Virtue of Civility in Liberal-Democratic and Religiously Diverse Communities
Distrust and resentment corrode the ties of civility, and suspicion and hostility tempt men to act in ways they would otherwise avoid.
—John Rawls, A Theory of Justice1
The conditions for dialogue and peaceful interchange are easily disrupted by judgmental and hostile remarks. Communication involves a deep level of social interchange; it is not merely an exchange of information. Civility reflects sensitivity to the larger social context of communication. Civility is needed today, as we struggle to come to grips with the nature of radical diversity—especially religious diversity, which pushes in the direction of radical disagreement about fundamental things. While some may hope that it is possible for us to find a common worldview that underlies our differences, it is unlikely that such a pluralistic convergence is possible given our religious differences. Instead, we must learn to live civilly together, while admitting our deep differences.
Civility is a kind of tact and social skill that recognizes the human element in communication and dialogue. It is an especially important virtue for citizens in a religiously diverse democracy. Civility lies in the middle between “mere tolerance” and a more robust form of mutuality or love. A more robust sense of mutuality may exist within a close religious community but in diverse societies, robust mutuality is difficult if not impossible. Mere tolerance is a bare minimum for the citizenry of a religiously diverse democracy. Mere tolerance establishes the fundamental, baseline of liberty in a democratic polity that allows for minority rights. While mere tolerance develops as a pragmatic modus vivendi for those who must live together despite conflicting fundamental values, it can also be a moral value derived from a deeper commitment to basic liberty rights.2 By saying that tolerance develops as a pragmatic modus vivendi, I mean that tolerance rests upon a practical and prudential recognition that peaceful coexistence is better than conflict, which can in some cases even lead to violence. By saying that mere tolerance has a moral basis, I mean to connect tolerance to the idea that human beings have a basic right to freedom of expression. The problem, of course, is that not everyone agrees that human beings have a basic right to freedom of expression. Indeed, some religious communities prohibit freedom of expression by invoking the notion of blasphemy. This implies that even though it would be ideal if we agreed about the moral basis of tolerance, such agreement is not soon forthcoming. The difficulty of tolerance is that a pragmatic approach is less stable than a morally grounded approach to tolerance; but a morally grounded approach is more difficult to sustain in a diverse community. The same problem is true when thinking about civility.
It is not easy for people who fundamentally disagree to exercise their freedom of expression, without antagonism and hostility. This is especially true when it comes to religion. It is easy for extreme and hostile individuals to speak maliciously: berating, vilifying, chastising, and mocking those they disagree with. This tendency toward hostility makes it unlikely that we can develop a more robust form of community in democratic societies, which take freedom of expression seriously. In a free public sphere, individuals are free to express themselves, even if their words are hurtful. One way to moderate hostility is to understand and cultivate the virtue of civility. Civility will not eliminate disagreement, but it will allow for less hostility and suspicion. Indeed, there is a virtuous circle here: with civility moderating hostility, which in turn helps to make it possible to be more civil toward one another.
Liberty, Religion, and Diversity in Today’s World
Many current issues revolve around the difficulty of balancing respect for freedom of expression with the need for civility in public discourse. One recent case was the uproar that occurred in the aftermath of a controversy provoked by an anti-Muslim video produced in the United States. Violence broke out in September of 2012 in parts of the Muslim world as a response to the YouTube video, “The Innocence of Muslims.” In the aftermath, President Barack Obama went to the United Nations and eloquently defended freedom of expression. He maintained that the video was “crude and disgusting” and repudiated its content. But he adamantly defended freedom of expression:
Americans have fought and died around the globe to protect the right of all people to express their views, even views that we profoundly disagree with. We do not do so because we support hateful speech, but because our founders understood that without such protections, the capacity of each individual to express their own views and practice their own faith may be threatened. We do so because in a diverse society, efforts to restrict speech can quickly become a tool to silence critics and oppress minorities.3
In response, several leaders from the Muslim world gave speeches at the U.N. calling for greater restrictions on freedom of expression.4 Egypt’s newly elected President, Mohammed Morsi, stated: “Insults against the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, are not acceptable. We will not allow anyone to do this by word or by deed.” Yemen’s President, Abdurabu Mansur Hadi, said: “These behaviors find people who defend them under the justification of the freedom of expression. These people overlook the fact that there should be limits for the freedom of expression, especially if such freedom blasphemes the beliefs of nations and defames their figures.” Pakistan’s President, Zardari, said, “The international community must not become silent observers and should criminalize such acts that destroy the peace of the world and endanger world security by misusing freedom of expression.”
