Toleration and respect in a multicultural society

Toleration has been invoked as a philosophical and political ideal aiming at bringing social stability and pacific coexistence to modern societies. Nowadays, appeals to toleration animate the political debate about policies addressed to meet minorities requests and claims, among which the allocation of public spaces is more and more relevant. Although the theory and practice of toleration have been focused on from several points of view and largely discussed, those requests and claims give rise to reformulation and further articulation. In this paper I will analyze the meanings of toleration as a preliminary step to cope with different groups within the multicultural societies. Toleration is conceived as a virtue of political institutions necessary to guarantee a fair social system.