Abstract
This chapter provides a detailed historical case study to illustrate the role of critical open-mindedness in moral progress. Specifically, it demonstrates the role of the triad of features of critical open-mindedness — multiplicity of perspective, awareness of fallibility, and use of reason — in arguments promoting religious toleration and universal human rights, and also the rejection of violence, in 17th-century England. Without critical open-mindedness, this revolution in human rights and toleration would not have occurred.
all and every particular and individual man and woman that ever breathed in the world … are, and were by nature all equal and alike in power, dignity, authority and majesty
John Lilburne, written in Newgate prison (1646)1
I am conscious to myself, of many weaknesses, and much error, and cannot deny, but I may be mistaken in those things, wherein, at present I am very confident.
William Walwyn (1646b)2
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Notes
Lilburne, J. (1646b). The Free-Mans Freedome Vindicated (p. 11).
Walwyn, W. (1646b). A Prediction of Mr. Edwards His Conversion and Recantation (p. 7).
Leveller arguments for toleration of Catholics and Jews can be found in Overton, R. (1645). The Arraignement of Mr. Persecution.
Walwyn, W. (1641). A New Petition of the Papists.
Toleration for atheists is argued for in Walwyn, W. (1646). Tolleration Justified, and Persecution Condemned. John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) advocated freedom of conscience except for “Popery and superstition”.
See Marshall, J. (2006). John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture, pp. 690, 695–697.
Brailsford, H.N. (1983). The Levellers and the English Revolution, p. 383.
Zagorin, P. (2003). How the Idea of Religious Toleration Came to the West.
Haller, W. (1965). Tracts on Liberty in the Puritan Revolution. Volume 1: Commentary, p. 56.
Edwards, T. (1646). Gangraena.
Edwards, T. (1646). Gangraena, Part II, p. 22.
Edwards, T. (1646). Gangraena, p. 146.
Walwyn, W. (1643). The Power of Love (pp. vii-ix).
I have modernised the spelling in this and all subsequent quotations from these pamphlets unless otherwise 23. Walwyn, W. (1644). The Compassionate Samaritane, p. 5.
Marshall, J. (2006). John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture, p. 697.
Walwyn (1646c). Tolleration Justified, and Persecution Condemned. In McMichael, J.R. and Taft, B. (eds.), The Writings of William Walwyn (p. 164). Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Walwyn, W. (1646a). A Whisper in the Eare of Mr. Thomas Edwards, p. 10 (note incorrectly numbered page 6 in the original, four pages after the correct page 6). Early English Books Online.
Walwyn, W. (1646b). A Prediction of Mr. Edwards His Conversion and Recantation. (p. 7).
Walwyn, W. (1649). The English Soldiers Standard, p. 5.
Kirby (1931). William Prynne.
Prynne, W. (1630). Anti-Arminianisme, pp. 72–74.
Prynne, W. (1647). The Sword of Christian Magistracy Supported. pp. 5–6 (original spelling maintained).
Lilburne, J. (1646). The Free-Mans Freedome Vindicated. p. 11.
Lilburne, J. (1646). The Charters of London; or the Second Part of Londons Liberty in Chains, p. 4.
Lilburne, J. (1649b). Strength Out of Weaknesse, p. 14.
Richard Overton (1647). An Appeale from the Degenerate Representative Body of the Commons of England. (p. 4).
Macpherson, C.B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, p. 142.
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© 2014 John Lambie
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Lambie, J. (2014). Case Study II: Morality — The Levellers and Religious Toleration. In: How to be Critically Open-Minded — A Psychological and Historical Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137301055_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137301055_7
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