FOSTERING TRUST AND CIVILITY
IS A MORAL ISSUE

Fostering Trust And Civility Is a Moral Issue by acclaimed author and Yale Law professor Stephen Carter on the duty to respect others.

The family, says Carter, must be the focal point for moral education, and parents must consciously consider what moral lessons they want their children to learn. "The most important questions is, 'What image of civility do our children see in everyday life?'... It does no good to tell our children, 'Don't say anything behind someone's back that you wouldn't say to their face,' if we do that."

From media moguls to Madison Avenue, the point applies. Yet Carter does not expect results to come just from pleas to TV networks and advertisers. "My own view is that this is something that we will do when we return to God," he says. He is encouraged by the "massive search" many see going on in America. "People are searching for the way to fill 'the hole in the soul,' as my wife calls it. The market can't fill it, our jobs can't fill it - even our friendships, dear though they may be, can't fill it... And I don't think we will ever recover civility in the sense of this deep and sacrificial concern for others unless we find ways to fill that hold - to deepen our connection to God."

CARTER'S "RULES OF CIVILITY"
Our duty to be civil toward others does not depend on whether we like them or not.
We must sacrifice for strangers, not just for people we happen to know.
Civility has two parts: generosity, even when it is costly, and trust, even when there is risk.
Civility creates not merely a negative duty not to do harm, but an affirmative duty to do good.
Civility requires a commitment to live a common moral life, so we should try to follow the community norms if they are not actually immoral.

We must come into the presence of our fellow human beings with a sense of awe and gratitude.
Civility assumes we will disagree, it requires us not to mask our differences, but to resolve them respectfully.

We must listen to others with knowledge of the possibility that they are right and we are wrong.

We must express ourselves in ways that demonstrate our respect for others.

Civility requires resistance to the dominance of social life by the values of the marketplace.
(Its) principles should apply in the market and in politics as in every other human activity.
Civility allows criticism of others, sometimes even requires it, but the criticism should always be civil.

Civility discourages use of legislation rather than conversation to settle disputes, except as a last resort.

Teaching civility is an obligation of the family. The state must not interfere with its effort to create a coherent moral universe for its children.

Civility values diversity, disagreement, and the possibility of resistance, so the state must not use education to try to standardize our children.

Religions do their greatest service to civility when they preach not only love of neighbor but resistance to wrong.


- From "Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy."