Locke, James, Doxastic Voluntarism and Two Bases of Toleration

The topic of doxastic voluntarism is proving to be fascinating indeed. It is interestingly related to the topic of toleration about which I have something to say in On Toleration: With a Little Help from Kolakowski, in The Danger of Appeasing the Intolerant, and in Toleration and its Limits.

Let us begin today's meditation with a passage from John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration:

The articles of religion are some of them practical and some speculative. Now, though both sorts consist in the knowledge of truth, yet these terminate simply in the understanding, those influence will and manners. Speculative opinions, therefore, and articles of faith (as they are called) which are required only to be believed, cannot be imposed on any Church by the law of the land. For it is absurd that things should be enjoined by laws which are not in men's power to perform. And to believe this or that to be true does not depend on our will. (Treatise of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Sherman, p. 204, emphasis added.)