To many observers, this discussion of free speech and blasphemy might have seemed like an unexpected development. But the issue has been percolating in recent years in international relations. In March of 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a declaration with the following title: “Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against, persons based on religion or belief.”5 The impetus for this proclamation is ongoing human rights abuses that occur in many places under the general rubric of blasphemy law. While many of these abuses occur in Muslim countries, this is a problem even in Europe. One recent case is that of Dorota Rabczewska, a Polish pop star known as Dota, who was charged with blasphemy in Poland in 2010: she had criticized the Bible, saying it was written “by people who drank too much wine and smoked herbal cigarettes.”6
While the European case is interesting, the more significant problem is the divergence with regard to blasphemy laws between Muslim and non-Muslim countries. This may be a sign of the so-called “clash of civilizations” and it points toward the twin problems of ethnocentrism and relativism. But one part of the solution may be a better understanding of the need for civility. While the producer of “The Innocence of Muslims” certainly has the right to express his criticism of Islam, there are other reasons to restrain such criticism. One pragmatic issue is fear of violent backlash, such as occurs when riots break out as a response. But it is important to note that those who use violence or the threat of violence to stifle freedom of expression are in the wrong. With regard to free expression, the larger context matters, which is why we agree that you should not be free to scream “Fire!” in a crowded theater. But the burden of proof appears to rest on those who want to restrict speech in the name of public safety. Unless we can prove that inter-religious and international circumstances really are like the crowded theater example (which is unlikely), we must defend the filmmaker’s right to make such a film. Nonetheless, one might have a further reason for not disseminating speech and artworks that mock and denigrate—namely out of respect for those on the receiving end of free speech and out of concern for developing working relationships and social networks with those others. Mockery and denigration are cruel. And they do not help to foster productive cooperation in the future. Instead, they tend to polarize social groups and keep people from understanding one another.
While the international reaction to the mocking video might seem like a larger “civilizational” clash, the backlash against freedom of expression has occurred even within the Western world. During recent decades, there have been issues raised with regard to hate speech, codes of political correctness, and regulation of religious and anti-religious speech. Much of this occurs in the context of the schools. In California, for example, the University of California has considered banning “hate speech,” prompted by anti-Israeli activists who are charged with being anti-Semitic. In August of 2012, the California state legislature passed a resolution (HR 35) which condemns criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. The resolution concludes, among other things, with the following: “The Assembly urges both the University of California and the California State University to take additional actions to confront anti-Semitism on its campuses, with due respect to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”7 The interesting issue here is that First Amendment principles are recognized as being important, even while certain forms of speech are being criticized.
In both of these cases—at the international level in the discussion between Obama and the presidents of Muslim countries, and at the domestic level in the discussion of anti-Semitism in the universities in California—religion is an issue, along with the question of proper limits for freedom of expression about religion. One solution would appear to be greater civility. Indeed, this seems to be the solution hinted at by Obama in his speech at the United Nations. There should be wide freedom of expression. We should even be free to condemn, in speech, other people’s religions. Nonetheless, there are often good reasons not to exercise the right to freedom of expression. This is where the virtue of civility occurs: as self-restraint in a context of liberty. In its fundamental moral aspect, it is based upon respect for the other. In its pragmatic manifestation, self-restraint is based upon strategic or prudential concerns. In both cases, self-restraint must be based upon freely chosen values, since self-restraint that is based upon fear and threats of violence is not civility.
