Toleration and Religious Discrimination

Abstract

Toleration plays a central role in debates about the accommodation of religious beliefs and practices in liberal democracies. This chapter addresses one such debate, which concerns whether liberal societies ought to tolerate discriminatory practices when, or even because, they are performed by religious associations and institutions. After briefly discussing some recently canvassed arguments in support of tolerating discrimination by religious associations, it turns to the question of how political communities might establish the limits to this form of toleration, a question so far neglected by philosophers. One reason why a tolerant state might refuse to allow religious associations to discriminate is to avoid injuring third-parties, a long-established basis for restricting toleration. This “third-party injuries” objection is carefully unpacked, and it is suggested that third-parties might be injured by particular religious accommodations in at least four different ways. Some tentative suggestions are then made about how to establish the significance and relevance of these injuries.