toleration

thumb|Sculpture Für Toleranz ("for tolerance") by Volkmar Kühn, [[Gera, Germany ]] Toleration is the act of permitting an action, idea, object, or person that one dislikes or disagrees with. Political scientist Andrew R. Murphy explains that "We can improve our understanding by defining 'toleration' as a set of social or political practices and 'tolerance' as a set of attitudes." Random House Dictionary defines tolerance as "a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, beliefs, practices, racial or ethnic origins, etc., differ from one's own". The Merriam-Webster Dictionary associates toleration both with "putting up with" something undesirable, and with neglect or failure to prevent or alleviate it.

Both these concepts contain the idea of alterity: the state of otherness. Additional choices of how to respond to the "other", beyond toleration, exist. Therefore, in some instances, toleration has been seen as "a flawed virtue" because it concerns acceptance of things that were better overcome. Toleration cannot, therefore, be defined as a universal good, and many of its applications and uses remain contested.