Can a Liberal Society Tolerate the Intolerant? The Rawlsian Perspective

Imagine a highly conservative, illiberal sect migrating into a secular, liberal state. They openly declare their disdain for democratic principles, reject gender equality, and teach their children that the state's laws are illegitimate. Yet, they break no laws, pay their taxes, and participate quietly in civil society. Does a just society have the right to preemptively restrict their freedom of association or worship to protect itself? Or must it tolerate their intolerance until they take active steps to subvert the constitution?

The Constitutional Shield

John Rawls addressed this precise dilemma in his masterwork A Theory of Justice. While Karl Popper favored a more active, preemptive defense of the open society, Rawls approached the paradox from a position of institutional confidence. He argued that the primary duty of a liberal society is to maintain equal liberty for all citizens. Consequently, the intolerant have a right to be tolerated, provided they do not actively threaten the security of the state or the basic liberties of other citizens.

For Rawls, the mere existence of illiberal beliefs is not a sufficient justification for state intervention. The state's coercive power can only be deployed to restrict liberty when it is absolutely necessary to preserve liberty itself. This creates a high threshold: unless the intolerant present an active, imminent danger to the constitutional order, their rights must remain secure.

Rawls's philosophy relies on a profound psychological optimism: he believed that stable, fair institutions possess an inherent gravity. When illiberal groups are treated with justice and equal rights, they gradually lose their hostility toward the state, assimilated by the quiet benefits of peace and security.

The Assimilative Gravity of Justice

Rawls’s argument hinges on what he calls the stability of a just constitution. He asserts that when people grow up under fair and stable institutions, they naturally develop a allegiance to those institutions, even if their private religious or philosophical doctrines are illiberal. Over generations, the experience of being treated as equal citizens erodes sectarian dogmatism.

However, Rawls was not a pacifist. If the intolerant begin to actively conspire to overthrow the constitutional order, or if they violate the basic liberties of others, the tolerant society has a right to defend itself. In this scenario, the restriction of the intolerant's liberty is justified because it is done in the name of preserving equal liberty for all, a principle that the intolerant themselves would rely on if they were in the minority.

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