헌정애국주의와 관용의 한계

Abstract

In our contemporary society, a phenomenon of multiculturalism and globalization requests theoretical considerations of toleration in the new situational context. This article examines Habermas’s understanding of constitutional patriotism and the political theory of toleration, as an attempt to develop the proper understanding of toleration in a multicultural and transnational era. Habermas traces the historical origin of the concept of toleration and reveals that the modern understanding of toleration is based on religious tolerance which has developed from the 16th century. He criticizes the existing idea of toleration and tries to reconstruct the concept. Habermas’s criticism is mainly focused on its paternalistic and arbitrary characteristics. He argues that the practice of toleration eventually remains to be mercy or favor in a situation where the boundaries between tolerance and intolerance are one-sidedly determined due to an asymmetric relationship between the tolerating subject and the tolerated object. Therefore, Habermas suggests the reflexive concept of toleration and argues that the legitimation of toleration should rest on a democratic process of communication and the mutual recognition among free and equal participants. Furthermore, the article analyses Habermas’s understanding of constitutional patriotism as the threshold of toleration. Constitutional patriotism can best be interpreted as ‘loyalty to a constitutional democracy.’ Habermas suggests that constitutional patriotism, as a new collective political identity, should replace the pre-political national identity and traditions in a post-national and post-traditional era. Then, he argues that a commitment to the universalist constitutional principles and procedures is compatible with pluralism, since the interpretation of abstract procedures and principles takes concrete shape in the specific historical, geographical, and cultural context. His arguments are consistently and coherently extended to his analysis on social integration of multicultural society and the cultural rights of minority groups. Moreover, the article provides theoretical and practical limitations inherent in Habermas’s understanding of constitutional patriotism and the concept of toleration in the following respects: i) the particular conception of Occidental modernity and its intrinsic Eurocentrism; ii) ‘substantive’ proceduralism and its elusive neutrality; and iii) conditional toleration and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Finally, I briefly refer to the theoretical attempt to overcome the limitations of modern conception of toleration, especially from a critique of postmodern theory.