Abstract

This work examines some of the grounds that are commonly used to justify tolerance, evaluating them in terms of both their scope and limits. The grounds of justification fall within three major categories: epistemological arguments, arguments about the proper role of the state and varieties of pluralism. Throughout the work, the controversy surrounding Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, is used to evaluate the scope of those justifications and the limits they place upon tolerance. Discussion of the Satanic Verses controversy is most thorough in the first chapter. Epistemological justifications include skepticism, relativism and the marketplace of ideas; public/private justifications include both Locke's claim that religious matters are not the proper concern of the state and Mill's self-regarding/other-regarding distinction; pluralist justifications include competing theories of multiculturalism and the older understandings they seek to replace. The conclusion is a critical examination of the limits of the methodology used in this work, as a summary of the kind of guidance each justification can provide to the Rushdie case.