Bøker av Yves Charles Zarka

What are the limits of tolerance in constitutional or liberal democracies today? This is a crucial question, for if there were no limits to tolerance, it would ultimately destroy itself by accepting the intolerable. The concept of tolerance has to be assessed from a political point of view, thus questioning to what extent its potential achievement does not suppose any moral mutation in humanity. For instance, if people were all already ¿virtuous¿ according to a commonly held moral framework, there would be simply no need to speak of tolerance. Conversely, if it were the case that people could be made ¿virtuous¿, then tolerance would be the matter of an improbable utopia. Ultimately, we need to consider how tolerance can be conceptualised in a way that is relevant to people and their societies as they actually are. In a time when a growing amount of political demands touches on themes of cultural identity and rights, and while we witness a mounting wave of religious fundamentalism, what should democracies accept and what should they refuse?

Discover how Hobbes established the framework for modern political thought: liberalism originates in the Hobbesian theory of negative liberty; Hobbesian interest and contract are essential to contemporary discussions of the comportment of economic actors; and state sovereignty returns anew in the servility of the state.