It is generally accepted that it is A Good Thing to be tolerant, liberal, and generally nice. But as I was thinking about this recently, some strange, irritating ideas crept into my head. Behold the results:
I would think of my self as a tolerant liberal kind of soul. For example, when faced with the question of, for example, the morality of Homosexuality, I would say, "There is nothing wrong with homosexuality." There. How tolerant of me.
But wait!
There is another way I can be a tolerant liberal. Now, I do not take drugs myself, and hence consider myself to be fairly responsible. When faced with, for example, the morality of recreational drug-taking, I say, "I support and would defend your right to take drugs, but I disapprove of you doing so." There, how liberal and tolerant of me.
But what if my response to homosexuality had been, "I support and would defend your right to be homosexual, but I disapprove of you being one"? Most liberal, tolerant, people (myself included) would disagree rather strongly with that statement. But how is it particularly more unreasonable than my opinion regarding taking drugs? This perplexes me.
The answer to this contradiction may be that as liberal tolerant people, we still have to have an arbitrary, but extremely robust, system of morals constantly informing all our opinions, going round and round in our heads all the time. This does seem like a rather inelegant solution though.