable pluralism. (3) A disposition to reject the repression of other reasonable points of view. (4) A disposition to rely on methods of reasoning that others can share or access. (Vallier, 2018: 2.4.3) Clearly enough, the idea of ‘acceptability to reasonable persons’ is a form of idealisation. More precisely, it offers an account of justifcation in the political domain where the acceptability of a set of reasons by a given constituency is characterised as the main benchmark for the success of the said justifcatory exercise. However, a crucial aspect of this approach to justifcation is that the relevant constituency is, as I have just stated, a highly idealised one. Put differently, a large part of what we can call, following Ferrara (2004), the normativity of the reasonable, lies in the attempt to offer as an account of public justifcation in which the latter simply is justifcation to a suitably idealised public. This account of what Jonathan Quong has called the constituency of public reason (2010, 2018) is both epistemically and normatively idealised. Reasonable persons are reasonable and rational, and thus irrational ideas, or ideas that are not congruent with some of the basic political values that are implicit in the public political culture of a liberal democratic polity (and a fortiori, in both aforementioned cases, the reasons that are given in support of such ideas), will not be acceptable to them. Note, in addition, that this kind of idealisation is subject to an ongoing tension. If the constituency is excessively idealised, its point(s) of contact with the actual citizens of a liberal democratic polity, and thus the extent to which it can be considered as inclusive, withers away (see Macedo, 1990; Rossi, 2014) and yet portray the constituency not suffciently idealised, and the sense in which acceptability to reasonable persons can be used as a plausible justifcatory standard is lost (see also Eberle, 2002). Now, with this account of reasonable acceptability on hand, we can ask the following questions: can we generalise the account of reasonable acceptability to make it less specifc to the context for which it was initially devised, namely, a liberal democratic political community? And what would be the implications of a more general account? The generalisation of the account of reasonable acceptability seems, at least in one sense, straightforward enough, for if we understand reasonable acceptability as acceptability to reasonable persons, then we can simply rephrase the expression as ‘acceptability to reasonable agents’. Nothing in the defnition of a reasonable person, at least if taken at face value, mandates the conclusion that only

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natural persons can be reasonable in the relevant sense. More specifcally, and in line with my discussion in Chapters 3 and 4, it seems plausible to believe, prima facie, that once we conceive of peoples as moral collective agents, then we can certainly conceive of the idea of a reasonable people. To illustrate, as moral collective agents, peoples might very well have dispositions and desires of a certain kind, such as the disposition to offer a given set of terms of cooperation to other peoples. Clearly enough, the sense in which a moral collective agent and a natural person harbour a desire or disposition might be different, but, in my view, the differences are not central to the task of defning what a reasonable agent is. For such defnition, I believe, is not meant to capture the emotional make-up of an agent but their political attitudes; the dispositions and desires they have as political actors in a given domain. These conclusions might strike the reader as too quick. And, in some respects, they certainly are. I ask her, however, to accept them for the time being, for I shall say more about the idea of a reasonable people in Part III of the chapter. Let us return to the idea of reasonable acceptability understood as acceptability to reasonable agents. Even taking for granted that peoples are the natural concern for the extension of the partition model I am discussing here, I think the claim can be stated even more generally by recalling what the point of ‘acceptability to reasonable agents’ really is, namely, to offer an account of an idealised constituency whose acceptance of a given reason in support of a political claim can be considered as a public justifcation for the claim in question. Reasonable acceptability is acceptability from a suitably defned point of view, that is, the one adopted by an idealised (normatively and epistemically) constituency. And it is the features of the idealisation that are key to understanding whether an account of justifcation based on the acceptance of such an idealised constituency is plausible, that is, its potential to strike us as a convincing account of justifcation given its context and purpose. In this respect, there seems to be no (structural) difference between reasonable acceptability and the original position: both are constructivist procedures for justifying specifc aspects of the political order. Put differently, and leaving aside complex questions in metaethics, the plausibility of the outcome of such procedures will depend on the plausibility of their design, and, we can add, on whether we can accept their outcomes on due refection. For now, let us keep the content of the defnition of a ‘reasonable agent’ fxed, that is, provided by the standard Rawlsian account of the reasonable person, suitably adjusted. The next question we can ask is: should changing the political domain in which reasonable agents are placed alter the class of reasons that they consider to be public, namely, reasons that they can reasonably accept as justifcations for the exercise of political power? And the answer, in my view, is that there are good reasons to believe that it should. To see why, consider one of the main elements of the standard defnition of a reasonable agent, namely, the willingness to propose and abide by fair terms of cooperation provided others are willing to do the same (Rawls, 1996: 49). As I argued in Chapter 2, following McKinnon (2006), what those terms are is not something that can purely be derived from a defnition of a reasonable agent. Assuming that

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fair terms of cooperation refer, among other things, to the content of a ‘political’ conception of justice, then it seems plausible that such a conception will have to be adjusted, at least to some extent, according to the nature of the political practices it is meant to regulate (see James, 2005; Sangiovanni, 2008). To illustrate, recall the elements of Rawls’s own defnition of a political conception. According to Rawls (1996: 11 ff.), a political conception of justice has three basic features. First, the subject of a political conception of justice is the basic structure of society. Second, a political conception is freestanding, that is, not derived from the various comprehensive views that populate a given society. Third, and most importantly for our purposes, a political conception is drawn from fundamental ideas that are implicit in the public political culture of a democratic society, and, Rawls adds that: This public culture the political institutions of a constitutional regime and the public traditions of their interpretation (including those of the judiciary), as well as historic texts and documents that are common knowledge. (1996: 13–14) Here, note that the third feature of the idea of a political conception clearly introduces some sensitivity to the nature of the political context in which a conception of justice is formulated. The latter is, to be sure, a specifc way of understanding the meaning of this feature of a political conception of justice. A different way to understand such feature is to interpret it as a reference to the basic ideas that are implicit in the public political culture ‘of a constitutional regime’. The emphasis on this interpretation would be on the specifc content of a specifc kind of public culture and thus of a specifc class of ideas (and, more specifcally, to how such ideas are normally understood or interpreted), such as the conception of citizens as free and equal in society as a fair scheme of social cooperation for mutual advantage and so on. One way to portray these two approaches is to place them on a spectrum. Thus, we can say that, at one extreme of the spectrum, there is a purely methodological reading of this feature of a political conception of justice that makes it fully neutral with respect to the domain for which it is constructed. And, at the opposite side of the spectrum, there is a purely substantive view of the meaning of this feature of a political conception of justice, which would entail that the only reason to look to a set of implicit ideas in a public political culture is because it is the right kind of public political culture, namely, one of a liberal democratic society. Both interpretations have their own strengths, for, if we follow the purely methodological approach, then we can generalise the construction procedure of a political conception of justice to other political domains. Instead, the purely substantive approach has the advantage of securing congruence between the results of the interpretive exercise of a given public political culture and what might be our (liberal) considered convictions concerning how to conceive of citizens and society (i.e. as free and equal and engaged in a fair system of social cooperation). Symmetrically, both interpretive approaches

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also have weaknesses. The fully methodological one would be unable to guarantee that the outcome of a given interpretive exercise of the ideas implicit in a public political culture would not strike us as implausible from a liberal point of view: after all, such an interpretive exercise, when performed for the public political culture of, say, a tyrannical theocratic regime, would be unlikely to yield what we would regard as acceptable outcomes. The fully substantive interpretation would, instead, suffer from what we can call a redundancy problem, namely, that if the ideas that we fnd in the public political culture of a liberal democratic society are acceptable simply in light of what they are rather than in light of where they come from, so to speak, the reference to the public political culture seems rather otiose. Is there a way to reconcile these two approaches? My sense is that we can fnd a middle ground between them if we proceed in the following way, namely, by adopting what I shall call the ‘constrained methodological view’. The basic insight is that constructing a political conception of justice is indeed linked to an interpretive exercise of the ideas that are implicit in a given public political culture (inter alia, because these ideas are widely ‘shared’), but that such ideas, and thus such public political culture from which they are derived, should plausibly respect, ex-ante, some liberal constraints. Such constraints would require, for example, that the relevant agents be portrayed as free and equal and that the understanding of social and political cooperation be inspired by an account of fairness. Note that in the constrained methodological interpretation, the reference to the ideas that are implicit in a public political culture is not otiose, for to conceive of agents as free and equal is to use placeholders that are more apt to impose a set of thin negative benchmarks on how to interpret the meaning of what I have referred to previously as their normative prerogatives, not to fully determine the meaning of these placeholders. The same applies to the idea of fair cooperation. For what we can understand as fair cooperation between free and equal agents will be constrained by the reference to fairness but will also be sensitive to the specifc kinds of practices to which the term ‘fair’ would have to apply. In this picture, we can see that the reference to the public political culture is not otiose, for we are required to give real content to the terms ‘free’, ‘equal’, and ‘fair’ by making reference to the ideas implicit in such a public political culture. And yet, at the same time, the fact that we are required to give content to those specifc terms, and not just any conception of the relevant agents and of terms of social and political cooperation, ensures that the outcome of our interpretive exercise is likely to be constrained in ways that are congruent with a broadly liberal outlook. Let us take stock. The basic goal of this part of the chapter was to establish the sensitivity of the distinction between non-public and public reasons to the features of the political domain in which the distinction is drawn. The argumentative strategy I have followed is to frst start from an analysis of the meaning of the expression ‘reasonably acceptable’. I showed that reasonable acceptability is a reference to acceptability to a suitably idealised constituency and thus that there is no reason to believe that only a specifc conception of liberal democratic citizens can play such a role, but that the expression can take a more general form. I have then

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asked what kinds of reasons would be acceptable to reasonable agents (as opposed to reasonable citizens), and following from my discussion in Chapter 2, we can say that reasonable agents would fnd reasonably acceptable reasons that are derived from a political conception of justice meant to regulate the basic political arrangements of the domain in which the aforementioned agents are placed. I have then showed, by introducing the constrained methodological interpretation, that the content of a political conception of justice, subject to specifc constraints, would vary according to the political domain for which it is constructed. And, clearly enough, we can conclude that so would the reasons that are derived from such a political conception. In this picture, public reasons are, once again, subject to some constraints, domain sensitive, and thus the distinction between what is a public reason and what is a non-public reason will also vary according to the political domain under consideration.

III.

The partition model and toleration in the law of peoples

In the previous two parts of Chapter 5, I have tried to show two things. The frst is that the liberal principle of legitimacy can take a more general form than the one it normally takes in a liberal democratic society. The second is that what makes a reason public will be sensitive to the kind of political domain in which the relevant agents are placed. In so doing, my basic intent was to show that the basic elements of the partition model of toleration can be deployed beyond the confnes of a liberal democratic polity. The partition model, that is, is not simply an illustration of how to understand the conception of toleration that is implicit in a political liberal understanding of the internal life of a liberal democratic society but can also be extended to other political domains, provided some conditions are obtained. In this part of the chapter, my main goal is to show how the interpretation of the argument for tolerating decent peoples in LP, as developed in Chapter 4, provides (at least implicitly) an instantiation of such an extension, that is, an extension of the partition model to international society. In order to make good on the latter claim, let us start by recalling the GLPL: GLPL: The exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a set of basic political arrangements the essentials of which all agents as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse. The frst task, I believe, is to extend the GLPL to an international society of peoples. As we have seen at some length in Chapter 3, the main agents in my approach to a theory of international toleration are peoples defned in the following way: peoples are bounded self-governing political communities understood as moral collective agents. Thus, in what I shall call, from now on, the ‘international version of the liberal principle of legitimacy’ (ILPL), the relevant agents are peoples. In addition, I shall assume, to begin with, that we are only concerned with liberal peoples.

