Mere Civility: Toleration and its Limits in Early Modern England and America

Civility and toleration are often linked as necessary virtues in liberal democracies that promise to protect religious diversity while allowing for active, often heated, disagreement in the public sphere. Yet the meaning of these concepts, as well as the relationship between them, is rarely adequately developed. What, exactly, is "civility," and how does it relate to "toleration"?;This dissertation explores the ways in which these concepts have been deployed both in early modern and contemporary debates about how to manage the tension between religious difference and the "uncivil" disagreements to which it can give rise. In early modern England and New England, the concept of civility was invoked in familiar ways---as the social rules of respectful behavior or "civil worship" and as a conversational virtue meant to mediate and moderate disagreement between individuals willing to observe them.;Proponents of religious toleration like Roger Williams, John Locke, and---in his own, distinctive way---Thomas Hobbes could all agree that, in a tolerating society, "civility" would be necessary to govern the expression of religious difference so that disagreements might remain peaceful and productive. Yet they disagreed profoundly as to what civility entailed and how it should be enforced. Was it simply a negative duty to abstain from insult, or something more positive? Would the "mere" civility of outward performances suffice, or did "true" civility demand sincerity? As for enforcement---did religious freedom demand the bridling of intolerant tongues through law? Or should a tolerant society tolerate incivility, too? Understanding these thinkers' different answers to these questions in turn helps to illuminate their disagreements as to the proper ethical and institutional character of "toleration," as well as where its limits should lie.;The dissertation is divided into five chapters. The introduction discusses the popular preoccupation with incivility, partisanship, and religious insult in liberal democracies today then situates the present inquiry in recent revisionist treatments of the history of toleration and its importance for the development of liberal political thought. Chapter one turns to early modern toleration debates and details the role played therein by similar concerns about heated disagreement, sectarianism, and so-called "persecution of the tongue"---as well as attempts to ban it through religious insult statutes much like modern hate speech laws.;The next three chapters offer detailed textual and contextual analyses of these concerns and consequent appeals to civility in the arguments of Williams, Hobbes, and Locke. Despite their many differences, these authors began alike from a shared understanding of human nature as inevitably partial and proud, hence prone to dangerously "heated" disagreement characterized by verbal persecution. The possibility of toleration thus hinged for each on what would be required, ethically and institutionally, to render religious disagreement "civil." The competing conceptions of civility they offered---as mere civility, civil silence, and civil charity respectively---set very different limits to religious expression and evangelical competition, in turn.;The fifth chapter applies insights from this historical analysis in a critical examination of analogous appeals to civility and toleration in contemporary political theory. Following Rawls, some theorists invoke civility in arguments about public reason, while others stress the negative effects of uncivil speech on diversity, dignity, and democratic deliberation. Generally, these accounts have something more than Roger Williams's mere civility---a minimal conformity to social rules of respectful behavior consistent with (and sometimes expressive of) disrespect, disapproval, even disgust for others and their beliefs---in mind. Indeed, their robust visions of mutual respect, recognition, and political friendship can make this explicitly evangelical conception seem grudging and weak, even intolerant, by comparison.;Nevertheless, much like the alternative conceptions of civil silence and civil charity developed by Hobbes and Locke these positive visions often seek to suppress fundamental disagreements or else to exclude as "uncivil" those who fail to affirm an overlapping consensus on a secular liberal creed. In this, mutual respect and recognition are lofty and attractive---albeit exclusive---ideals redolent of early modern notions of concordia or concord, rather than mere tolerantia..;In the conclusion, I argue that mere civility, like toleration, accommodates more and deeper kinds of difference than these alternatives, while also sustaining a commitment to diversity and disagreement through the liberal connection between religious freedom and free speech. Although it will not satisfy those for whom "civil evangelism" seems a contradiction in terms, Williams's example demonstrates that maintaining even mere civility in the face of prolonged and profound disagreement on fundamental questions can be a difficult undertaking. Yet, I argue, it remains an eminently worthy aspiration.