Pascal Mowla -Should The Liberal Extend Tolerance To Involuntary Associations – Abstract

*This the abstract for the talk by Pascal Mowla on Friday 14th December

If we deem an ideal of tolerance to be of central importance to any liberal framework, and consider the toleration of conflicting conceptions of the good to be of great significance to the liberal project of “living with difference”, then it may follow that the presence of inherently illiberal and involuntary associations within liberal societies presents political philosophers with a challenging question— to tolerate or exclude? The autonomy-minded liberalism to be forwarded in this paper responds in affirmation of the latter; so long as they are the kind of involuntary associations which mandate that children be raised in ignorance of the alternate courses that their lives might take. Despite a first-order, anti-perfectionist commitment to to the view that the state should not intentionally promote or curtail controversial conceptions of the good, autonomy-minded liberalism is a framework which also suggests that the ideal liberal society is one which fosters the second-order value of autonomy in those places in which it does not exist, and countenances its maintenance in those places where it does. Accordingly, the autonomy-minded state may consider it acceptable to contract tolerance from involuntary associations, at least when such associations come into conflict with one of the central aims of the liberal state; that of providing a liberal education to all children.