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The next question we need to answer is: what is the conception of a liberal people (here, beyond its defnition) that is put forward in LP, and is it compatible with an appropriately modifed (i.e. international) version of the GLPL? This is a legitimate preliminary question, for, as we have seen in Part I of this chapter, the GLPL is a more general version of the liberal principle of legitimacy, and yet it still puts constraints on the kinds of agents that can feature within it. In LP, peoples are free and equal. Liberal peoples are free in the sense that they are (externally) self-determining: they take responsibility for making their own choices regarding their citizens and territory (see Wenar, 2004). Liberal peoples are equal insofar as the basic interests of any people are to count, from the perspective of international justice, no more and no less than the basic interests of any other people (ibid). Given that liberal peoples do conceive of themselves as free and equal, and that these are placeholders for what are, at least prima facie, plausible ways of understanding freedom and equality for the kinds of agents that liberal peoples are, there is no reason to believe that the conception of the agents that is part of the GLPL (see earlier discussion) is not hospitable to liberal peoples as the relevant agents. We can thus now state the ILPL as follows: ILPL: The exercise of political power is fully proper, in an international society of liberal peoples, only when it is exercised in accordance with a set of basic political arrangements the essentials of which all liberal peoples as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse. Would liberal peoples accept the ILPL? Liberal peoples are free and equal, but they also are reasonable. That is, they are internationally reasonable (see Porter, 2012). The conception of reasonableness for an international society made up of moral collective agents is not identical to the conception of reasonableness for a domestic political society. Yet, its basic elements are suffciently similar. Internationally reasonable peoples have a political disposition to offer terms of cooperation that are fair to other peoples provided that those other peoples are ready to do the same. This, as we saw in Chapter 3, is what sets peoples, as moral collective agents, apart from the classical conception of states familiar from international law and international relations theory. Internationally reasonable peoples are also prepared, at least to some extent, not to regret some forms of pluralism that have developed in international society. The burdens of judgment explain why persons, in a liberal democratic society, do not regret some forms of pluralism, but these are not easily translatable into an international context. What we can say is that internationally reasonable peoples understand that at least some diversity in the internal political organisation within an international society of liberal peoples is to be expected given how political institutions tend to evolve over time, through gradual processes of historical development in what can only be described as extremely different sets of circumstances. Or at least this was part of my argument in Chapter 4 (see especially my discussion of the role of constitutions in Part V of Chapter 4). Thus, as free, equal, and reasonable, there seems to be no obstacle to the acceptance of the ILPL by liberal peoples.

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As it must be familiar by now (see Chapter 2), the next question we should ask, then, is what are the terms of cooperation that internationally reasonable liberal peoples are prepared to offer one another? What terms do they believe would be fair and reasonably acceptable to other internationally reasonable liberal peoples? The standard answer, properly adapted to the political domain under consideration is: a liberal political conception of justice for international society. A liberal political conception of justice for international society draws on the fundamental ideas that are implicit in the public political culture of international society. Clearly, I cannot hope to offer an in-depth analysis for what such ideas really are. What constitutes part of the international political culture is, of course, bound to be controversial (here I follow Maffettone, 2017). So, in what follows, my remarks are speculative, but, I hope, plausible. In the domestic case, when assessing the particular domain of a liberal democratic polity, the one that Rawls’s work addresses more extensively, we have greater confdence in identifying the constitution and its traditions of interpretation as the central part of the public political culture for a particular liberal democratic polity. At the global level, at least comparatively, we are probably less confdent in demarcating these boundaries. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would form the bedrock of any plausible individuation of the global public political culture. In the same way, while the tradition of interpretation of these two documents has slowly evolved (here see Beitz, 2009a) and is perhaps less shared compared to some foundational questions tied to the rights of liberal democratic citizenship, we can plausibly claim that at least fve principles seem to be consistently located at the heart of these two documents: 1) the end of colonial rule as a legitimate form of political relationship between different political communities; 2) the limited nature of state power over its citizenry and the link between the legitimacy of state rule and the respect for basic human rights; 3) some form of political control by the people over their government and thus the establishment of a link between external and internal self-determination; 4) a basic presumption against outside interference in the political life of members, provided such internal political life respects certain specifed constraints; and 5) the end of war and military aggression as legitimate means for pursuing one’s interests. Accepting, for the sake of argument, that these are some of the guiding ideas in the public political culture of international society, note two things. The frst is that these ideas are, at least prima facie, compatible with the constrained methodological interpretation as developed in Part II of this chapter. That is to say, that nothing that they suggest, implicitly or explicitly, seems incompatible with the idea of conceiving international society as a fair scheme of cooperation (if not necessarily ‘social’ cooperation) between free and equal agents. The second is that, clearly enough, such ideas, texts, and traditions of legal reasoning will undoubtedly not ‘speak for themselves’. They will not provide clear guidance on the problem at hand. There is no direct and uncontroversial sense in which the public political culture of a society already contains the principles of justice that are meant to order its basic structure.

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To illustrate, these ‘ideas’ are widely recognised to be conficting unless some form of attempt to further specify their content is provided (the most classic case being the confict between human rights protection and collective political independence). It is thus clear that to start from the international public political culture cannot simply mean to mirror its contents. In other words, the public political culture can only provide a starting point. It is, then, the role of philosophy, when it aims at the public justifcation of the political order, to interpret these shared premises and to develop their content into a (political) conception of justice that is capable of fulflling its social role in a context of pluralism. Much would have to be said about how exactly we should portray the nature of this kind of interpretive exercise. I shall not rehearse the fner points of the existing discussion in the literature concerning the nature of the best conception of interpretation we should employ in these kinds of cases. Yet, its basic insight is that we can make use of the Dworkinian idea of constructive interpretation to further specify the interpretive procedure to be followed (see especially, James, 2005; Maffettone, 2017; Sangiovanni, 2008). Leaving the idea of constructive interpretation to one side, the basic point for our present purposes is to see that offering a conception of (international) justice that interprets the fundamental ideas contained in the public political culture of international society (and thus to offer a clearer and more coherent version of the fve principles I have stated a few paragraphs earlier) is precisely what Rawls tries to achieve through the eight principles of a ‘Law of Peoples’. The principles are as follows: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Peoples are free and independent, and their freedom and independence are to be respected by other peoples. Peoples are to observe treaties and undertakings. Peoples are equals and are parties to the agreements that bind them. Peoples are to observe a duty of non-intervention. Peoples have a right of self-defence but no right to instigate war for reasons other than self-defence. Peoples are to honour human rights. Peoples are to observe certain specified restrictions in the conduct of war. Peoples have a duty to assist other peoples living under unfavourable conditions that prevent their having a just or decent political and social regime. (Rawls, 1999: 37)

Would liberal peoples be prepared to endorse the liberal political conception of justice put forward by Rawls? Liberal peoples are free, equal, and reasonable. They are thus prepared to accept that the answer to that question should be obtained by using an international version of the original position that would put constraints on the kind of information that they (their representatives, to be more precise) are able to take into account when selecting the relevant principles of justice. Yet, liberal peoples are also rational. Liberal peoples do not have a conception of the good to

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further, but that does not entail that they have, as moral collective agents, no interests of their own. The basic interests of liberal peoples lie not in the accumulation of wealth, power, territory, or anything that is material in character beyond what is strictly necessary for it to maintain its well-ordered institutions. Instead, liberal peoples have two main interests. The frst is an interest in maintaining their political independence (to be understood as an interest in their territorial integrity and in being able to pursue their own internal conception of right and justice). The second is an interest in the security and well-being of their citizens. The basic interests of liberal peoples are thus congruent with the eight principles of LP, for nothing that such principles mandate is incompatible with their rational interests (see Wenar, 2006). As a result, we can conjecture that nothing that is present in the eight principles stated earlier would prevent the representatives of liberal peoples from endorsing them as the liberal conception of international justice (but see Armstrong, 2009 for a discussion of the acceptability of the last principle). Thus, liberal peoples as free, equal, reasonable, and rational, accept the ILPL, and endorse a specifc liberal political conception of international justice. They are thus prepared to accept what follows from this kind of predicament, namely, that when basic political arrangements are at stake, that is, the equivalent of constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice for international society, the reasons that they are required to offer one another for the exercise of political power are public reasons, that is, reasons derived from the liberal political conception of international justice. Here, the link with the partition model discussed in Chapter 2 of the book starts to be become clearer. The best way to think about the partition model as extended to international society is to think about it in terms of what I shall call the ‘partial division of labour model’ for principles of justice, and thus for public reasons. I call it a ‘partial’ division of labour for the simple reason that the eight principles of the law of peoples, but for that matter any plausible conception of international justice, will have something to say about the internal political lives of the agents it regulates. Not doing so would basically entail going back the to the Westphalian view of the state as a black box. The partial division of labour model suggests that there is a distinction to be drawn between a domestic liberal political conception of justice and an international liberal political conception of justice, and that such partial division of labour corresponds to a partial distinction between the (public) reasons that can be derived from the former and those that can be derived from the latter. In addition, given that liberal peoples accept the ILPL, then they are prepared to give what we can call ‘international public reasons’ a sui generis role in their deliberations. That is, they are prepared to recognise that acceptance of the ILPL provides them with positive and negative second-order reasons not to draw on non-public reasons but instead to only draw, when the exercise of political power pertaining to basic political arrangements in international society is at stake, on public reasons derived from a liberal international political conception of justice. What are the implications of this kind of account for the relationship between liberal and decent peoples? Up until now, decent peoples have basically never

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featured in the extension of the partition model to international society. The crucial argumentative passage here is to recall, as I have tried to justify at some length in Chapter 4, that a liberal political conception of international justice does not require a well-ordered people to be internally liberal. In this picture, liberal peoples lack public reasons to use political power against decent peoples in light of their internal institutions not being liberal and thus are obliged to tolerate them in the weak, but non-trivial sense, that they are not allowed to coercively intervene in the internal political life of a decent people. Note that this would apply to any such exercise of political power (of the relevant kind) ‘independently’ of whether those over whom the power is exercised are known to be reasonable agents or not (something we haven’t yet shown decent peoples to be), since, following Quong, even when we are faced with unreasonable citizens, (2010; but also see Badano and Nuti, 2018), we can say that: The fact of reasonable pluralism (combined with the aim to cooperate with others on fair terms) gives us good reason to rely only on public reasons in constructing our principles of justice, but this would crucially extend to any principle permitting intolerance. In other words, we assume the commitment to public justification yields a general principle of liberal toleration, but any infringement of this general principle would also have to be justified by public reasons. (2010: 297–298) Yet, the theory of international toleration presented in the LP requires more of liberal peoples. For while to refrain from using political power against decent peoples is certainly one way to tolerate other agents, Rawls believes that decent peoples should be tolerated in a much stronger sense of the term, namely, they should be considered as equal members in good standing of international society and thus respected by liberal people. The missing link is, I believe, provided by Thomas Porter (2012). Porter argues that there is a key liberal methodological principle (LMP) that lies at the heart of Rawlsian political liberalism. He states the principle as follows: LMP: If your comprehensive liberal moral view commits you to principles of justice which are such that those who comply with them under ideal conditions need not at the same time subscribe to the comprehensive liberal moral view in question, then you’re committed to justifying the resultant liberal political order to such people in terms that they can accept. (2012: 17) The basic idea at the heart of the LMP is that if an agent complies (for the right reasons) with liberal principles of justice for a given domain, then there is a clear sense in which the agent in question is not at fault, political speaking, and thus entitled to being respected. And yet, Porter adds, at least in a liberal framework this (i.e. the entitlement to respect) requires those to whom a given set of principles apply, that

