Toleration: pro et contra

This article aims to survey key arguments for toleration as moral virtue of modern societies and those theories in contemporary political philosophy that argue against toleration as a value or attitude anyone should promote and defend. The article starts with P. Nicholson’s definition of tolerance to specify the value, then I review D. Heyd’s theory that describes the logic of tolerant consciousness. J. Locke’s, J.S. Mill’s and P. Nicholson’s ideas are considered in order to construct a cogent liberal argument for toleration. In the last part of the article I try to render communitarian (M. Sandel, Ch. Taylor), postmarxist (H. Marcuse) and postliberal (J. Gray) critique of toleration.