Civility and self-restraint are only virtues within a context of liberty. The moral basis for freedom of expression as outlined in the First Amendment to the American Constitution has been explained and defended in a number places from John Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration, Kant’s essay, “What is Enlightenment?,” and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. Not everyone agrees that there is a right to freedom of expression—as we’ve seen. But for the moment let’s assume that it makes sense for the state to grant citizens extensive freedom of expression. The first step is to defend what we might call “mere tolerance,” which occurs within a regime that defends extensive freedom of speech. With mere tolerance we ensure free public expression. But we should admit that it is not always prudent or morally acceptable for citizens to take advantage of that liberty.
One of the prudential concerns motivating civility may be the desire for effective communication. Mere tolerance is not enough for genuine communication to occur. For genuine communication to occur, speech must be transmitted to another who actually listens to the content that is being spoken: it is not enough to passively “hear” what is spoken; one must also listen to the content for an indication of the ideas or intentions that are communicated.8 Mere tolerance permits speaking in the public sphere; but it does not ensure that anyone actually listens to what is said. Indeed, indiscriminate use of freedom of speech can result in conditions in which no one listens. If we are all speaking and claiming our right to freedom of speech, without engaging one another civilly, then no one will be listening. Moreover, if one merely asserts the right to free speech without being attentive to the needs, interests, and dispositions of one’s audience, then the audience may not properly receive what is being communicated. In order for genuine listening and communication to occur, civility is required, as a skill for establishing the social conditions for communication.
Finally, civility occurs both as an outgrowth of moral modesty and as an expression of care for the other. Concern for the feelings of others is an important reason to refrain from speaking. And it is a sign of maturity and modesty to take the middle course between obsequious flattery or shy silence (on the one hand) and aggressive loudmouth assertion (on the other).
A Brief Genealogy of Civility as a Virtue
Civility stems from awareness of how what you say will be received by those to whom you say it. A crucial part of civility is to refrain from judgmental criticism, mockery, and denigration. Some may argue that civility involves self-censorship. Indeed, in order to “keep a civil tongue” one should acknowledge that it is not always useful to express negative judgments toward others. This is not to deny the basic liberty right to express such negative judgments. Nor should we affirm apathetic relativism that is unwilling to criticize the views of others. But civility involves a kind of reticence—indeed reticence involves silence (the root of the term is connected to the word tacit). The reticence of civility should not be confused with overt censorship. Indeed, civility only makes sense in a context in which there is freedom of expression. Civility is a virtue for those who are free to speak but who choose not to; it is not a virtue for those who do not have the freedom to speak. One cannot be forced to be civil. Rather, civility is a free choice. A commitment to liberty and civility is best grounded in a claim about fundamental moral and political goods. Civility can be a pragmatic virtue for those who must negotiate amid diversity. But it is more firmly grounded in a fundamental commitment both to liberty and to the idea that there is a proper time, place, and manner for exercising liberty.
To say that civility is a virtue means that it is best understood in Aristotelian terms as a character trait. It develops out of practical wisdom about the right time, the right amount, the right manner, and the right place for exercising freedom of expression. Aristotle explains something like civility in Nicomachean Ethics (IV.6), where he discusses a virtue that lies between obsequiousness and contentiousness.9 Although Aristotle does not name this virtue “civility,” it is clear that this sort of sociality or friendliness is related to we would call civility.10 Roman philosophers might have named it humanitas, although civilitas is also a Latin term with similar connotation. In both cases, there is a distinction made between civilized human beings and beasts or barbarians. Whatever we call it, to discuss civility as a virtue is to acknowledge that sensitivity to circumstances is important and that civility occurs in light of rational insight into the middle path between obsequiousness and contentiousness. This shows us that civility is not a variety of relativism. Sometimes it is important to criticize bluntly—as in the face of obvious injustice or evil; other times one should be more circumspect and bite one’s tongue in deference to other values. Knowing when and how to exercise freedom of expression in a civil manner is a crucial social skill that takes experience, sensitivity, and practice.
