ABSTRACT
There are many circumstances in which it is prudent for states to be tolerant towards their citizens. In some circumstances, however, toleration is thought to be not just a matter of prudence, but of duty. This duty is plausibly interpreted as arising from a right, possessed by citizens, to be tolerated. Such a right has often been held to be a right to freedom. My initial aim in this essay is to examine our right to freedom, by examining both the freedom to which we can plausibly claim to have a right and the grounds for supposing that we do have a right to this freedom. It will emerge that the duty to tolerate does not only arise from a right to freedom. There is another more explicitly political right which lies at the basis of the duty to tolerate.
