No one may say "believe or die": toleration

Voltaire 1694 · 1778Crush intolerance with reason and irony.

What it claims

No one has the right to force anyone to believe, and the state may punish a belief only if it becomes fanaticism. "The law of persecution then is absurd and barbarous; it is the law of tigers."

Why

The golden rule forbids telling others "believe as I do or perish"; a belief is punishable only if it breeds fanaticism.

In short

"No one may say "believe or die": toleration" is an argument by Voltaire (Treatise on Toleration, 1763, ch. 6 and 18) on the question "What is a just society?" (answer: liberties). Its claim: No one has the right to force anyone to believe, and the state may punish a belief only if it becomes fanaticism. "The law of persecution then is absurd and barbarous; it is the law of tigers.". According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 3 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Treatise on Toleration, 1763, ch. 6 and 18

Valid with an implicit premise

In 1762, in Toulouse, the Protestant Jean Calas was tortured and executed, wrongly accused of killing his son to stop him becoming a Catholic. Voltaire campaigned to clear him and wrote the Treatise on Toleration. His argument starts from a rule everyone accepts, the golden rule. He also sets a limit: the state may punish a belief only when it becomes fanaticism and disturbs the peace.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.

Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where a peaceful belief is not a crime, and yet the state has the right to punish it: nothing then forbids punishing what is not a crime.

Valid with P4. The conclusion has two parts. P1 and P2 suffice for the first: religious coercion violates the golden rule. The second (the state does not punish a peaceful belief) needs P4: Voltaire literally writes that if an error is a crime, the state may punish it; one must add the converse, which he clearly has in mind: the state may punish only crimes. P5 is the most disputed premise, from both sides: defenders of coercion say a false religion does harm even without violence; Locke and Rousseau, though tolerant, think some beliefs, or the lack of belief, threaten society without being fanatical.

Analogy. You would not want to be forced, on pain of prison, to support a team you do not like. So you cannot force it on others. On the other hand, if fans smash up the town, they are arrested: for what they do, not for the team they love.

Objections

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Objection anticipated by Voltaire attacks premise 5

Tolerating Protestants means putting weapons in their hands: the wars of religion of the 16th century will return.

Voltaire replies

Voltaire

It is not reasoning to say "they rebelled when I harmed them, so they will rebel when I do them good". In England, Holland and Alsace, different religions live in peace. Toleration has never caused a civil war; intolerance has covered the earth with slaughter.

The defenders of coercion (Bossuet; the Treatise's inquisitor) 1709 · attacks premise 2

A false religion destroys souls. The prince must protect the true religion and fight the false ones: it is for the salvation of souls, and so for the very good of those who are coerced (a view defended by Bossuet, who approved the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685).

Voltaire replies

Voltaire

Voltaire puts this argument in the mouth of an inquisitor ("it is for your good"), then answers: might I not be saved without all this? It is cruel to persecute, in this short life, those who do not think as we do, and it hardly befits "atoms of a moment" like us to anticipate the Creator's judgements.

Locke (Letter concerning Toleration, 1689) 1689 · attacks premise 5

Toleration has a limit: those who deny the being of a God. Without being fanatical, they threaten society, because promises, covenants and oaths have no hold on an atheist.

Voltaire replies

Voltaire Voltaire, article "Atheist" (1767): he answers Bayle without naming Locke

Voltaire grants part of the point: the sanctity of oaths is necessary, and one should trust more someone who thinks a false oath will be punished. But he compares: fanaticism is "a thousand times" more to be dreaded, because atheism inspires no bloodthirsty passion; atheism does not stop crimes, fanaticism makes people commit them. In this article he does not ask for atheists to be punished.

The debate goes on (our summary) This reply concedes a lot to Locke: Voltaire judges atheism "very pernicious" in rulers and "almost always fatal to virtue", and wants the idea of a "rewarding and punishing" God to be "profoundly engraved on minds". He tolerates the atheist, but P5 (only fanaticism disturbs society) is not quite his position in this text.

Rousseau (The Social Contract, IV, 8) 1762 · attacks premise 5

The state cannot compel anyone to believe, but it can set a "civil religion" (a God, a future life, the sanctity of the laws) and banish whoever does not believe it, not as impious, but as unable to love the laws sincerely.

no reply

We have not yet found a direct reply by Voltaire in the texts.

The debate goes on (our summary) The two men are closer than they seem: Rousseau also wants every religion that tolerates others to be tolerated, and those who say "outside the Church there is no salvation" to be expelled. But he goes further than Voltaire, who never proposed banishing peaceful unbelievers.