Newey Glen
Department of Political Philosophy and Ethics, Leiden University, PO Box 9500, 2300 RA Leiden, Netherlands.
Philosophia (Ramat Gan). 2017;45(2):425-442. doi: 10.1007/s11406-016-9798-4. Epub 2017 Apr 5.
This article deals with modus vivendi, toleration and power. On the face of it toleration and modus vivendi are in tension with each other, because of the power condition on toleration: that an agent is tolerant only if they have the power to engage in an alternative, non- or intolerant form of behaviour, and this seems to be absent in modus vivendi. The article argues that the scope of the power condition is unclear, but might be thought much more extensive than usually supposed. This becomes clear when the agent's thoughts are subjected to a counterfactual test, concerning what would occur in their ideal world. However it is in the nature of ideals that they cannot usually be subject to a counterfactual variation here, since they determine the ideal world's content. The article concludes that only a commitment to the other party's freedom for its own sake proves robust in the face of counterfactual idealisation, but that it is questionable whether the dispositions that characterise toleration should be subject to so demanding a test.
本文探讨临时协定、宽容与权力。从表面上看，宽容与临时协定相互矛盾，这是由于宽容的权力条件所致：即只有当一个行为主体有能力采取另一种非宽容或不宽容的行为方式时，他才是宽容的，而这在临时协定中似乎并不存在。本文认为，权力条件的范围并不明确，但可能比通常认为的要广泛得多。当行为主体的思想接受反事实检验，即考虑在其理想世界中会发生什么时，这一点就变得很明显。然而，理想的本质通常决定了它们在此处不能进行反事实变化，因为它们决定了理想世界的内容。本文的结论是，只有出于对另一方自由本身的承诺，在面对反事实理想化时才会显得坚定，但宽容所特有的性情是否应接受如此严格的检验，这是值得怀疑的。