We should note, however, one important critique of “civility” as a virtue: the claim that it is hopelessly ethnocentric and subject to a relativist critique. Using Aristotle as a source for this discussion—as I have done—might point in this direction, since Aristotle also defends slavery and disparaged the barbarians. As mentioned previously, civility is used to identify those who are “civilized” as distinct from those who are not—i.e., the barbarians or even the beasts. The risk is that by focusing on civility we are privileging some version of what it means to be civilized, together with the long and freighted history of what we might call, following Huntington, the clash of civilizations.11
As a preliminary response to this objection, let’s distinguish between civility as good manners (or etiquette) and a broader form of civility that is grounded in respect for persons. “Civility as decorum” risks becoming ethnocentric since manners and etiquette are socially constructed and relative to culture. This form of civility does, however, remain important for many authors. Civility as manners is a central aspect of what Norbert Elias called “the civilizing process.” Steven Pinker suggests—following Elias—that peaceful social relations begin with the spread of basic manners and good etiquette: learning to eat with forks instead of fingers, learning not to belch in public, and learning to keep snot and feces in their proper places.12 Of course, this version of civility is hopelessly ethnocentric: different cultures do have different conventions for dealing with bodily functions. Elias himself admits this when he provides the historical, cultural, and religious context for the development of the European idea of civility. Elias focuses on civilité as it develops as part of the process of modernization—as part of the development of a secular, individualistic, bourgeois European identity. Elias explains that the concept develops at the end of the Middle Ages: “the concept of civilité acquired its meaning for Western society at a time when knightly society and the unity of the Catholic church were disintegrating.”13 Elias relates civility to the rise of humanism—citing Erasmus of Rotterdam as a primary source. Erasmus was also a proponent of toleration and civil discourse—civility in the broader sense: he called for toleration toward the Turks and he famously argued in his response to Martin Luther that religious disputes should not be viewed as gladiatorial combats but as civil discussions aimed at discovering the truth.14 According to Elias, Erasmus modernized the Roman concept of civilitas—which can also be subject to the criticism of ethnocentrism, since the Romans also distinguished between the civilized and the barbaric.
Some have argued that civility in the sense of good manners has played an important diplomacy role in international relations.15 But good manners is insufficient—especially since manners are culturally relative. A broader notion of civility is required—not merely good manners but respect for one’s discursive partners, based upon some understanding of human rights. In this sense, civility is closely linked to the ideas of toleration and liberty. It is possible, of course, to mount an ethnocentric/relativist critique of toleration as merely a value of secular, Western society. Much more argument would be needed to show that toleration, religious liberty, and human rights ought to be considered as universal values, which make it possible for ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity to flourish.16 We cannot pursue this argument here. But it is important to note that the relativist/ethnocentric challenge shows us the very need for more toleration and greater civility. As mentioned earlier, we might have to affirm these as merely pragmatic values, if we are unable to find a common moral ideal underlying our differences.
