Interdisciplinary Approaches on Toleration as a Border Concept in Law

SW 72- Interdisciplinary Approaches on Toleration as a Border Concept in Law

Convenors: Marcelo Galuppo; Ana Margarida Simões Gaudêncio

Contact: marcelogaluppo@uol.com.br; anagaude@fd.uc.pt

This Special Workshop proposes an interdisciplinary discussion on toleration as a central, yet deeply ambivalent, concept in legal theory and political philosophy. Rather than approaching toleration as a settled virtue or an unquestioned democratic achievement, the workshop seeks to examine its tensions, limits, and paradoxes in contemporary pluralistic societies marked by deep moral, cultural, and political disagreement.

Toleration has historically occupied an unstable position between moral restraint, political compromise, and legal technique. From early modern debates on religious coexistence to current controversies surrounding freedom of expression, hate speech, cultural diversity, and minority rights, toleration has functioned both as a promise of peaceful coexistence and as a source of exclusion and asymmetry. The workshop aims to explore this dual character, asking whether toleration remains an adequate framework for addressing conflict in increasingly polarized societies.

Law plays a decisive role in shaping the meaning and scope of toleration. Legal systems define what must be tolerated, what may be restricted, and what is deemed intolerable. Constitutional rights, anti-discrimination norms, criminal law, and administrative regulation all contribute to drawing these boundaries. At the same time, law is never neutral: legal toleration may conceal power relations, normalize domination, or transform moral conflicts into technical disputes. This raises fundamental questions about the relationship between toleration, recognition, equality, and justice.

The workshop invites contributions that place legal theory in dialogue with philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, anthropology, literature, and cultural studies. We particularly welcome papers that address toleration as a “border concept”, situated at the intersection of normativity and social practice, and that challenge traditional disciplinary boundaries. Possible themes include, but are not limited to:

• toleration and freedom of expression;
• hate speech, offense, and democratic resilience;
• religious toleration and secularism;
• cultural pluralism and legal limits of diversity;
• toleration, recognition, and structural inequality;
• toleration in constitutional and international law;
• historical trajectories of toleration and intolerance;
• toleration, indifference, and moral disengagement.

Special attention will be given to the distinction—and tension—between toleration and recognition. While toleration presupposes disapproval, recognition demands respect and equality. The workshop seeks to examine whether contemporary legal orders can move beyond toleration without erasing conflict, or whether toleration remains an unavoidable, if fragile, normative strategy in diverse societies.

Methodologically, the workshop encourages critical, innovative, and theoretically ambitious approaches. It welcomes normative analyses, conceptual reconstructions, historical inquiries, and interpretive perspectives drawn from the humanities. Law is treated not merely as a system of rules, but as a cultural practice that reflects, negotiates, and transforms social conflicts.

By rethinking toleration through an interdisciplinary lens, the workshop aims to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how law can respond to deep disagreement without collapsing into either authoritarian suppression or moral relativism. It also invites reflection on the ethical demands placed upon legal institutions and citizens alike: to endure difference without legitimizing injustice, to set limits without silencing dissent, and to confront conflict without abandoning democratic commitment.