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they receive a justifcation that they can reasonably accept. The same goes, Porter claims, for what concerns Rawls’s account of international toleration: The same principle [the LMP], mutatis mutandis, can be appealed to in order to explain Rawls’s justificatory inclusion of decent peoples. In the international context, it holds that if the principles of the law of peoples that is worked out by appeal only to liberal ideas (as I’ll say: a liberally justified law of peoples) are such that those societies that comply with them, under ideal conditions, need not at the same time subscribe to the liberal ideas that were appealed to in their construction in the first place, then adherents of the liberal ideas are committed not only to governing their relations with such societies by these principles, but also to justifying them to such societies in terms that they can accept. Just as liberal domestic principles would engender a pluralism of comprehensive views even when everyone complied with those principles, so liberal international institutions, according to this argument, might engender (or at least be consistent with) a pluralism of domestic conceptions of justice even when every society complied with the principles regulating those international institutions. And if Rawls is right to suppose that a liberally justified law of peoples is not a fully content-liberal law of peoples, then that is precisely the situation that we, as adherents of those ideas, face. In light of the methodological principles, therefore, Rawls is committed to justifying the Law of Peoples to decent peoples, who are simply those nonliberal peoples who nevertheless comply with the principles of the Law of Peoples. (2012: 30) The attractiveness of this approach lies in the apparent tidiness of the result that would be achieved. For, one could understand, in this picture, why liberal political communities would be required to tolerate nonliberal ones that respect a given liberal conception of international justice for the right reasons, both in the sense that they should refrain from imposing sanctions on them and in the sense that they should accept them as equal members in good standing of international society (that was, recall, the central insight of my discussion of international toleration in Chapter 4). Liberal peoples would, as we have seen, lack a public justifcation for imposing sanctions on decent ones, for they would lack a public justifcation for a principle of intolerance that would allow them to use political power against them. In addition, liberal peoples, committed as they are to a liberal conception of international justice, would have to accept decent peoples as members in good standing of international society. For, if they accept the LMP, they would see that decent peoples are not at fault, politically speaking, and thus that they are owed a justifcation for the way in which the basic political arrangements of international society are set up. However, to be owed this kind of justifcation is simply to be acknowledged as internationally reasonable and thus as an equal member in good standing of international society.

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The basic insight is that the fact that decent peoples are prepared to comply with (for the right reasons) a liberal political conception of international justice is the best kind of (at least prima facie) evidence we can have to establish the fact that they, too, are internationally reasonable. For if they do accept such a liberal political conception of international justice, then this provides evidence that they are prepared to offer what are, ex-hypothesis, fair terms of cooperation to other peoples, and, given the amount of ‘space’ that such conception allows in terms of the internal political organisation of a political community, their support for such conception (that is their compliance for moral reasons) also shows that, prima facie, they are prepared to accept, without regret, the existence of some forms of political pluralism in international society. (I shall say more about this later.) This is the sense in which the eight principles of LP do not simply apply to decent peoples but are required to be justifed to them, and thus the reason that Rawls tries to show as much by using the original position a second time at the international level. Once for liberal peoples and a second time for decent ones (Rawls, 1999: 68 ff.). To see things from a slightly different perspective, let us ask what makes a given agent unreasonable (other than driving during rush hour) and check whether we can attribute ‘international unreasonableness’ to a decent people. Here, let us start by defning an unreasonable agent in the domestic context of a liberal political community. Following Jonathan Quong, we can say that: Unreasonable citizens reject at least one, but usually several of the following: a) that political society should be a fair system of social cooperation for mutual benefit, (b) that citizens are free and equal, and (c) the fact of reasonable pluralism. Similarly, one qualifies as unreasonable if one accepts these ideals, but fails to accord them deliberative priority in one’s practical reasoning. For reasonable people, these should be regulative ideas that generally limit one’s beliefs about permissible actions or activities. In rejecting any of the three ideas above or their deliberative priority, unreasonable citizens necessarily reject the project of publicly justifying political power. In denying that political power should be subject to public justification, they show contempt for the fundamental moral ideal that underlies that project: the idea that citizens are free and equal, and as such, are entitled to justifications for the way political power is exercised over them. (Quong, 2010: 291) How would we transpose this kind of defnition of unreasonable citizens to a society of peoples? To do so, we simply need to replace ‘citizens’ with ‘peoples’ and adjust the defnition to the context in which peoples are placed, that is, the context of an international society of peoples. First, unreasonable peoples do not see the society of peoples as a fair system of cooperation between free and equal peoples. I here omit the full description of a political community understood as a society based on ‘social cooperation for mutual beneft’ for, in my view, that is too strong a description for a political domain populated by self-determining peoples. Yet, the

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basic idea implicit in the frst feature of an unreasonable citizen remains intact. For, according to a) in the passage quoted from Quong, the issue is one of fairness and reciprocity, not the specifc characterisation of the political domain in which such values should be acknowledged. Second, we can say that unreasonable peoples reject the idea that other peoples are free and equal given a specifc defnition (see earlier discussion) of what the placeholders ‘free’ and ‘equal’ stand for in light of the nature of (that is, the conception of) the agents in question. Third, Quong claims, unreasonable citizens reject the fact of reasonable pluralism. I have touched upon this issue in passing, both a few paragraphs earlier and in the previous part of the chapter, but it is worth returning to what reasonable pluralism might mean in a different political domain. Reasonable pluralism is explained, in Rawls’s view, by the burdens of judgment. Yet, leaving aside the label, what is relevant, as I have already discussed in Chapter 2, is what kind of role the burdens of judgment are meant to play. Such burdens explain the origins of a specifc kind of pluralism for they give us an account of the sources of disagreement on what we can call the fundamental questions connected to the human experience that do not involve any kind of epistemic fault or moral corruption on the part of those who are committed to different and incompatible accounts of how to answer those fundamental questions. This, Rawls tells us, is simply what we would expect to happen when ‘human’ reason is used in the context of free institutions. And, inter alia, this is what explains why such pluralism is reasonable and not to be regretted. The point, then, is whether we can make sense of something that is equivalent to this kind of story in international society. Two main obstacles come to mind if we were to aim for a simple transposition of the account to international political life. The frst is that we have never experienced anything remotely resembling a well-ordered international society structured according to the principles of a liberal law of peoples, and thus we cannot really know what kind of pluralism it would engender (see Porter, 2012 for a discussion). The second is that it is unclear whether we can ascribe the burdens of judgment to collective agents. For, while collective agents clearly have, at least if they are conceived in a certain way (here, see again List and Pettit, 2011) the ability to ‘judge’, or, perhaps more broadly, to deliberate about various issues, and while there is a sense in which such deliberations are clearly subject to various kinds of ‘burdens’, it is not obvious that the content or description of such burdens would be the same if we alter the nature of the agents to whom they apply. My sense is that the best we can do here is to work by conjecture and extrapolate from a general sense of the importance of historical, social, economic, and cultural circumstances on the development of domestic political institutions. Clearly, the development of political institutions is marked by oppression, war, conquest and colonisation, famines, the greed of ruling classes, and so on. Yet, much like for a domestic political society, these are not necessarily the kinds of explanations we would be inclined to see as relevant in order not to regret the resulting pluralism they would engender. At the same time, we can also think about more benign, so to

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speak, sources of pluralism, such as cultural differences concerning the comparative value of work and leisure, differing levels of technological development, differences in the size and nature of the territory to which a people is historically connected, differences in the religious and spiritual traditions that citizens of a peoples are committed to and so on and ask whether these could be sources capable of explaining, at least hypothetically, differences in the way the internal political structure of a society have evolved over time. To be fully clear, I am not suggesting an argument for the correctness of the conjecture I am putting forward. Rather, I am suggesting that to fully defend the transposition of something like the burdens of judgment in a different political domain one would have to say more about the plausibility of the conjecture I have sketched. Whether or not these remarks are convincing, though, it is interesting to note that the Rawlsian attempt at describing one concrete example of a decent society, namely, Kazanistan, does seem to be inspired by this kind of approach. Thus, a different way to capture the genesis of Rawls’s choice to spend signifcant time on describing a specifc kind of decent people (a decent hierarchical one) is to provide an example of the conjecture that a liberal law of peoples would allow, in light of the aforementioned historical contingencies, the development of different kinds of political institutions. How to call this kind of story is, I think, not crucial. But one can portray it as the result of how (limited) free collective selfdetermination would interact with the situated past of a social system in the context of a liberal law of peoples. Finally, Quong notes that one qualifes as unreasonable if one fails to acknowledge the deliberative priority of the relevant political ideals even if the content or substance of such ideals is accepted. How would we know when the latter occurs? Refusing to give deliberative priority to the relevant ideals, Quong tells us in the quote cited earlier, simply means refusing to publicly justify the use of political power. Thus, following my analysis in this part of the chapter, we can say that it means rejecting the ILPL. The crucial question then is: do we have any reason to believe that a decent people would be unreasonable given the features of an unreasonable people I have just sketched? My sense is that, assuming that decent peoples comply for the right reasons with a liberal conception of international justice, we do not. For, once again, if they do endorse such a conception, and do so for the right reasons, they clearly are prepared to offer fair terms of cooperation to other peoples and to acknowledge that they are free and equal. Would decent peoples accept the international equivalent of the idea of reasonable pluralism? Earlier, when discussing Porter’s argument, I mentioned that to comply with (for the right reasons) a liberal conception of international justice that allows for different ways (as many as there are ways of structuring liberal and decent political institutions) of organising political societies internally, then we can conclude that they are committed to accepting reasonable pluralism. Perhaps that is too strong a conclusion to draw. Yet, I am also inclined to think that the burden of proof is not squarely in the camp of those who want to show that decent peoples would accept something like reasonable pluralism, for a decent people is a

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normative conception of a (class of) political society(ies), and it can thus be, within limits, altered in line with what we think would be desirable, all things considered. Put differently, I see no element of the general features of a decent political society that would constitutively prevent the latter from accepting the idea of reasonable pluralism at the international level, and thus am inclined to believe that, even if Rawls’s text cannot be shown to conclusively support the idea that a decent people would accept reasonable pluralism internationally, we are entitled to suppose that they could if nothing that is defning of their status as decent prevents us from conjecturing or even stipulating as much. The same, I believe, applies to the acceptance of the ILPL, at least if we are prepared to introduce a trivial modifcation to its statement. Recall from the statement of the ILPL: ILPL: The exercise of political power is fully proper, in an international society of liberal peoples, only when it is exercised in accordance with a set of basic political arrangements the essentials of which all liberal peoples as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse. Now, the way I have initially stated the principle refers to ‘an international society of “liberal” peoples’ and to ‘basic political arrangements the essentials of which all “liberal” peoples as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse’. Yet, clearly, once we introduce decent peoples into the picture, we can ask whether it makes sense to state the principle in that way. My sense is that it would not. To see why, consider the frst instance in which the word ‘liberal’ appears in the principle. Here, the reference to an international society of liberal peoples is largely descriptive of the context in which the principle, ex-hypothesis, is supposed to operate. Thus replacing ‘liberal’ with ‘liberal and decent’ seems to pose no real problem. The second time the word ‘liberal’ appears in the principle might initially seem less straightforward to replace, for one might suspect that what liberal peoples can reasonably accept is not necessarily equal to what liberal and decent peoples can reasonably accept. Yet, in my view, the key issue is not the nature of the internal political institutions of a liberal people (for in the end this is the main distinction between liberal and decent peoples). Rather, the point is the conception of liberal peoples as ‘free and equal’ from the perspective of an international conception of justice. And, given what such conception of peoples as free and equal stands for (see earlier discussion), there seems to be no obstacle to believe that decent peoples can be considered as free and equal, from the perspective of an international conception of justice, in exactly the same way as liberal ones. Thus, we can state the ILPL in a more general form (call it the general international liberal principle of legitimacy, or GILPL), that is including decent peoples in its formulation, without necessarily altering the kind of normative benchmark that it is meant to represent: GILPL: The exercise of political power is fully proper, in an international society of liberal and decent peoples, only when it is exercised in accordance with

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a set of basic political arrangements the essentials of which all liberal and decent peoples as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse. So, we can ask: would decent peoples be prepared to accept the GILPL? Rawls never explicitly discusses how a decent people thinks about the exercise of political power in international society, but there seems to be no reason to believe that they could not. Mutatis mutandis, I believe that much the same applies here to my discussion of reasonable pluralism. There seems to be no constitutive aspects of how decent peoples are defned that would suggest that they would not, and even if there were, it would not be implausible to alter their make-up in such a way that they could.

