Toleration, Respect and Recognition: An interview with Sune Lægaard

The interview with Sune Laegaard delves into the various issues asso-ciated with coexistence and the handling of diversity in contemporaryplurally diverse societies. He frames toleration ‘as a way of handling diver-sity and resulting conflicts rather than as a mechanism that is supposedto make the problem go away’. He emphasizes that toleration is a first(and perhaps the most important step) ‘towards a different view ofcertain differences’. His distinction between ‘descriptive and moralizedconceptions of toleration’ is particularly illuminating. In discussing therelationship between toleration, respect and recognition, he identifies thedifferent modalities between these different approaches of handling diver-sity. As he emphasizes, ‘I think it is much more useful to see many of thedebates that have been going on under the heading of multiculturalism asdebates about in which ways we should go ‘beyond’ toleration, i.e. abouttoleration is not sufficient, rather than as fundamental alternatives to orcriticisms of toleration’.