Toleration: Conflict Resolution Method in Pluralist Societies or a Tool of Discrimination?

The article is an extended argument for a positive conception of toleration. First, it examines and ultimately rejects reductive interpretations of toleration proposed by David Heyd and Wendy Brown that stem from deflationary and deconstructive readings respectively. It is argued that deconstructive reading is not satisfactory because it perpetuates and amplifies rather than solves paradoxes of toleration, whereas Heyd’s reading does not recognise the importance of toleration for political processes. The author advocates a normative conception of toleration proposed by Rainer Forst, instead. Such a regime of toleration is based on the right to justification in which everyone affected should participate in delineating its limits as free and equal citizens. This conception not only solves the paradoxes of toleration but also does justice to its political importance.