IV.

Meeting the desiderata

In the frst three parts of the chapter, I have tried to show two main things: in Parts I and II that, subject to specifc constraints, the basic elements of the partition model can be generalised, and, in Part III, that the model can be deployed to provide a reconstruction of the theory of international toleration that was implicit in my interpretation of LP in Chapter 4. This, in my view, is an important fnding, for it allows to see the continuity between the partition model developed in Chapter 2 and the international version of the model as initially sketched in Chapter 3 (where we discussed, inter alia, its main agents) and in Chapter 4 (where I offered what I called a candidate theory). Here, in Part IV of Chapter 5, I return to the additional constraints put forward in Chapter 3 with respect to what a good theory of international toleration should achieve, namely, what I have called the desiderata that such a theory should try to meet. The desiderata, recall, were three. The frst was that an attractive theory of international toleration inspired by a broadly liberal outlook that should be at the very least not incompatible with some of the foundational commitments of liberalism. The commitment that I suggested should play this role was the commitment to normative individualism. The second desideratum pertained to the scope of toleration. I argued that we normally have some settled intuitions about the scope of toleration and that to the extent we buy into the intuitive argument set out in the Introduction of the book, then it would seem that a prima facie good-making feature of the theory of international toleration developed in this book is that such a theory be hospitable to more than one way of organising political institutions, that is, that it would not end up asking us to tolerate only liberal democratic political communities. The third and fnal desideratum was that the theory of toleration should be compatible with mutual respect between those who tolerate and are tolerated, and with the integrity of both aforementioned categories of agents. Let us then proceed to check if the complete version of the theory I set out to develop in Chapter 4 and the frst three parts of Chapter 5 can meet these desiderata. I shall start with the question of the scope of international toleration, for that is certainly the easiest one to ascertain. Given that much of my efforts over the past two chapters have been dedicated to discussing the reasons for tolerating decent peoples

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and given that decent peoples are not liberal democratic peoples, then we seem in a position to claim that such desideratum has been satisfactorily met. The only possible objection to the latter conclusion is whether it has been met in a meaningful way. A non-meaningful way of meeting the scope of the desideratum could be to extend toleration beyond the remit of liberal democratic regimes but to do so only for an extremely specifc and restricted kind of political society. Put differently, one might be tempted to believe that if a theory of international toleration that accepts the scope of the desideratum only tolerates one and only one specifc kind of political society beyond liberal democratic ones, then it might meet the desideratum in a way that we can describe, for lack of better words, as either formally or underwhelmingly. Here, however, I think it is easy to rebut the objection. For it is true that Rawls only describes the institution of one specifc kind of society that the theory should allow to tolerate, namely a decent hierarchical people. Yet, decent hierarchical peoples are only one illustration of the class to which they belong. Decent peoples are a class of peoples, and though Rawls does not illustrate other potential kinds of decent peoples, the criteria of decency are wide enough to be plausibly instantiated by different kinds of political communities besides decent hierarchical ones. Next, let us move on to the idea that a good-making feature of a theory of international toleration would allow those who tolerate and those who are tolerated to respect each other and to maintain some measure of integrity. In order to properly discuss this desideratum, we need to go back to the defnitions of respect and integrity that were outlined in Chapter 3. Recall from Chapter 3 that I assumed the conceptions of mutual respect and integrity to be premised on the freedom and equality of the relevant agents. I then argued that, at least among free and equal agents, relations of subjection are incompatible with mutual respect. And, in turn, I defned a relation of subjection as a political relation where power is exercised by one agent over another in an asymmetric and unaccountable way. In Chapter 3, I also put forward a specifc account of integrity. The basic insight was that compatibility with integrity would require the theory of international toleration not to drive too large a wedge between what the theory requires of the agents to whom the theory applies, and their moral commitments broadly understood. More specifcally, given the nature of the agents, we can substitute the expression ‘moral commitments broadly understood’ with the expression ‘the commitment of a people to its own (internal) conception of right and justice’. I shall proceed by checking that the mutual respect and integrity desiderata are met in the reverse order. Keeping in mind the defnition adopted in Chapter 3 (and briefy recalled earlier) we can ask: is the theory outlined in the last two chapters compatible with the integrity both of liberal and nonliberal but decent peoples? Taken at face value, I think, there seems to be no doubt that it is. First, consider the position of liberal peoples. As I have tried to show in Chapter 4, the eight principles of LP can be plausibly portrayed as the outcome of a frst original position only populated by the representatives of liberal peoples. There, I also argued that one of the key reasons that might push liberal peoples to adopt a relatively ‘thin’ (comparatively speaking) account of international justice was precisely their desire to

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allow for important forms of internal democratic self-determination. Among other things, this was what my discussion of the role and understanding of constitutions in a broadly political liberal framework was meant to show. Thus, at least at face value, liberal peoples can fully maintain their commitment to their internal understanding of right and justice. At this juncture, and as we have remarked in Chapter 3’s discussion of this specifc desideratum, it would not be implausible to remark that there is an issue of the scope of a people’s commitment to its own conception of right and justice, for one might very well think that such a commitment has a more universalist bent than simply a commitment to such a conception being respected within the defned jurisdiction of a given liberal people. A frst reply to this objection is simply to point out that one could re-defne the relevant desideratum to be geared to refect an internal commitment. Yet, to do so, I believe, would count as defning away this kind of concern in an unconvincing way. At the same time, however, one also has to acknowledge that a people’s commitment to a specifc account of right and justice, even if it is perceived to be a commitment to the universal application of the specifc account, cannot be uncritically accepted as such. Put differently, the issue cannot be settled by a phenomenological ascription of this kind of normative desire. So, the basic question is the extent to which such desire would be reasonable from a moral point of view. And my sense is that it would not be, or, more precisely, that those liberal peoples that would harbour such desire would lack good reasons to act on it. To see why, consider, frst, a liberal people’s commitment to the principles of LP. If, as we have been assuming, such a commitment is genuine, then, clearly, it entails a commitment to allow signifcant space for internal self-determination. Second, note that, as I hope to have shown in Part III of this chapter, liberal peoples are also committed to the GILPL. And, simplifying signifcantly, this means that they are committed to giving international public reasons, or public reasons for the domain in which they act as peoples, some deliberative priority compared to other kinds of reasons. Yet, in order to press for the implementation of a specifc conception of right and justice (that is, a conception of right and justice that is endorsed by a given liberal people internally), they would have to provide public reasons of the relevant sort to other peoples, liberal and decent. And this is precisely what we can conjecture they would lack. The same kinds of arguments are valid, mutatis mutandis, for decent peoples. They, too, would be allowed to pursue internally their own conception of right and justice, and they, too, given that they are internationally reasonable and endorse the eight principles of LP for the right reasons, will not be able to reasonably demand that their own conception of right and justice be adopted by all other peoples. Now, consider whether the theory of international toleration developed in Chapters 4 and 5 is compatible with mutual respect. I have defned mutual respect weakly, that is, as simply the absence of relations of subjection and domination between those who are said to mutually respect each other. At face value it seems that, at least insofar as we defne the concern for mutual respect in this way, then the account of international toleration I have put forward poses no problem. However, I think it is worth delving slightly deeper and further explore the concern. To

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do so, the frst question we can ask is, in my view, where, so to speak, this kind of desideratum is likely to be tested. And my intuition is that it will be tested by the status or standing of decent peoples. Here too, I think, it would be easy to reply that the discussion in the last two chapters of the book should allow us to dispense with the worry that the kind of account presented here is in some way incompatible with mutual respect, for one of the main tasks that was undertaken was precisely to show that liberal peoples acknowledge decent ones as equal members in good standing of international society. At the same time, and this is where some doubts might surface, to state that liberal peoples respect decent peoples does not make it obviously the case. The main worry here might be couched in terms of ethnocentrism (see Audard, 2006), namely, that the eight principles of LP are simply a way of imposing liberal values to the rest of the international order. However, I do not fnd this kind of approach convincing, for, as we have seen, the main reason to ‘check’ that decent peoples can endorse the principles of LP was precisely because such principles do not simply apply to them but are required to be justifed to them. Now, of course, one might suspect that the very construction of a decent people has been devised so as to make such acceptance or endorsement possible. And clearly, this was part of the view I advanced in Chapter 4. Yet, I fnd this kind of approach to be largely untroubling. Some might believe that pluralism as such (whatever its remit and nature), when it comes to international society, should be granted some kind of normative status that would require a normative conception of international justice to respect it. Yet, more plausibly, I believe that one would have to acknowledge that not all forms of political diversity, when it comes to the internal organisation of a people, can be tolerable. Not to do so would commit one to relativism or, at the very least, to a conception of the value of collective self-determination that would leave no space for individual rights or constraints on state actions. Whatever the merits of these views (and in my personal opinion they are limited), they would require an approach to international justice that would be radically different from the one presented in this book. Nonetheless, one can press the charge in a different and perhaps more radical way. The basic idea would be to challenge the very approach of a theory of international toleration, for the very decision to frame one of the main aspects of international political diversity in terms of what liberals can tolerate may strike some, per se, as evidence that one is showing some lack of respect for those societies that are not liberal. As Goethe famously wrote,‘Tolerance should really only be a passing attitude: it should lead to appreciation. To tolerate is to offend’ (Goethe, J. W., 1829, Maximen und Refexionen, Werke 6, Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1981, p. 507). In more recent times, this concern has also been expressed in a variety of ways (see for example Green, 2008, but also Ceva and Zuolo, 2013). From a so-called ‘critical’ perspective it has been explicitly linked to the exercise of power by the strong over the comparatively weaker. For example, according to authors like Wendy Brown: Tolerance . . . emerges as part of a civilizational discourse that identifies both tolerance and the tolerable with the West, marking nonliberal societies and

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practices as candidates for an intolerable barbarism that is itself signaled by the putative intolerance ruling these societies. (Brown, 2006: 6) As a reply, we should start by recalling the discussion of the power condition performed in Chapter 1 of this book. As we have noted there, the historical roots of the concept of toleration have often been unhelpful on this point, for the origins of the practice of toleration, at least in Western Europe, was tightly linked to a specifc set of political circumstances. The typical shape that it took was the concession, on the part of a monarch wielding absolute or near-to-absolute political power over its subjects, to adhere to religious doctrines that were not deemed to be, at least from the perspective of the ruler, as true (see Forst, 2013). However, note that unless one adopts a very specifc understanding of the power condition, then the concept of toleration itself does not require toleration to be exercised exclusively within the context of asymmetric power relations. This was, recall, extensively discussed in Part III of Chapter 1. In addition, as many have shown over the course of the past two decades, there is ample reason to believe that a more ‘democratic’ conception of toleration is available (see Galeotti, 1993 for a discussion). The basic distinction in the literature is usually one between a ‘permission’ conception of toleration and a ‘respect’ conception of toleration (see Forst, 2017). Yet some have also contrasted a ‘vertical’ conception of toleration with a ‘horizontal’ conception (see McKinnon, 2013). Whatever label one wishes to adopt (and without claiming that the two pairs, vertical/horizontal and permission/respect, are analytically identical), however, I think that one of the key questions one needs to ask is the following: is a given account of toleration compatible with the fact that no subject is required to occupy a fxed role within it? To put things differently, we can say that a suffcient condition for an account of toleration to be compatible with mutual respect (as I have defned it in Chapter 3) in a way that is meaningful is the extent to which the agents placed into the domain in which such an account operates can both be said to tolerate and be tolerated at the same time. And, given the kind of worry I have expressed, namely, the one pertaining to the status of decent peoples in the theory, the key question is the extent to which decent peoples, not just liberal ones, can be said to tolerate rather than just being tolerated. My sense is that, if the account of international toleration presented in Chapters 4 and 5 is a plausible extension of the partition model of toleration as discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, then there is no reason not to believe this to be the case, for, as we have seen, it seems to be clearly the case that decent peoples ‘accept’ the eight principles of LP; such principles do not simply apply to them. Yet, at the same time, it also seems plausible to believe that any decent people will have its own conception of right and justice internally. How one wishes to characterise or label such a conception is not particularly important (provided it meets the appropriate constraints). What is relevant is that such a conception of right and justice would certainly feature a view of society and a specifc understanding of citizens (or persons). It would

