ABSTRACT
In chapter 1 I laid out six structural features of toleration, on which contemporary theorists are agreed. These are: (1) difference, (2) importance, (3) opposition, (4) power, (5) non-rejection, and (6) requirement. When a situation is characterised by (1)–(4), toleration is possible. Toleration can only be required in response to features of situations or persons to which the tolerator is opposed in significant ways, which the tolerator believes herself to have the power to alter, suppress, or eradicate, and which the tolerator – as a result of all this – is disposed to interfere with so as to alter, suppress, or eradicate. The question of when, exactly, toleration is required (that is, the question of when, exactly, a person ought not to act on the disposition just mentioned) will depend on the details of the situation. I postpone discussion of this question until Part II, where different situations exhibiting features (1)–(4) will be considered as a way of exploring the limits of toleration. Discussion in this chapter will continue to focus only on the question of what toleration is, rather than on the question of what ought to be tolerated.
