Description: This book proposes a theory of toleration wherein liberal democracies peacefully co-exist with non-democratic societies. A major intervention in political and legal philosophy, it delves into different theoretical understandings of the idea of toleration and what it has come to mean in today's highly polarised world.
Review Quotes:
"Liberal toleration seems increasingly under threat - both within nations and between them. Under these circumstances, work such as that of Pietro Maffetone becomes increasingly important. Maffetone provides a compelling and elegant defense of a particular vision of liberal tolerance; his account of toleration is capable of guiding liberal states seeking to identify those foreign political practices they are duty-bound to respect - as well as those they are rightly permitted to reject. The book draws on the history of liberal thought about toleration, while demonstrating the ways in which that history must be reinterpreted to make sense of modern international controversy. The book is rigorous, clear, and very likely right; it deserves to be taken seriously by political philosophers and political practitioners alike." -- Michael Blake
"Since the publication of Rawls's book, Political Liberalism, two questions have been central to the development of liberal political philosophy: how can a liberal political order be justified, given the pluralism that characterizes liberal societies; and how ought a liberal society to regard other societies that are not liberal? In this book, Pietro Maffettone makes an important contribution to answering the second question. Building on a novel interpretation of Rawls's idea of toleration of nonliberal, but "decent" societies, Maffettone develops a methodologically sophisticated and plausible account of what we should expect of the people of nonliberal societies if they are to warrant our toleration. Further, he demonstrates that toleration is not just a matter of "putting up" with those you regards as inferior, but a positive affirmation of equal respect." -- Allen Buchanan