Part Five

True Tolerance

We live in a world where every body thinks they can live by one virtue and not the rest that being the virtue of Tolerance. We hear the claim all the time from many different groups, lifestyles or personal passions “You’re so intolerant of people views”. But do we have to tolerate everything and what “ought” we have to tolerate? Also what is a Virtue?

Our culture has distorted the understanding of what virtues are of which tolerance is one of them. For now we are told that the meaning of tolerance is ethical neutrality. We must accept that indifferences are good and if we do then we are call “tolerant” and if we don’t approve we are labeled as being “intolerant”. But is the purpose of tolerance to by pass our ethical judgements and accept everything? This we know cant work and the fatal flaw in this understanding of tolerance is not hard to find. Suppose that tolerance really were nothing but a kind of indifference. Shouldn’t we at least be consistent in our difference? And if we are consistently indifferent, then we must be indifferent about tolerance itself. Which means tolerance can mean anything we like and if there is no objective standard of right and wrong the claim that one is not being intolerant is an irrational statement. The fact that they don’t tolerate that person view which they dislike show that they are not being very tolerant. So it just seems to be that tolerance means something a little different than moral neutrality.

Virtues are not just rules, they are built in character dispositions, and they are objective and aid and inform moral choices. It is an objective good to for us, towards a right relationship with other goods. True tolerance is not an art of tolerating, it is the art of knowing when and how to tolerate. It is not forbearance from judgement, but the fruit of judgment. We may disapprove something for the love of some moral good, the key is practical wisdom. Like every virtue, true tolerance interacts with all of the other virtues.

If tolerance is an objective good virtue then there must be an objective moral standard to guide our judgment virtues. This objective standard of right and wrong is Gods moral law. There is an objective standard and we must tolerate those who fall in error or make mistakes in their learning due to their development of good character. Evils and human weakness must be tolerated in just those cases where their suppression would involve equal or greater hindrance to goods of the same order or any hindrance at all to goods of higher order. As J. Budziszewski says “Consider a father who values nothing but kindness. There will be something lacking in his kindness as well; utterly unable to give his children pain for any reason, he will never allow them enough responsibility to fail in any undertaking”. If there is not an objective standard of right and wrong in ethical matters, not preferences or tastes on what ice cream you like, then tolerance is meaningless.

Some times true tolerance will deny oneself things that are innocent in them selves if others can’t bear them. It is about looking for the highest Good for the development of moral character. The question must be asked, “what kinds of life are good?” they are good when lower order goods are judged according to intrinsic goodness that meaning the higher good. Some things that are of the lower type can be good, but if use wrongly are not good.

A Government fails when it declares that all must treat people with equal concern and respect in a neutral way. If this is good for society then the Government is not being neutral about the good life. Neutrality is a meaningless law and some may say that “more than one way of life is good” implying the diversity of good makes it relative. But just because there are more ways then one way does not follow that no way of life is bad. Does the diversity of good melodies refute the principle of harmony, and confirm the pleasure of noise? What about the skeptic who denies the objective standard and says “No one can know what is really good for human beings, you cant impose this standard on us”. Well if the skeptic cant know what is bad for humans then he cant be so sure that anything the state does is bad and if you cant be sure how can you object to the objective standard.

Our culture struggles so hard to make rational moral statements because it rejects’s the existence of an objective moral standard. Some acts may give us pleasure, but that does not mean all acts are good for us. Having compelling desires does not make something right. I mean people use this argument to allow the acts of sadism, masochism, cacophagy and so on, but you never hear it proposed as an argument against heart felt murder. If free will is an objective good thing to have then it must work according to the intrinsic objective moral standard. That being a lower good working towards a higher good. The above argument is what ground’s human rights, humans are intrinsically valuable because of the objective standard of goodness and value which is grounded in the metaphysical necessity of Gods nature and image.

When if comes down to the breaking up of the family unit and gender confusion and a culture that is driven by pleasure rather than commitment or seeking higher goods it is not wise to shout at those who don’t tolerate these acts of unfaithfulness and confusion.

All pleasure if it is “objective normal pleasure” that strives to develop a higher moral character, which is good for society as a whole is what we should be openly tolerate about and promote. Pornography and graphic sex dehumanizes people to mere objects or commodities that can be brought and thrown away as pleased. This does not seek the development of objective goodness for all people. Again this is neutrality without any care for the common good of mankind. The same with abortions, it takes no concern to be tolerate of others peoples right to live and prosper.