where the state has no business, hence no reason to intervene with coercive
action. The principle of toleration therefore relies on the public/private
divide, and properly applies to private–personal questions, while in the
public domain it requires the principle of state neutrality. If toleration is
the suspension of the political power of interference in individual’s religious
and moral views, neutrality means not favoring any such views, or their
holders, over others in the public sphere. From this model, contemporary
political liberalism has generalized the ideal of neutrality into a constitutional
argument for political legitimacy. In this way, neutrality is not simply a
guideline for the public treatment of citizens, whose diVerences in opinions
and aYliations ought to be publicly ignored for the sake of equal treatment
before the law, but also the central feature of liberal institutions which ought
to be designed independently from any substantive moral outlook, so as to be
recognized as legitimate by people who widely disagree about values and
morals (Dworkin 1978 ; Ackerman 1980 ; Larmore 1987 ; Nagel 1991 ; Rawls 1993 ).
Perfectionists acknowledge the value of non-discrimination in public
treatment; they nevertheless deny that liberalism be a political ideal devoid
of any substantive value and principle, and maintain that it exhibits its moral
outlook, just as any other political ideals (Haskar 1979 ; Raz 1986 ; Wall 1988 ;
Flathman 1989 ; Hurka 1993 ; Caney 1995 ; Kraut 1999 ). In their view, liberal
politics presupposes a certain kind of human character (autonomous, inde-
pendent, self-reliant), and is sustained by a corresponding set of substantive
virtues and values, among which are tolerance, pluralism, and diversity. The
values of autonomy and independence require that the individual be actually
presented with real choices concerning her life plan and style of living (Raz
1988 ). Thus pluralism is a precondition for developing an autonomous
personality and, hence, the toleration of diversity is a necessary constituent
of a liberal society. Consequently, diVerences are positively valued as options
allowing for the meaningful and free choice of individuals even though they
can give rise to disagreement; yet only the diVerences which are compatible
with autonomy and which can, generally speaking, be accommodated within
the hospitable boundaries of the liberal conception of the good are the proper
subjects of liberal toleration. By contrast, the diVerences that appear incom-
patible with liberalism should in principle be excluded from tolerable plur-
alism in order to preserve the liberal order and its ethical integrity. However,
for many incompatible social diVerences state coercion would be useless and
counterproductive. In these cases, toleration should instead be adopted, but
identity, difference, toleration 567