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also refect an account of political values, or perhaps, more in line with a view of the social world that is not congruent with a fully political liberal view, a conception of how moral and other kinds of values apply to the political domain. And it seems relatively patent that any decent people would certainly fnd it desirable for such conception to be more widely adopted, universally so at the limit, than the eight principles of LP allow it to be (a point I have discussed a few paragraphs earlier). The fact that, just like liberal peoples, decent ones cannot provide public reasons of the relevant kind to impose or try to impose such a conception beyond the remit of their domestic jurisdiction does not imply that, at least in some respects, they might see a world in which such a conception would become more widely adopted as a better one. It thus seems plausible to believe that decent peoples, too,‘tolerate’ liberal ones and are not just tolerated by them. Finally, let us move on to the idea that a desideratum of an attractive theory of international toleration should be compatible with at least one of the fundamental features of a broadly liberal understanding of political morality. As I have already stated in Chapter 3, my point in setting forth this fundamental feature of liberal political morality was not to offer a defnition of liberalism, much less to offer an account of what liberalism stands for. More modestly, I defned the idea of normative individualism as a key aspect of any liberal view of political morality, and one that would be likely to be tested by a theory framed in terms of ‘peoples’. In what follows, I shall take the following argumentative route to establish that the relevant desideratum is met: I shall assume that the main issue connected to the framing of a theory of international toleration in terms of peoples (as opposed to persons), at least when it comes to normative individualism, is that the theory might be seen as giving peoples (as opposed to persons) primary moral standing. I shall also proceed by largely assuming that the most salient place to observe the latter problem resides in a peoples’ right to external self-determination, for it is such right that suggests, more than other kinds of rights that peoples have, that they (peoples) have moral standing as opposed to individuals. Finally, here is a short rider before moving on to the more substantive discussion. Whether satisfying what I portrayed as a ‘sideconstraint’ (i.e. compatibility with normative individualism) in Chapter 3 would actually render a given view of liberal is, needless to say, highly debatable (a convoluted way of saying ‘no’, in case the reader is wondering). Nonetheless, it might give us prima facie reasons to be believe that to attach the label ‘liberal’ to the theory is not inappropriate. And it would allow us to believe the latter to be the case precisely ‘where’, within the theory, we might feel that the tension between its features and a broadly liberal outlook is bound to be at its starkest. Is the theory of international toleration discussed in this book compatible with normative individualism? Providing a satisfactory answer to the latter question would require an in-depth investigation of the relationship between liberalism and groups. And clearly enough, I cannot hope to achieve the latter theoretical goal in what follows. Instead, what I shall try to do is offer, following from David Estlund’s (2014) perceptive discussion of the problem, a sketch of how one can think about the issue. To be upfront, my sense is that the relationship between liberalism and

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groups is a complex one, but one that allows for the rights of groups not to be reducible to the rights of the individuals who belong to such groups, while at the same time no group rights can be said to be justifed in a way that is compatible with liberalism unless they are (appropriately) justifed in light of the relevance that they (i.e. the group rights) have to the individual members of the group in question. To approach the question within a slightly more defned framework, we might ask, frst, what are the central rights that one would be inclined to ascribe to groups. The question could certainly be approached in general terms, for many would be inclined to claim all sorts of rights, moral and legal, on behalf of groups, and groups themselves certainly do just that. Yet, there is a sense in which a group’s right not to be interfered with from the outside is of primary importance, for it is in part through that kind of right that the group in question really becomes able to set its own rules and evolve over time as the kind of group its members want it to be or become. And, in the context of my enquiry, it seems relatively obvious to consider the relevant problem to take the shape of a question concerning the (moral) right of a special class of groups, namely peoples, to external self-determination. That the latter is, or should be, protected by international law is a further question that shall detain us here. It is certainly a right that features prominently in the eight principles of LP and thus a right that peoples, liberal and decent, have as a matter of justice. The second and important step in the argument is to explain the shape that a group’s right to non-interference would have to take in order to be compatible with normative individualism. Following Estlund (2014), we can draw a distinction between two ways in which a political theory might be referred to as normatively individualistic. In one interpretation, it can be so regraded if it believes that individuals, and only individuals, can have non-derivative entitlements. Thus, in this picture, ‘the only sense in which any group or association has rights or duties is when this is only shorthand for certain closely associated rights and duties of the members . . . [and] this gives the groups no nonderivative moral rights or duties’ (2014: 430). In a second interpretation, a theory can be considered normatively individualistic if it holds ‘that political coercion (or authority, or power, and so on) is only morally proper if it can be justifed in terms of reasons that are possessed by each of the individuals that would be subject to that coercion (and so on)’ (Estlund, 2014: 429). The frst meaning of the term is labelled, by Estlund,‘substantive individualism’ and the second ‘justifcatory individualism’ (2014: 430). Clearly enough, there is no relationship of entailment between the two views. More specifcally, for our purposes, there is no requirement for justifcatory individualists to also be substantive individualists: the only requirement that emerges as a matter of defnition, for justifcatory individualists, is that whatever non-derivative rights (and thus specifcally moral rights to non-interference from the outside) a group might claim should be justifed in such a way that it is recognisably addressed to its members. The next question then is: should we adopt justifcatory individualism as the best interpretation of the liberal commitment to normative individualism? My sense is that we should, for justifcatory individualism strikes me as a highly plausible view. While it would certainly be a diffcult task to conclusively prove its

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soundness within the remit of my discussion of toleration, we can portray its prima facie attractiveness in the following way: the view does not give groups ‘nonderivative moral standing’, rather, it gives them ‘nonderivative entitlements’. And, at least intuitively, the point of an individualistic commitment within the liberal tradition seems more closely related to the uniqueness of the moral standing of individuals rather than the uniqueness of their ability to claim rights and duties, moral or otherwise. The next issue to consider is whether justifcatory individualism will be of some use, rather than a hypothetical concern. In order for it to be useful we have to gauge the plausibility that attributing certain (non-derivative) rights and duties to groups is something that can, at least in some cases, and within limits, be justifable to its members. This too, however, seems to be a highly plausible conclusion to draw, for individuals, in most complex modern societies, tend to belong to different kinds of groups (from families, to churches, professional associations, clubs, and, of course, political communities, and so on), and clearly, for most of them, the interests they have in seeing their membership in those groups recognised and protected is substantial. And, as we have seen, one of the key ways in which these interests in membership can be recognised and protected is by shielding these groups, once again, within limits, from outside interference. The problem then is what are those interests and what are those limits. Given the context of our enquiry, these issues can be reformulated in the following way: what kinds of individual interests would be protected by allowing peoples to be ‘externally’ self-determining and what kinds of limits should we impose on such external self-determination for it to be plausible that we could offer a justifcation of such freedom from outside interference to all the citizens of the peoples in question? Perhaps we can be even more specifc, since it might not be diffcult to predict that the real test for this kind of question will come to the surface once we consider the citizens of decent peoples. To see why, note that, within what most would see as reasonable differences, liberal peoples would normally guarantee the rights and liberties familiar to the liberal tradition to their citizens. Thus, at least within the confnes of ideal theory, whatever right to non-interference would be claimed by liberal peoples, this right would be, ex-hypothesis, compatible with the full acknowledgment of all the rights that liberal citizens should have according to a liberal conception of justice. While, clearly, the same cannot be said about decent peoples. So far, I have couched the discussion in terms of freedom from outside interference. That is the standard sense of a moral right to external self-determination. Yet, in order to grasp the relevance of external self-determination, at least from a moral point of view, we are bound to consider its internal dimension (see Cassese, 1995 for a discussion). Internal self-determination (or lack thereof) is usually understood as a characterisation of the relationship between the citizens and their government. It is only by considering that kind of relationship, and the value it can have for the interests of the individual members of a political community, that we might be in a position to determine whether it makes sense to protect external self-determination.

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Put differently, external self-determination is often considered to be an essential element of group autonomy, and yet, group autonomy only makes sense if there is something of value to be shielded from outside interference. And that something of value is usually characterised by an account of internal self-determination, that is, an account of the relationship between a body of citizens and their government and the goods that a specifc way of characterising such a relationship can be said to provide. Thus, to argue in favour of a group’s external self-determination, and to do so in a way that is compatible with justifcatory individualism, is, indirectly, to offer an argument addressed to all citizens of a given polity that internal self-determination is of value to them as citizens individually. Following Charles Beitz, we can say that at least three main goods are served by internal self-determination: The first is strategic: well-functioning, self-determining political communities are more likely than any political form practically available to protect people’s basic interests as the people, themselves, understand them. This is a familiar element of Mill’s argument for representative government, but it applies more widely. We might call the second dimension ‘developmental’. Ordinarily, the only way that political communities can achieve the capabilities required for effective self-government is through a historical process of development. Well-functioning political communities require a range of political capacities among their people, competent state institutions, a certain density of associational life, and fairly wide acceptance of common political norms. Although there may be ways for outside agents to help in all four respects, the nature of these features is that they must develop within a society in ways that are compatible with the larger culture. . . . Finally, selfdetermination has a constitutive significance. People who grow up and live in a culture tend to identify with it, to regard themselves as sharing a common status with others, and to approve of and follow its norms. Their membership in the group comes to be an important part of their self-conception; it shapes their goals and informs their judgments of individual and social good. For this reason people tend to value their identification with the group for its own sake and to experience participation in the group’s public life as an expression of a significant part of their identities. (Beitz, 2009b: 337) I shall largely take for granted that any citizen of any political community, at least to some extent, will have interests that make the goods of internal self-determination (as sketched earlier) important to them. However, if the reader is not fully convinced by Beitz’s specifc account of those goods, there is clearly room for alternative proposals (see especially Margalit and Raz, 1990; Philpott, 1995; Moore, 1997; Stilz, 2016; Wellman, 2005: ch. 3; Lefkowitz, 2008). No matter which account one ‘selects’, it seems relatively plain to me that most of them will have something relevant to say about the contribution that internal self-determination makes to

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a citizen’s life. This is especially the case when it comes to the third, constitutive, element of the signifcance of self-determination as described by Beitz. The issue, then, is what is required of a political regime for us to believe that it is internally self-determining (and thus that the goods of internal self-determination would be available to its citizens). And, clearly, according to Rawls, it does not require fullblown democracy. Rather, as Beitz argues (see the following discussion), Rawls gives us an intermediate version between what he (Beitz) calls a maximalist view of internal self-determination (one which would require democracy), and a minimalist view of internal self-determination (one that would simply require congruence between government action and a people’s cultural, social, and political traditions). This is how Beitz describes this kind of intermediate arrangement illustrated by the Rawlsian idea of a decent consultation hierarchy: The idea now is that a society is self-determining if its political institutions are set up so that outcomes reliably track a widely shared conception of the common good. This might occur in various ways. For example, institutions could provide opportunities for all citizens, perhaps working through associations, to articulate their interests, express political dissent, and require public officials to give an account of their decisions in terms of the shared conception of the common good. This is plainly not democracy because there is no institutional provision for individual citizens to exercise control over outcomes; they can articulate their interests and express dissent, but their institutions do not entitle them to exercise power over legislation or the selection of public officials. Equally plainly, the intermediate interpretation excludes the kind of unaccountable authoritarianism that seems compatible with the minimalist view. Unlike that view, this interpretation imposes a formal condition on a society’s political structure: self-determination is accomplished through an institutional arrangement designed so that people’s participation in the process of government causes decisions to track a widely shared idea of the common good. This could plausibly be described as self-government even though it is not democracy. (Beitz, 2009b: 337–338) How should we interpret this kind of intermediate conception of internal selfdetermination? My sense is that the most productive way to do so is to understand such a conception as an exemplifcation of one particular way of portraying the minimal requirements for genuine (internal) self-government. What is striking, from a broadly liberal perspective, is that such requirements do not include a key range of political rights that one would think to be central to the life of a democratic polity. Thus, clearly, by defning the minimal requirements for self-government in this way, something important is lost, by citizens, in the process. A different way to put these remarks is to say that there is a ‘mismatch’, or a less than perfect overlap, between democracy and self-determination: the goods that can be realised by the latter are clearly provided by the former but do not require it.

