The illusion of moral neutrality

J. Budziszewski, University of Austin, Texas.
Published in First Things n° 35 (1993), pp. 32 et seq.
summary prepared by José Zafra.

I. The false tolerance of neutralism

Nietzsche said that if men took God seriously, they would continue to burn heretics at the stake. According to this, one might also think that, if men really adhere to a moral truth, they will have to repress whatever beliefs they consider erroneous; and that, if they continue to accept the sanctity of marriage, they will again brand adulterers with an "A". Two classes of people think like this today: the fanatics - who still exist - and a certain class of modern reactionaries who are mainly found among the "cultural elite". If the former would like to continue burning heretics, the latter would suppress all manifestations of faith in God.

These reactionaries claim to love toleration, but, misunderstanding it, they strangle it with their embrace. They believe that intolerance is born in conjunction with all public moral confession; that morality must remain a merely "private" matter; and that, in order to prove that toleration is good, we must refrain from declaring that this or that is good or bad. The god of such men is Neutrality, which in certain intellectual areas goes by other names, such as "Autonomy" or "Rights". We find this god in conservatives like M. Oakeshott, for whom the limited action of "government" has nothing to do with natural law or morality. But we also find it in the philosophical left, where liberals like Rawls and Marxists like Habermas invent artifices like the "veil of ignorance" and the "idealstatus of speech" to convince us that, if we are to understand the principles of justice properly, we must try to forget not only who we are, but also whatever we have thought about right and wrong. We find such a god in the world of law, where many jurists believe that to make distinctions such as "family" and "non-family" is to engage in "odious classifications" that would deprive some citizens of equal legal protection. It is also found in the field of educational, where primary school children receive books such as Daddy's Bedroom, Heather Has Two Moms and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride.

While it might at first glance be explicable that those who identify tolerance and moral neutrality ridicule non-neutrals, the truth is that they themselves are not neutral either. "The scandal of Neutrality is that its devotees cannot answer the question, 'why should one be neutral', without making their own confession in favour of certain goods such as social peace, self-realisation, self-esteem, ethnic pride or whatever else; thereby violating their own desideratum of neutrality. But this is only a symptom of a deeper problem: that this thing called Neutrality does not exist at all". It is not that it is unattainable, but that it is unthinkable. But many who realise this find it difficult to defend true tolerance, because they fear that it is, like tolerance, a square circle.

II. The essence of tolerance

What is tolerance, strictly speaking, and what does it demand of us? To tolerate something is to bear it even if we feel moved to suppress it. But what things can we feel moved to suppress? The answer is clear: anything we deem wrong, harmful, incorrect, painful, offensive or generally unworthy of approval. And let us ask ourselves: should we not do away with things we judge wrong, etc.? The answer is, sometimes yes, sometimes no. We cannot, e.g., remove things that are wrong. We cannot, e.g., tolerate abduction; but we would do well, on the other hand, to tolerate the expression of rationally argued opinions which we deem wrong. What is the difference between one case and the other? Let us see. By preventing abduction, we would protect goods such as the woman's dignity and her physical and emotional well-being, whereas by preventing false opinions we would act in favour of the good knowledge of truth and the social recognition of truth; and the same is true in any other case. People may disagree agreement about right and wrong, be wrong about one or the other, and even call wrong good and vice versa. But we can be sure that, whenever someone wants to prevent or secure something, he intends to prevent something which, rightly or wrongly, he considers evil, or to protect what he considers good. Where is the reason, then, why we should sometimes tolerate an evil or condescend to the offence inflicted on a good?

