I do believe that tolerance is a moral precept.

The heading of this article actually says the opposite:

“Tolerance is not a moral precept.”

We would need to go to the bottom of the problem by clarifying first the ambivalent usage of the word “precept,” which this article ignores.

Precept means a general rule intended to regulate behaviour or thought. In that context “precept” is a flexible set of non written guideline.

However, precept can also mean a canon, an ordinance, a command, an order and a law. In that context, “precept” means a law abiding ordinance, usually written, without much flexibility and with liability for those who under contract breach it.

In this article not only moral precept is used as if it were a legal precept, but morality in general is viewed as if it ultimately were a rule of law.

Tolerance is a moral precept, but not a legal one. Social norms (or mores) do not equate and do not exist in the same way as when we enforce by law a peace treaty.

A “peace treaty” can exist as both, a written rule of law and as an unwritten non contractual social norm. Such distinction is extremely relevant to understand the nature of ethic and moral behaviour.

Even when Ethics and Morals are different, their differences do not relate to the rules of law. Ethics refers to what society, a particular group or culture says it is the right thing to do. Morals refers to what us as individuals believe is the right thing to do. Both relate to what is right or wrong, but not to what is legal or illegal.

When the columnist asserts:

“Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”

This is neither a Moral nor an Ethical precept, but a legal one. In that sense, your right to swing your fist does not end where my nose begins, but where the law exists.

Referring to the peace treaty the columnist tells us:

“After a breach, the moral rules which apply are not the rules of peace, but the rules of broken peace, and the rules of war.”

Such statement would hold if the breach of peace were coming from the breach of a contractual legal treaty of peace. The columnist usage of the terms is ambiguous. Sometimes is used to refer to the breach of social norms and other times to refer to the breach of a legal contract from which a war might ensue.

Further down the columnist reinforces such point by telling us:

“Any ‘peace’ which does not satisfy this basic requirement, one which creates an existential threat to one side or the other, can never hold.”

Such statement is misleading. This can’t be applied to any “peace” since “peace” can be contextualised in either moral, ethical and legal terms.

When “peace” is contextualised in ethical and moral terms and such peace is breached, the moral rule which applies might not be of “peace”, but it doesn’t have to be of war. War should only come if and when the “peace” treaty was foremost legally binding, else we would be causing wars out of the natural fluctuating nature of Ethics and Morals.

Moral is made a moral absolute when we understand tolerance as a self imposed rule of law without legal contractual agreement with the parties involved.

Hence, a moral absolute does amount to renouncing the right to self-protection. However, viewing tolerance as a peace treaty can only create the bases of a chaotic society that will go easily to war according to the fluctuating nature of its morality.

This in no way means we shouldn’t have peace treaties. They just shouldn’t be based on tolerance when tolerance is in the context of Ethics and Morals.

The columnist insisted:

“Tolerance is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.”

I would deconstruct such phrase as follow:

“Tolerance is an agreement to live in peace, to be peaceful no matter the moral conduct of others. Your moral peace treaty should never be the suicide of such moral pact.”

When Karl Popper stated:

“Tolerate everything, except for intolerance.”

Popper stated a false paradox through the fallacy of faulty generalisation.

Tolerant people can tolerate intolerance depending on the context in which intolerance is operating. For instance, if Popper’s statement were to be applied to all conditions we would be intolerant with people who are intolerant to things that actually harm them.

Furthermore, people who are intolerant to certain things are very tolerant to others. Hence, we can’t tolerate everything in general and we can’t be intolerant with intolerance in general.

However, we can tolerate anything moral and we must be intolerant with anything that goes against the contractual law created by any given society. You can reform the law, but to go against it would be unlawful and criminal.