ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses general arguments for toleration. Thinkers providing a general defense of toleration require additional indications of when and why toleration should be limited. Early modern philosophers, for example, defended religious toleration on the basis of freedom of conscience, but were willing to defend limits where necessary to protect the state. The Hong-Page theorem, originally defended by economists Lu Hong and Scott Page, is a mathematical theorem that is, essentially, the claim "that a random collection of intelligent agents outperforms the collection consisting of only the best agents". The chapter looks at the argument from economics of religion and the Ricardian argument. Importantly, both of the arguments provide people motivation to favor extensive toleration. The chapter considers arguments from conscience, autonomy, relativism, and skepticism, and arguments for religious salvation, religious belief, moral muscles, knowledge, justification, truth acquisition, project pursuit, societal progress, pluralism, and diversity.