The answer is not, as some believe, scepticism. Consider the case of a discussion, where the norm is to tolerate the evil of false opinions. Will a total sceptic say that, since everything is doubtful, it is necessary to listen to everything? No, but will say that the goodness of listening is as doubtful as the goodness of silencing, and that he cannot specify what is to be chosen. A limited sceptic will say that he does not believe in discussions, but perhaps also that, while universal truth is doubtful for him, truth itself is good, and that it is good to argue in order to arrive at it. On the other hand, a non-sceptic may say that it is a bad thing to tolerate falsehood, but also that, if he feels sure of all truths, one of them is that, by refuting error, he will affirm his own convictions and will try to convince his opponents. As can be seen, only the limited sceptic and the non-sceptic are favourable to a discussion: because each of them accepts it on the grounds of something he does not doubt; each of them is ready to tolerate falsehood for the sake of truth.

The consequence of the above is that, if we sometimes tolerate or endure evils, it is in order to prevent greater evils or to achieve greater goods. Therefore, when the suppression of one evil would engender equal or greater evils, we must endure the first. Therein lies the basis of the virtue of forbearance. If the two goods being compared are of different natures - e.g. truth and peace - we will have to decide which of them is of a higher order. If they are of the same order, we will have to make a judgement of gradation, although we cannot claim mathematical accuracy. But there are particularly paradoxical occasions when the good to be protected and the good that would be harmed by the suppression of evil are of the same nature. E.g. in the case of a discussion where all positions are false. The truth can be protected by preventing the discussion, but also by tolerating it so that the errors are brought out with it. Here tolerance is a matter of prudence in choosing the best means to a good end. Such prudence will always be exercised on the basis of this constant criterion: that means that do not lead to the desirable good end must never be permitted.

III. Two types of intolerance

"If the constant element in the internship of tolerance is rightness of judgement in protecting ends against wrong means, the constant element in intolerance is error of judgement in protecting ends against wrong means". Along these lines, we can see that intolerance can manifest itself in two ways: either as an excess of indulgence, where error as to the means is indicative of levity; or as an excess of rigidity, where resistance to the use of expedient means is indicative of narrowness. Each of these opposing errors deserves the name of intolerance.

This may sound strange, because our language has reserved the name intolerance for narrow-mindedness. But so is flippancy. It would be as much intolerance, for example, to disregard rapture as it would be to prevent false opinions from being expressed rationally. The exact point of tolerance in the face of the two opposing errors must be determined on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the goods and evils involved. Tolerance is a fair compromise between leniency and intransigence.

The following conclusions can be drawn from this: 1) toleration cannot be neutral with respect to the good, because it is intended to achieve good and avoid evil; 2) toleration is a virtue in the Aristotelian sense, i.e. a just mean between two wrong extremes; 3) the circumstantial element in the internship of toleration is prudential judgement in the protection of higher ends against lower ends, and more specifically good ends against wrong means.

IV. Total tolerance and morality

Developing this idea of tolerance as a virtue, it must first be stated that all the moral virtues are interdependent: for, as St Thomas showed, they all revolve around prudence (practical wisdom) and, in turn, prudence is affected by the other virtues. We can compare prudence to the hub of a bicycle, and the other virtues to the spokes. If the wheel is deformed, it is impossible to straighten it by straightening just one spoke. Therefore, forbearance being a virtue, it is interconnected with all the others. It cannot be taught properly if the others are not taught as well. We will never compensate for the collapse of our virtues by teaching tolerance and neglecting the others, as some educators and social critics seem to think. The only way to cure moral collapse is to renew morality, and that on all fronts at once. With these souls of ours, always deformed like the wheel of a bicycle, we do not know how to find a perfect regulation. We need redemption rather than Education. Achieving all the virtues is a very difficult matter. They cannot be inculcated only by stimulating such and such feelings or by developing such and such capacities: for feelings and capacities are only instruments of the virtues, but not their realisation.

