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Locke, Rationality and Persecution

This article discusses John Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration (1689). It challenges what has been described as ‘the most influential critique of the argument of the Letter written by a contemporary philosopher’ – that of Jeremy Waldron. It also engages with a recent response to Waldron's critique within the pages of Political Studies by Paul Bou-Habib. It argues that both Waldron and Bou-Habib are in error in their accounts of Locke's theory of toleration. It argues that Waldron is egregiously in error in his claim that Locke, in his defence of toleration, identified with the interests of the persecutors at the expense of their victims. Even Waldron's most recent work on Locke, which emphasises the religious foundations of Locke's defence of toleration, fails to overcome the shortcomings of his critique in this regard.