- Title
- John Locke and Religious Toleration
- Creator
- Tate, John William
- Relation
- The Palgrave Handbook of Toleration p. 1023-1076
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42121-2_43
- Publisher
- Springer Nature
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- This chapter focuses on the distinct arguments that John Locke advanced to justify toleration of the religious liberties of individuals, not least outward liberty of religious expression, where such toleration was to be engaged in by English state authorities. We shall see that these arguments for toleration were premised on either normative or pragmatic considerations. The chapter shall also investigate the limits that Locke sought to impose on such toleration, where such limits distinguished between those whose outward religious liberties ought to be permitted and those whose outward liberties, in specific circumstances and for specific reasons, ought to be proscribed. Locke was careful to ensure that the justifications he advanced for these limits on religious toleration were distinctly non-religious in nature, centered on “civil” concerns and interests (such as civil peace and state security) that all within society could conceivably endorse irrespective of their religious convictions. This was because Locke was fully aware of the divisions and upheavals that religious differences could produce within the England of his time, and he was therefore eager to provide a basis for civil and political coexistence, between those of rival faiths, which did not depend on the endorsement of any specific religious convictions.
- Subject
- toleration; individual rights; consent; legitimacy; obligation; natural law
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1485938
- Identifier
- uon:51725
- Identifier
- ISBN:97830304212053030421201
- Language
- eng
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