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Let us return to the main purpose of our discussion, namely, to ascertain whether the theory of international toleration defended in this book can be portrayed as compatible with normative individualism. Recall that the interpretation of normative individualism I have adopted was, following Estlund (2014), labelled justifcatory individualism. The main requirement that gives shape to the justifcatory individualist position is that the non-derivative rights and duties ascribed to groups should be justifed to the individuals who are members of those groups. Note, furthermore, that it is important to draw an additional distinction. There are two ways to interpret the justifcatory individualist position itself. One would require the justifcatory exercise to be successful, that is, that the justifcation for the ascription of a given right to a group (in our scenario, a moral right to noninterference from the outside) be a good or successful one, all things considered, for it to be a genuine instance of a group right compatible with justifcatory individualism. A second interpretation would be more modest and would require that the ascription of a right to a group, once again a right to non-interference from the outside, is compatible with justifcatory individualism, even if not successful, if it is a genuine or plausible attempt to justify the right to the individual members of the group. Call the frst the ‘success interpretation’ and the second the ‘plausible attempt’ interpretation. Given these additional elements of the framework I have just introduced, how shall we portray the right to external self-determination ascribed to decent peoples? The basic idea, in light of my brief discussion of Beitz’s comments, is that we can ask two kinds of questions. The frst is: is the group right to external self-determination compatible with the plausible attempt interpretation? This is a question pertaining to whether the discussion of (external) self-determination in LP is congruent with the plausible attempt interpretation. And my sense is that it certainly is, for if we take for granted that citizens of a decent people have signifcant interests in ‘internal’ self-determination, as outlined earlier, then it is plausible that they might be inclined to accept some costs (i.e. the loss of some political rights compared to a liberal democratic polity) in order to ascribe the right of ‘external’ self-determination to their group (as it is the right to external self-determination that, as we have seen previously, protects their ability to be internally self-determining and thus enjoy its associated goods). Note also that I have just used the expression ‘accept some cost’ in the last sentence. However, as I shall discuss in the Conclusion of this book, whether it makes sense to portray the citizens of decent people as incurring a ‘cost’ is debatable. The second question we can ask is: is the loss of political rights implicit in the intermediate view of internal self-determination something that we should expect to be reasonably acceptable to the citizens of decent peoples in light of the goods that internal self-determination might achieve for them? This would allow us to claim that the success interpretation of the justifcatory requirement is met. The answer to this second question is much less obvious and subject to reasonable differences pertaining to how we judge the relative weight of the relevant interests in play.

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What can we conclude from this kind of discussion? My view is that the plausible attempt at interpretation is the best interpretation of the justifcatory individualist position. And this is the case because, at its heart the justifcatory liberal account of normative individualism is geared to refect a concern for individuals, not the success of establishing a given group entitlement. Provided that the attempt to justify the group entitlement to individuals is plausible, and it certainly is in the case I have just discussed, then there is at the very least a strong sense that the view of self-determination in LP, that is, the ascription of external self-determination to peoples, both liberal and decent, can be re-described as compatible with normative individualism. Clearly enough, my discussion has been self-consciously sketchy. At the very least, however, I hope to have established a framework for the plausibility of my contention that the central aspects of the theory of international toleration discussed in this book are not premised on some form of value-collectivism and thus that, insofar as normative individualism is concerned, the theory does not seem to, prima facie, fail to display liberal credentials related to the ultimate signifcance of the moral standing of individuals.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have undertaken three main tasks. I have tried to show that the central elements of the partition model as developed in Chapter 2 can, subject to specifc constraints, be generalised. Second, I have tried to show how to apply this more general version of the model to the relevant political domain, that is, to an international society of peoples. Finally, I have tried to demonstrate that the overall shape of the theory developed over the course of the book meets some specifc desiderata, as these were outlined in Chapter 3.

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Cohen, J.L. (2012), Globalization and Sovereignty: Rethinking Legality, Legitimacy, and Constitutionalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Eberle, C. (2002), Religious Conviction in Liberal Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Estlund, D. (2014), “Liberal Associationism and the Rights of States”, Social Philosophy and Policy, 30 (1–2), 425–449. Ferrara, A. (2004), “Public Reason and the Normativity of the Reasonable”, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 30 (5–6), 579–596. Ferrara, A. (2019), “Most Reasonable for Humanity: Legitimation beyond the State”, Jus Cogens, 1 (1), 1–19. Forst, R. (2013), Toleration in Confict: Past and Present, trans. Cronin, C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Forst, R. (2017), “Toleration”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/toleration/ [accessed 7 January 2020]. Freeman, S. (2007), Rawls. London: Routledge. Galeotti, A.E. (1993), “Citizenship and Equality: The Place for Toleration”, Political Theory, 21 (1), 585–605. Gaus, G. (1996), Justifcatory Liberalism: An Essay on Epistemology and Political Theory, Oxford Political Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Green, L. (2008), “On Being Tolerated”, in Colborn, B., Grant, C. & Kramer, M. (eds.), The Legacy of HLA Hart: Legal, Political, and Moral Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. James, A. (2005), “Constructing Justice for Existing Practice: Rawls and the Status Quo”, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 33 (3), 281–316. Larmore, C. (1996), The Morals of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lefkowitz, D. (2008), “Secession, Nonintervention, and Democratic Governance”, Journal of Social Philosophy, 39 (4), 492–511. Lefkowitz, D. (2008), On the Foundation of Rights to Political Self-Determination: Secession, Non-Intervention, and Democratic Governance. Journal of Social Philosophy, 39 (4), 492–511. List, C. & Pettit, P. (2011), Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents. New York: Oxford University Press. Macedo, S. (1990), “The Politics of Justifcation”, Political Theory, 18 (2), 280–304. Maffettone, P. (2017), A Realistic Utopia: Global Justice and Public Justifcation. Rome: LUISS University Press. Margalit, A. & Raz, J. (1990), “National Self-Determination”, The Journal of Philosophy, 87 (9), 439–461. McKinnon, C. (2006), Toleration: A Critical Introduction. London: Routledge, 232. McKinnon, C. (2013), “Vertical Toleration as a Liberal Ideal”, Social Theory and Practice, 39 (1), 1–18. Moore, M. (1997), “On National Self-Determination”, Political Studies, 45 (5), 900–913. Peters, A. (2009), “The Merits of Global Constitutionalism”, Indiana Journal of Global Studies, 16 (2), 397–411. Philpott, D. (1995), “In Defense of Self-Determination”, Ethics, 105 (2), 352–385. Porter, T. (2012), “Rawls, Reasonableness, and International Toleration”, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 11 (4), 382–414. Quong, J. (2010), Liberalism without Perfection. New York: Oxford University Press. Quong, J. (2018), “Public Reason”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford. edu/entries/public-reason/ [accessed 7 January 2020]. Rawls, J. (1996), Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.

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CONCLUSION The diffculty of international toleration

In this book, I have presented what I take to be a compelling account of international toleration from a broadly political liberal perspective. I shall not, in this Conclusion, rehearse the details of my argument. Instead, I shall ask (and hopefully make some progress in answering) a different kind of question, namely, whether we can be, on due refection,‘reconciled’ with the kind of international society that the theory envisages, and, more specifcally, the extent of political pluralism it would require us to accept. I believe that the latter is an important question to ask, for, in many respects, it concludes the process of (broadly speaking) refective equilibrium that was started in the introduction to this volume. The Introduction offered a mix of intuitions and considered convictions about the relevance and standing of both liberalism and international political pluralism. The fve chapters that followed provided the reader with substantive arguments that underpinned, made sense of, and systematised these intuitions and considered convictions. Yet, our refection, even if purely theoretical, as the one I have offered in the preceding pages certainly is, would be missing an important element if we did not ask ourselves the extent to which we can accept its outcomes, all things considered. Much like my remarks in the Introduction, I doubt that the latter kind of exercise can be supported by what are considered to be, at least given the standards of the profession, fully formed arguments. Judgments about the overall acceptability of a given set of conclusions are likely to be, as the expression suggests, a matter of judgment. Nonetheless, as I have already said, the question is important, and its answer need not refect a purely irrational predicament. In order to make the question slightly more specifc, I shall say a bit more about the idea of reconciliation. And, given the topic, it seems natural to start with Hegel (here I closely follow Held and Maffettone, 2019). According to Hegel’s political theodicy (see Hardimon, 1994), human beings are often alienated from their social contexts, and political philosophy may work to provide them with the tools

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to assuage their subjective sense of alienation. Alienation from one’s social world can, however, also be objective insofar as basic social and political arrangements are inhospitable to persons’ sense of being at home in the social world. Ultimately, Hegel thought that we could be reconciled, both subjectively and objectively, to modern political institutions, notwithstanding their obvious faults, and the evils, such as war and especially poverty, that they allowed to occur. Yet such reconciliation is not to be confused with a sense of full acceptance. Reconciliation, at least in Hegel’s sense, contains both an element of affrmation and a deep sense of melancholy. Being reconciled to one’s social world does not require the construction of a rosy picture of basic political arrangements, and it is certainly not premised on forgetting some of the aforementioned evils that these arrangements allow. Given this admittedly brief account of reconciliation, the relationship between the latter and toleration may gain some traction. For, much like reconciliation, toleration is premised on the existence of what we might be inclined, at least in some respect, to prefer not to be case. Our acceptance of what we tolerate might have different degrees of frustration built within it, depending on the specifc conception of toleration we have in mind, and yet, it would still require of us some form of restraint in light of things of which we might disapprove. In contrast to Hegel’s specifc account of the evils of modernity, and at least when we place ourselves in the context of ideal theory, a tolerant international order would be one that does not feature absolute poverty and war. Yet, there is a clear sense in which it would certainly involve, for those of a liberal persuasion, some kind of loss. The point, then, is to ask ourselves what such loss really is, and what we might get in return for accepting it. Put differently, following Thomas Scanlon, we can say that toleration ‘involves costs and dangers for all of us, but it is nonetheless an attitude that we all have reason to value’ (Scanlon, 2003: 188). Thus, what seems relevant to judge our predicament is to have a sense of the costs and dangers that international toleration involves and of why we might have reason to value it, these costs and dangers notwithstanding (see also Scheffer, 2012: ch. 12). Why, then, should we value international toleration? I think that the answer must be twofold, for we need to consider the value (and dangers) of international toleration for both peoples and persons. Let us start from the idea that peoples, as moral collective agents, have reason to value the kind of international society that is portrayed in this book. Once again, it is instructive to refer to Scanlon’s work, for, while his answer to the question ‘why value toleration?’ is addressed to the internal political life of a liberal polity, the basic intuition can, in my view, be extended to international political life. According to Scanlon: The answer lies . . . in the relation with one’s fellow citizens that tolerance makes possible. It is easy to see that a tolerant person and an intolerant one have different attitudes toward those in society with whom they disagree. The tolerant person’s attitude is this: ‘Even though we disagree, they are as fully members of society as I am. They are as entitled as I am to the protections of the law, as entitled as I am to live as they choose to live. In addition (and