V. Religious tolerance

Let us now think specifically about religious tolerance. And what is religion? Some say that all religion is a matter of faith, while all secularism is based on reason. But, as Chesterton said in Orthodoxy, "it is folly to set reason and faith in opposition to each other without further ado: for reason itself is a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have some correspondence with reality'. In the view of others, all religions believe in God, unlike secularism. Still others understand that the hallmark of religion is the ultimate questions, which demand unconditional fidelity. This is the real crux of the matter. In this respect it should be noted that secularism also implies a reference letter to ultimate values. This can be seen, for example, when we say of a miser that "his god is money" and call him an "idolater". In a way, all secularists speculate on ultimate questions. Stuart Mill himself, who never decided which of "the permanent interests of man as a progressive being" might be worthy of unconditional allegiance, was quite sure of one thing: that the Messiah was not among them.

It follows from the above that the religion-secularism contrast is a false dichotomy. We should rather speak of a trichotomy: on the one hand, religions recognised as such; on the other, those not recognised as such by those who practise them: e.g. Leninism; finally, those incomplete religions which, like Stuart Mill's doctrine, do not quite establish a hierarchy of values. These third ones can only live in the nebulous sphere of thought: for, in the light of day, they must be completed or perish. There comes a time when something appears before which every person bows the knee. That is the god of the person. In theory, it may well be denied that there is something deserving of a maximum evaluation ; but in the internship nobody is free to grant that supreme value to something, even though it may not deserve it. In short: everyone has a god or is on the way to having one.

In view of this, how can there be religious tolerance? The answer is this: it cannot exist unless our ultimate values demand it of us, or at least allow it. For it is only under these conditions that tolerance towards those who have other ultimate values implies on our part fidelity to our own. Let us remember St. Hilary of Poitiers: "God does not want to be worshipped unwillingly, nor does he demand a repentance wrested from us by force". Although God asks for and deserves our unconditional fidelity, He is of such a nature that what has been achieved by threats is of no use to Him: for He wants sons and daughters, not slaves.

But let us note one thing well: the same fire which for its own sake demands toleration, sets for its own sake the limits of what is to be tolerated. If the doctrine of St. Hilary implies that belief in other gods is to be permitted, it does not mean that every act of worship of such gods is to be consented to. It cannot, for example, be accepted that, by invoking God or any other god, one should seek to justify murder. "The defence of the revolution, the Great Divinity of the Universe, the purity of the race, the hunger of Moloch or the right to dispose of one's own body: no value of these or any other that claims ultimacy can be accepted as a justification for the sacrifice of innocents. The God of St. Hilary will command him to tolerate others honouring their own gods in privacy, but will never permit him to consent to harms which that God abhors.

A Christian example has been taken because the author of article is a Christian; but the same logic can be applied to other "religions". Thus, e.g., Stuart Mill's utilitarianism will practise a limited tolerance demanded by the "permanent interests" of man as a "progressive being". It might seem that such a logic applies only to the so-called teleological creeds, which are said to give priority to the achievement of the good over the rightness of doing. But this is not so. No one has insisted as much as Rawls on this priority of the just over the good; but even he adheres to an ultimate value, which in his case is "autonomy", whose effectiveness is supposed to be given by a series of choices made behind a "veil of ignorance" that suspends the report staff . The conclusion is obvious: for Rawls and his followers religious toleration is prescribed and limited by what may be desired by people who have lost all report love of God.

VI. Conclusion

And what is the result of all this? Basically, neutrality is as incoherent with regard to topic religious tolerance as it is with regard to any other form of tolerance. What one can tolerate is always about one's own ultimate values. And since the various ultimate values order different zones of tolerance, a social consensus is only possible with regard to the areas of coincidence between these zones. But if the disparity of values reaches a certain level Degree, the space of coincidence disappears and the consensus vanishes.

This is the path we are currently on. When we speak today of a "culture war", we are not using a provocative term: we are simply portraying reality. "And it is to be feared that this war status will get worse and worse. The reason is this: our various gods prescribe not only different zones of tolerance, but also different rules for settling disputes between them. True tolerance is not well tolerated today: for if the God of some disputants commands them to love and persuade their adversaries, the gods of some others command them not to do so.