126 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 19:3 

Toleration, Diversity, and Global Justice 

Kok-Chor Tan 
University Park: The Pennsylvania State University 

Press, 2000. 228 pages. 

In his book Toleration, Diversity, and Global Justice, Kok-Chor Tan chal­

lenges the realist tradition's popularity and its assumption that the state of 
nature is essentially immoral. Instead, he points to the growing role of inter­

national government organizations ( e.g., the UN and the EU), which he states 
indicate morality's global predominance. Centered on the premise of liberal­

ism's primacy- as an ideology and a practice- the book focuses on the philo­
sophical tensions among liberals in terms of liberalism's meaning and scope. 

Two questions domjnate his analysis: First, what are the limits of lib­
eral toleration, and should liberal states tolerate or criticize nonliberal states 

in the name of furthering liberalism? Second, is liberalism, based on the 
idea of individualism, compatible with collectivist cultures or societies? 
Within this context, the author examines liberalism's domestic and global 
consequences. Tan notes that if a society is formatted along the parameters 

of liberalism, then toleration and individualism compliment each other. 
However, as such compatibility does not exist in nonliberal states, the ques­
tion becomes one of liberals' morality and responsibility in terms of 
whether such non liberal states should be tolerated. 

By posing this question, it appears that the author is alluding to the 
implications of liberalism in the international front, namely, whether liberal 
states have the jurisdiction to intervene in nonliberal states' matters of 
domestic jurisdiction. Another question is whether such intervention - in 

defense of individualism, morality, and autonomy - contradicts the very 
essence of liberalism, namely, its commitment to autonomy even for non­
liberal states. The author phrases the question slightly differently by asking 

whether liberalism's emphasis on autonomy (defined in individual terms) 

defines the limits of tolerating non liberal states. 
ln addressing the questions surrounding the moral imperative of liber­

als vis-a-vis nonliberal societies and states, Tan distinguishes between two 

kinds of liberalism: political liberalism with an overriding emphasis on tol­
eration (acceptance), and a comprehensive liberalism with an overriding 
emphasis on autonomy and individualism. In other words, those political 
liberals restrict their concerns only to those "uncontroversial concerns of 

society." Instead, the concern is on the design of political institutions and, 







Book Reviews 129 

as a cumulative reaction to the discouragement of autonomy and individu­
alism. Indeed, sectarian violence can be explained, in part, as an inevitable 

conflict when provisions for autonomy and individualism (cornerstones of 
comprehensive liberalism) are absent. 

!rm Haleem

Visiting Assistant Professor 

Northeastern University 

Boston, Massachusetts