Can these be the same Dutch as those who introduced notions of religious and ethnic toleration as well as civic and economic inclusiveness that were far ahead of their time?
Such historical eras witnessed the coalescence of a host of arguments (philosophical, political, psychological, theological, epistemological, economic) supporting religious toleration, as well as the victory of tolerationist forces in England and in France (under the Edict of Nantes) and across the Continent.
It did not, however, extend toleration as far as William wished, still restricting the religious liberty of Roman Catholics, non-trinitarians, and those of non-Christian faiths.
This interdependence of the meta-ethical and the normative levels of discourse on supererogation becomes particularly evident when paradigm examples are discussed: for instance, is forgiveness obligatory or supererogatory is both a conceptual and a normative issue, and the same applies to charity, to acts of self-sacrifice and even to toleration, as will be shown below.
In the later 20th century, the Netherlands had gained a reputation for liberal social policies, such as the toleration of prostitution and of the limited use and sale of marijuana and hashish.
As such, toleration has long been considered a cardinal virtue of liberal political theory and practice, having been endorsed by such important political philosophers as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and John Rawls, and it is central to a variety of contemporary political and legal debates, including those concerning race, gender, and sexual orientation.
The Roman Catholic Church in the past consistently opposed the development of religious toleration and as late as the 20th century in some countries ensured that legal restrictions against Protestant minorities were established.
Previous edicts of toleration had been as short-lived as the regimes that sanctioned them, but this time the edict effectively established religious toleration.
"Rawls talks about civic toleration as a modus vivendi, a way that we can live together, and some liberals think that way," Sunstein says.
