On the Epistemological Justification of Pluralism and Tolerance.

There is no lack of praise for pluralism and tolerance. l That a society is pluralistic in character and that its laws secure the rights of minorities is usually recognized as a sign of maturity and civilization. In individuals, tolerance is seen as a virtue and a sign of education. In general, tolerance and pluralism are seen as steps towards a more humane world. However justified the praise might be, praise alone is not sufficient. Some groups implicitly or explicitly fight tolerance. The extreme right in Western Europe is a case at hand. It justifies its intolerance towards the political left, towards immigrants, and often also towards those who do not live according to the traditional western values, by referring to a supposedly high-spirited goal: safeguarding the western culture. A different, and less easily dismissed, threat towards tolerance derives from the confrontation of the western culture with other cultures. The deco~onization period (and the fight against neo-colonialism) extended, at a factual level, pluralism and tolerance towards other cultures the intra-cultural was upgraded to something inter-cultural; 'primitive' cultures were upgraded to 'other' cultures. But some forms of pluralism and tolerance, considered as common attainments in the west, do not agree with some of these other cultures. Do tolerance and pluralism compel us to respect the relevant cultural traits, or do they require us to fight them? Remark that the problem does not only pertain to cultures in