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this is the hard part) neither their way of living nor mine is uniquely the way of our society. These are merely two among the potentially many different outlooks that our society can include, each of which is equally entitled to be expressed in living as one mode of life that others can adopt. If one view is at any moment numerically or culturally predominant, this should be determined by, and dependent on, the accumulated choices of individual members of the society at large’. (Scanlon, 2003: 192) Can we make sense of this kind of view in international politics? Those of a liberal persuasion might initially balk at the idea that we need to accept (some) nonliberal and non-democratic peoples as members in good standing of international society. Yet, the point here is not to argue for that conclusion, something I have done at some length over the course of the book itself, but to ask what would follow from so doing and whether it would be of some substantial value. And, I think, the answer is clearly yes. Scanlon adds that intolerance involves a sense of alienation form one’s fellow citizens (2003: 193–194). Thus, a tolerant international society would be one in which liberal and decent peoples are not alienated from one another. The expressive value of this kind of achievement should, I believe, count for something. Yet, I think that we should not limit ourselves to noting its expressive value, important as that might certainly be even between moral collective agents. We should also note the potential implications that such kinds of relationships could plausibly have. A society of peoples that are not alienated form one another would be a society where mutual respect is possible, required, and often practised. The value of the form of international cooperation that this kind of trust and mutual respect would allow is hard to discount. According to Rawls, that kind of international society would be rid of some the ‘great evils’ of human history, including imperialism, war, and the relentless struggle for power between purely rational states. Perhaps that is too optimistic a picture. Yet, it would not be implausible to believe that the trust that would be generated by the practice of mutual respect would allow for more collaborative work to solve some of the important collective action problems we face in a globalised world. These are, especially when it comes to the more practical outcomes I just mentioned, conjectures, not arguments backed by empirical evidence. Nonetheless, to the extent that mutual respect and trust have intrinsic value and that social capital is important for the good functioning of any society, we can imagine these conjectures to be reasonable if not necessarily correct. However, the value of international toleration, as I suggested earlier, and especially for those of a liberal persuasion, needs to be portrayed as a two-level problem. We can accept that there is some value in a tolerant international society when it comes to ‘peoples’, but what can be said about the fate of persons in that kind of society? And it is by asking that question that we can, in my view, really capture the kind of ‘danger’ or ‘loss’ that is involved in tolerating some nonliberal and nondemocratic ways of organising political institutions. The loss involved, from a liberal

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perspective, is relatively easy to see. In the world that the theory allows us to imagine there will be persons who will not beneft from the protection of the rights and liberties that are familiar from the liberal constitutional tradition. What is more, the theory asks us to accept this kind of outcome not as a compromise with the inevitable evils that real (political) life often involves but as a theoretical outgrowth of our own (political) liberal commitments. Some will inevitably complain that the latter is a clear form of betrayal of our deepest moral convictions. At best, they will insist, we are sacrifcing individual rights in decent peoples at the altar of international peace in an effort to look for some kind of compromise with the broken world that we inhabit. Michael Blake’s words illustrate this issue in a wonderfully clear way: In extending the idea of toleration to illiberal states, the liberal states are being called upon to regard coercive states as having a right to govern individual persons in a manner that could not be justified to such persons conceived of as free and equal. This, I think, represents an abandonment of the moral universalism at the heart of liberalism’s appeal. (2013: 61) This is a powerful intuition. I have tried to offer a theoretical basis to counter it in the book, and, furthermore, I have tried to address this specifc issue more directly in the last part of Chapter 5. Here, instead, I want to try to offer a different perspective. That is, I want to explain why, my liberal commitments notwithstanding, I have a slightly different kind of reaction compared to Blake’s. Much will hang, in my view, in the way we conceive of persons and their interests. And, more specifcally, it will hang on the kind of balance we feel we can (morally speaking) strike between how such a conception and interests ought to be understood and how they are understood by real persons (see also Kuakathas, 2003: ch. 1; Miller, 2005; Scheffer, 2012: ch. 11). To see why, allow me a very short detour. One of the longstanding disputes within contemporary political philosophy towards the end of the 20th century concerned the so-called liberal-communitarian debate (see Mulhall and Swift, 1992). At its heart, and leaving aside its great level of sophistication, the debate was animated by a cleavage about the human experience. Liberals were often accused of an atomistic view of the person, one in which we can simply detach them from some of their deepest commitments, including those linked to membership in certain groups. Communitarians were, rather predictably, accused of the opposite ‘crime’, namely, to conceive of society in an exceedingly holistic fashion, and, in the process, allowing individuals to dissolve within, or become prisoners of, their group traditions and norms. I am formulating these respective j’accuse very crudely, and clearly reading some of the classics within both approaches (i.e. liberal and communitarian), such as Rawls and Walzer or Miller, for example, the overall picture becomes much more complex. Yet, the question we can reasonably ask is the extent to which these two extremes do indeed capture something signifcant, and relatedly, whether it can make sense to offer some kind of compromise between them.

170 Conclusion

And my intuition is that they do, and thus, that we should. For the human experience is both permeated by the signifcance of our membership in different kinds of associations and by our desire to individually and critically refect upon such affliations. In addition, any compromise would also have to recognise that not all forms of membership can have the same kind of relevance. At least, they don’t if we adopt a public perspective and ask questions about the legitimacy of the exercise of political power by some over others or about how to organise our basic social, economic, and political institutions. A potential way forward, thus, requires two kinds of moves. The frst is to give some primacy to a political community, a kind of primus inter pares, insofar as a specifc set of questions are concerned, among the many group affliations that persons have. The second is to try to balance the rights and entitlements that individuals require in order to critically refect on their political affliation with a given political community and the fact that such a political community is presumed to be the source of meaning, attachment, purpose, and, ultimately, of an important (though, of course, limited) aspect of their identity. In this picture, an important question, or rather, the kind of question that it would be more relevant to ask in light of my remarks, is not so much what liberals (or perhaps, more accurately, liberalism) would lose in a world in which some nonliberal and non-democratic political communities are accepted as members in good standing of international society. Rather, the question we should ask is the extent to which the acceptance of this limited form of international political pluralism is compatible with a plausible account of the person and of her interests. Put differently, the question is one that concerns whether the citizens of a decent society themselves, as individuals with a strong interest in their political affliation would be prepared to accept a lesser set of individual guarantees and protections compared to the ones that would normally be attached to liberal citizenship. Needless to say, exactly at what level the bar should be set for this kind of trade-off to be morally acceptable, all things considered, is not something that can be settled once and for all or conclusively, and one may legitimately disagree with the specifc suggestions developed in this book. Yet, there is, at least on my part, a clear sense in which the answer cannot be a simple one. There is nothing morally implausible about a society in which there is, ex hypothesis, a widely shared conviction that collective political identity is worth preserving at the cost of some (necessarily limited) loss of individual rights compared to a full package that is ideally in place in a liberal political community. Indeed, to portray the latter as a ‘loss’ to those citizens might itself presuppose that we partially disregard their phenomenological appraisal of what their own interests really are. That is in some sense clearly correct, for most would concede that what is valued and what is valuable are not one and the same. And yet, it should be clear that the loss involved can be defned as such only if we adopt a perspective that might not be the one that those who are said to incur the loss would want to adopt, namely, one in which their interests are not conceived of in line with the ones that they themselves believe they have. I mention this point in passing and without any pretence at discussing it in greater detail. The reason for doing so is, however,

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important, because a different way to portray the ideal of a decent people is to transpose what I referred to in the last part of Chapter 5 as the mismatch between the goods of internal self-determination and democratic forms of governance. Mutatis mutandis, I am inclined to think that something similar applies here. The citizens of a decent people pose a complex problem to liberals precisely because their own conception of the common good, embodied or tracked by their own government and institutions, is clearly responsive (this is a normative requirement, not a descriptive one) to their own appraisal of their interests. However, such an appraisal seems to be in contrast with what, as liberals, we might be inclined to believe is the best way to protect persons’ real interests in a more objective sense of the term (i.e. the rights of liberal democratic citizenship). No matter how we feel, philosophically speaking, about the issue, I am inclined to believe that no ‘tidy’ solution to this kind of tension would be plausible, and, as a result, that the line of compromise I have briefy tried to canvass recommends itself as far from implausible. To set the bar at what we do not fnd to be morally implausible may strike some as both vague and underwhelming. In light of my discussion, then, I can state my considered conviction on the matter as follows. While there is a clear sense in which a world where the liberal rights of all are protected is what we should hope for, I do not fnd a world in which we are not morally permitted (for principled reasons, and in a limited range of cases) to use political power to realise such a hope to be one with which I cannot be reconciled.

Bibliography Blake, M. (2013), Justice and Foreign Policy. New York: Oxford University Press. Hardimon, M.O. (1994), Hegel’s Social Philosophy: The Project of Reconciliation, Modern European Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Held, D. & Maffettone, P. (2019), “Prolegomena to a Critical Theory of the Global Order”, Ethics & Global Politics, DOI: 10.1080/16544951.2019.1668198 Kuakathas, C. (2003), The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Miller, D. (2005), “Reasonable Partiality towards Compatriots”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 8, 63–81. Mulhall, S. & Swift, A. (1992), Liberals and Communitarians. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Scanlon, T.M. (2003), The Diffculty of Tolerance: Essays in Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scheffer, S. (2012), Equality and Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press.

INDEX

acceptability 136–138, 155; see also reasonable acceptability alienation 167, 168 Alvarez, M. 44, 45, 62 attitude 18, 20, 33–34, 43, 138, 155, 167 balancing model 32–33, 36, 46, 72 Beitz, C. 160–162 Bellamy, R. 123–124 Blake, M. 7, 8, 9, 119, 169 Boettcher, J. 63–64 Brown, W. 155–156 Buchanan, A. 80–81, 82 burdens of judgment 58–60, 137, 142, 149 cancelling conditions 49, 65 civil model 123 Cohen, A.J. 10, 16, 20, 22, 71; on interference 23; on tolerating agents 25 collective agents 24, 69, 77, 86, 94–95, 149; see also moral collective agents collective self-determination 100, 117, 155; see also self-determination conception of justice: domestic 118, 147; international 120, 124, 151; see also liberal conception of justice; political conception of justice conflict of reasons 45–47, 51, 64 constitutional identities 122 coordinated social interaction 111 corporate moral agents 110–111; see also moral agents cosmopolitans 2

criteria of decency 11, 99, 100, 101–103, 112; overlapping consensus and 107–108; scope of international toleration in LP and 108–115 cultural differences 150 cultural identity 120, 122 Dancy, J. 43 decency see criteria of decency decent peoples 100–101; decent hierarchical peoples 104, 153; perspective of 95; see also criteria of decency democratic participation 103 DIN (decency is necessary) 102–103; see also criteria of decency DIS (decency is sufficient) 102–103; see also criteria of decency dissent 111, 161 diversity 16, 20, 71–72, 91, 92; aesthetic 18; political 3–4, 6–8, 155; religious 21, 28; social 18 domestic conceptions of justice 118, 147; see also conception of justice domestic political society 11, 113, 130– 131, 134, 142, 149; see also political communities Dworkinian idea of constructive interpretation 144 economic governance 82 egalitarian principles 2, 117 Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Hegel) 120

