True Tolerance: Liberalism and the Necessity of Judgment

As readers have told me, this book takes the prize for the ugliest cover.  It was also the earliest statement of what has become an enduring theme of my body of work:  The deep contrast between true tolerance, a genuine virtue which requires making judgments about goods and evils in order to discern which evils must be tolerated, and false tolerance, which pretends to suspend judgment about goods and evils and be "neutral."  Since writing the book, I confess that I have revised my analysis of several issues concerning religion, education, and constitution interpretation (not much, eh)?  On the other hand, the book includes a number of arguments which I have not presented elsewhere and still consider valid and important.

PROLOGUE:  The Liberal Vocation

WHAT IS TRUE TOLERANCE?

1. The Idea

2. Illustrations of True Tolerance in Three Spheres of Regulation

3. Is True Tolerance Constitutional?

THE HEADS OF THE HYDRA

4. Arguments for Ethical Neturality

5. An Exploded View of Neutrality

MEZZALOGUE:  SPECIAL CASES OF TRUE TOLERANCE

THE SPECIAL CASE OF TRUE TOLERANCE IN EDUCATION AND NURTURE

6. Liberal Education Contrasted with Authoritarian

7. How Neutralism Distorts Liberal Education

8. Neutralist Education in Closer Scrutiny

THE SPECIAL CASE OF EXPRESSIVE TOLERANCE

9. General Counsels of Expressive Tolerance

10. Abuse of the Free Speech and Free Press Clauses: The State Involvement with Obscenity

THE SPECIAL CASE OF RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

11. Tolerance and the Ultimate Concern

12. True Tolerance (Again)

13. Is This a Possible Constitutional Position?

EPILOGUE: The Great Refusal

Appendices

1. The Counsels of Tolerance -- A Subset

2. Constitutional Interpretation

3. Patristic Sources

4. Empirical Issues