Index

endorsement 10, 18–19, 101, 155 endurance 10, 16, 19, 25, 26, 114 equality 4, 7, 18, 37, 53, 91, 131, 133, 142, 153 Estlund, D. 157, 158 ethics: ethical beliefs 35, 70; ethical significance of nationality 79; and morality 35, 43, 136 ethnicity 122 ethnocentrism 155 exclusionary reasons 47–49, 55, 65 external self-determination 79, 159–160, 162–163; see also self-determination Ferrara, A. 137 first-order reasons 47–49, 53, 65, 66 Forst, R. 10, 70–71; distinction between ethical and moral norms and principles 91 freedom 144, 159; and equality 37, 53, 131, 133, 142, 153; of expression, constitutional provision in United States and Germany 124; religious 18 Gardner, P. 21 Gaus, G. 136 general version of the liberal principle of legitimacy (GLPL) 132–135, 141–142, 151–152, 154 global constitutionalism 134–135 global governance 81–82, 134 group agent 24, 84–86, 109 group autonomy 160 Hardimon, M. 63 Hartney, M. 89 Hegel, F. 166–167; Elements of the Philosophy of Right 120 Heuer, U. 52–53 Heyd, D. 72 Hobbes, T. 114–115, 122 human rights 81, 99; Rawls on 117–118; respecting 103 identity of a people 120 indifference 10, 16, 18 individualism: justificatory 158–160; normative 89–90, 157–158, 162–163; substantive 158 individual rights 4, 119, 121, 155, 169, 170; see also human rights integrity 11, 33–34, 76, 93–96, 145, 152–153 interference 10, 16–17, 22–23, 87–88, 100, 143, 159–160; power condition and 25–30

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internal self-determination 154, 160–161; see also self-determination international agency 78–80, 79–80, 84, 88 international conception of justice 120, 124, 151; see also conception of justice international legal scholarship 134 international legal system 78 internationally reasonable peoples 142 international political pluralism 1, 3–7, 9, 166, 170; see also political pluralism international public reasons 118, 145, 154; see also public reason international society 1, 5, 11, 12, 24, 32, 75, 79–81, 95, 98–100, 107, 114, 129, 134–136, 141–152, 155, 168, 170 international toleration: desiderata for liberal theory of 88–96; intuitive appeal 1–4; meaning 75–83; reconstruction of theory of international toleration, desiderata 152–163; subjects, objects, and further distinctions 83–88; see also liberal theory of international toleration, reconstructing; LP’s (The Law of Peoples) ideal theory; toleration international toleration, liberal theory of 4–9, 98–125; introduction 98–100; policies and decisions as object of 83–88; structure of Rawlsian theory 100–102; see also criteria of decency; international toleration in LP (The Law of Peoples) international toleration in LP (The Law of Peoples): constitutions and fit 119–125; liberal peoples and principles of LP 115– 119; scope 108–115; structure 102–108 ‘international version of the liberal principle of legitimacy’ (ILPL) 141–143, 145, 150–151 intolerance 70, 146–147, 156, 168; moral 104–105 intrinsic value of nationality 78–79 intuition 2–4, 17, 19, 26, 31–32, 72, 87, 94, 116, 152, 155, 166–167, 169–170 Jones, P. 42, 50; on political liberalism 62; on second-order reasons 50–51 justice see conception of justice; liberal conception of justice; political conception of justice Justice as Fairness 63 Justice & Foreign Policy (Blake) 7 justificatory individualism 158–160, 162–163 kinship 122 Korsgaard, C. 63

174 Index

Laborde, C. 122 labour model 71, 145 Law of Peoples, The (Rawls) 76, 80; see also LP’s (The Law of Peoples) ideal theory legitimacy: general principle 54; liberal principle 55, 58, 71–72 legitimation 121–123 liberal citizenship 102, 170 liberal conception of justice 52–53, 66, 70, 106–107, 115, 129, 150; liberal conception of international justice 99, 107–109, 115–117, 123, 145–147, 150; liberal political conception of international justice 145–148; liberal political conception of justice 117, 129–131, 135–136, 143–145; liberal theory of international justice 119; see also conception of justice liberal constitutionalism 119–120 liberal democratic citizenship 63, 143, 171 liberal democratic constitution 118, 124 liberal democratic institutions 116 liberal methodological principle (LMP) 146–147 liberal morality 5–6; liberal political morality 4, 15, 113–114, 157 liberal persuasion 167–168 liberal political communities 135, 148, 170; democratic 51, 111, 115, 137 liberal principle of legitimacy 132–135, 141–142; acceptance of 10, 42, 55, 57–60, 68, 71–72; domain-sensitivity of public reasons 135–141; generalising 129–135; Rawls on 51, 129–130 liberal theory of international toleration, reconstructing 128–163; domainsensitivity of public reasons 135–141; generalising liberal principle of legitimacy 129–135; meeting desiderata 152–163; partition model and toleration in law of peoples 141–152 liberal toleration 4–7, 41, 42, 57, 58, 65, 69–72, 75, 146 LP’s (The Law of Peoples) ideal theory: constitutions and fit 119–125; liberal peoples and principles of 115–119; scope of international toleration in 108–115; structure of international toleration in 102–108; structure of Rawlsian theory 100–102 Malanczuk, P. 77–78 McKinnon, C. 138 Michelman, F. 120–121

Mill, J.S. 80, 160 Miller, D. 78, 169 moral agents: corporate 110–111; people as 80, 86, 111 moral collective agents 11, 76, 83–84, 86–88, 109–113, 111–112, 138, 141–142, 145, 167–168; see also collective agents moral commitments 7, 94, 95, 153 moral convictions 113, 169 moral intolerance 104–105; see also intolerance morality/moral values 121, 132, 156; ethics and 35, 43, 136; expression of 121; implementing 122; liberal 5–6; liberal political 4, 15, 113–114, 157; public 121 moral motivation 60 moral reasoning 121; moral normative reasons 31, 41, 44–47, 62–63, 69 moral rights 79–80, 158–159; see also human rights moral toleration 21–22; see also moral intolerance moral universalism 169 motivating reasons 43, 106 mutual respect 11, 28, 64, 69, 76, 92–96, 152, 153, 154, 168 mutual trust 113–114 national identities 79, 122 nationality, intrinsic value of 78–80 nonderivative moral standing 159; see also morality/moral values non-derivative rights 158, 159, 162 nonliberal societies 8, 92–93, 118, 155; LP’s ideal theory applied to 100–102 non-public reason 12, 22, 42, 51, 55, 62, 128–129, 135–136, 141, 145; see also public reason normal justification condition 48–49 normative individualism 89–90, 157–158, 162–163 normative reasons 31, 41–47, 62–63, 69 normative theory of toleration 43, 91; international toleration 77 overlapping consensus (OC) 59, 61, 72, 101–108, 115; partition model and idea of 65–69; structure of international toleration in LP 102–108 partition model 43–69, 90–91; and idea of an overlapping consensus 65–69; introduction 41–42; justice and legitimacy 50–61; practical reasons 43–50;

Index

and problem of stability 61–65; and toleration in law of peoples 141–152 people: as moral agents 80, 86, 111; as object of international toleration 83–88; see also moral agents personal identity 87 persuasion, rational 22–23 Peters, A. 134 Pettit, P. 84–85, 112 pluralism 132; reasonable 5, 122, 132, 136–137, 146, 148–152; see also political pluralism political communities 8, 24, 85–86, 99, 106, 108–112, 115, 124, 148, 159, 170; liberal democratic 51–52, 135, 148; pluralistic 70; self-governing bounded 11, 76, 83, 88, 141; well-functioning 160 political conception of justice 28–29, 53– 56, 59, 61, 62, 66, 68, 71, 72, 139–145; see also conception of justice; liberal conception of justice political decision-making 50, 51 political diversity 3–4, 6–8, 155; see also diversity political liberal citizens 129 Political Liberalism (Rawls) 50–52, 61–63, 66, 114, 118 political liberalism and partition model 41–72; introduction 41–42; toleration and 69–72; see partition model political morality 71, 157; liberal 4, 15, 113–114, 157 political participation 99, 103–105 political pluralism 1, 6, 12, 148, 166; international 1, 3–7, 9, 166, 170; see also pluralism political power 5, 10, 36, 51–56, 61, 66, 68, 71–72, 106, 121–122, 129–130, 132–133, 141–142, 145–152, 156, 170 political rights 161–162 political terrorism 119 Porter, T. 146–147 power condition 10, 17, 41, 87–88, 156; and interference 25–30 practical reasoning 9, 31, 42, 43, 50, 148 Practical Reasons and Norms (Raz) 42 public deliberation 131 public justificatory requirement 54 public morality 121; see also morality/moral values public political culture 52, 55, 100, 137, 139–140, 143–144 public reason 12, 42, 50–51, 56–57, 63–64, 145, 157; domain-sensitivity of 135–141;

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international 118, 145, 154; lack of 146; of liberal democratic polity, domestic 117–118;‘limited conception’ of justice and 59; requirement of 22, 64; social and political institutions’ organization and 36; see also non-public reason Quong, J. 137, 146, 148–150 Rawls, J. 169; on basic liberties 118–119; on burden of judgment 59; on decent peoples 146; definition of well-ordered political society 105–106; description of Kazanistan 108–109; framework of liberal political society 132; on human rights 117–118; idea of decent consultation hierarchy 161; The Law of Peoples 76, 80, 144; liberal principle of legitimacy as stated by 130; model of theory construction 116; people as moral agents 80; political conception of justice 139; Political Liberalism 50–52, 61–63, 66, 114, 118; on principle of legitimacy 57; Rawlsian theory, structure of 100–101; on reasonable person’s commitment 58; A Theory of Justice 65–67, 118; see also LP’s (The Law of Peoples) ideal theory Raz, J. 47; definition of exclusionary reasons 48; normal justification condition by 48–49; on second-order reasons 50, 56 reasonable acceptability 5, 35–36, 51, 115, 129, 131–133, 135–138, 140–141, 143, 162 reasonable agents 137–138, 141, 146 reasonableness 57–58, 70, 142, 148 reasonable persons 57–59, 62, 71, 136–138 reasonable pluralism 5, 122, 132, 136–137, 146, 148–152, 149–151; see also pluralism reasons for actions 43 reciprocity-based internationalism 81 reconciliation 80, 166–167 Reidy, D. 110–112 religious doctrines 156 respect, mutual 11, 28, 64, 69, 76, 92–96, 152, 153, 154, 168 right to non-interference 158, 159, 162; see also interference Rodrik, D. 81–82 role-based framework 63–64; role-based reasons 64; role-derived reasons 67; role-related reasons 65 Sangiovanni, A. 81–82 Scanlon, Thomas 52, 167–168

176 Index

Scanlon, Tim 43–44, 93 second-order reasons 47–52, 66; negative 10, 47, 55–56, 145 self-conception 160 self-determination 82, 85, 116, 118, 124–125, 143, 157–158; collective 100, 117, 155; external 79, 159–160, 162–163; internal 154, 160–161 self-governing political communities 11, 76, 83, 88, 141 Smith, A. 16 social capital 168 social practices and toleration 24 social roles 62–63, 72 Sources of Normativity, The (Korsgaard) 63 stability, problem of, and partition model 61–65; see also partition model substantive individualism 158 Tan, K.C. 7, 8, 9 Theory of Justice, A (Rawls) 65–67, 118 tolerating agents 19, 21, 24–25 toleration: conceptual analysis 17–19; defined 19–25; opposition and

restraint 30–38; overview 15–17; and political liberalism 69–72; power condition and interference 25–30; see also international toleration; liberal theory of international toleration, reconstructing Toleration, Diversity and Global Justice (Tan) 7 transnational economic processes 82 unreasonable citizens 146, 148–149 Vallier, K. 136–137 value collectivism 89, 163 very general formulation of the liberal principle of legitimacy (VGLPL) 133 von Goethe, J.W. 155 Walzer, M. 169 Weithman, P. 122 well-functioning political communities 160; see also political communities well-orderedness 11, 85, 105–106 Wenar, L. 58–60, 130–131