Civility as an Art of Living
John Locke is an important and influential source for thinking about civility who turns civility into a way of living gracefully. In his book, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Locke describes civility as something of an art—part of the art of living well.17 Going beyond Erasmus’ focus on basic table manners, hygiene, and control of bodily functions, Locke locates civility in the middle between bashful self-abasement and aggressive boastfulness, in a way that is reminiscent of Aristotle’s account of “friendliness” or civility as a middle path. Locke explains that we need to develop “a disposition of the mind not to offend others”; we also need to find “the most acceptable and agreeable way of expressing that disposition.” Graceful speech and a calm and agreeable demeanor express what Locke calls “internal civility of the mind.” One manifestation of this is to find ways to avoid “making anyone uneasy in conversation.” Locke identifies four characteristics that produce incivility: roughness, contempt, censoriousness, and captiousness. Lock concludes: “He that knows how to make those he converses with easy, without debasing himself to low and servile flattery, has found the true art of living in the world, and being both welcome and valued everywhere.”18 The middle path is located between condemnation of others and deference to them—to continue to maintain your own self-respect, while also refraining from making the other feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, or belittled. The problem with Locke’s account is that he connects civility with class as a virtue of the gentleman, which includes an implicit attempt to distance the civilized gentleman from the uncouth masses. Locke’s account of toleration is similarly fraught. Locke wants extensive toleration for Protestant sects, but he does not extend tolerance to Catholics or atheists.19
At any rate, the idea of civility as an art of living is important. It has been developed by P.M. Forni—the co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project—in an influential recent book, Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct. This book is not a philosophical treatise. Rather, like Locke’s reflections, it is a guide for behavior that is intended to lead to productive social life and happiness. Forni explains civility as follows:
To learn how to be happy we must learn how to live well with others, and civility is the key to that. Through civility we develop thoughtfulness, foster effective self-expression and communication, and widen the range of our benign responses. Civility allows us to connect successfully with others.20
The idea that civility allows us to live well, be happy, and connect successfully with others points toward a pragmatic grounding of civility. The goal of civility, when understood in this way, is to foster peaceful social interactions and diminish psychological distress. Forni outlines a variety of rules and scenarios that promote good social living, pleasant relationships and interaction, and psychological and even physical health. There is much to be said for civility from this point of view: civility is a tool for good psychosocial health.
We should note that civility is not always called for. It is possible, for example, that incivility is morally required. One version of this stems from the idea of “righteous indignation”: there may be circumstances in which self-respect requires that we ignore, condemn, and lash out against evildoers. Perhaps this explains the thinking of those who have called for restrictions on freedom of expression in California and the U.N. It may be that some forms of speech or some actions are so wrong that they must be condemned and must be acted against. The definition of a “wrong” directs us back to the problem of whether wrongs are culturally variable: while the Muslim leaders think that blasphemous videos are wrong and ought to be censored, Obama maintains that blasphemy is one of the things that should be tolerated. It would be odd to say that we should remain civil to a rapist, to a traitor, or to a threatening attacker. With this in mind, it is easy to see, that the moral limit of civility occurs when there is a serious moral threat. In response to such threats, incivility may be required along with righteous indignation. Thus, the Forni account of civility, like Locke’s, is best understood as a virtue or art that develops within societies that already share much in common. And the relativist critique arises again when we consider relations between cultures that do not share such common views and values.
Civility in Shared Public Life
For civility to work, then, it appears to require a shared conception of public or political life: civility is for those who share a conception of the civitas—of the political sphere, which unites the cives—the citizens—in civil society. Ronald Arnett has explained how “civility offers minimal common ground that permits diverse groups who share the goal of continuing the public conversation and maintaining civil society to engage life together.”21 This is connected to the broad theory of the public sphere that has been outlined by philosophers such as Habermas and Rawls. The practice of civility will primarily occur within a group that shares a minimal common sense of the political sphere and its notion of public reason. Rawls explains this in terms of citizenship and the duty of civility: “the idea of citizenship imposes a moral, not a legal, duty—the duty of civility—to be able to explain to one another on those fundamental questions how the principles and policies they advocate and vote for can be supported by the political values of public reason. This duty also involves a willingness to listen to others and a fair-mindedness in deciding when accommodations to their views should reasonably be made.”22 Habermas also notes that democratic citizenship also requires a shared sense of the civil and what he calls “civil solidarity”: “It is precisely the conditions for the successful participation in the shared practice of democratic self-determination that define the ethics of citizenship. For all their ongoing dissent on questions of world views and religious doctrines, citizens are meant to respect one another as free and equal members of their political community. And on this basis of civic solidarity when it comes to contentious political issues they are expected to look for a way to reach a rationally motivated agreement—they owe one another good reasons.”23
This account of civility points toward a deeper source than merely personal, psychological well-being. It points toward a shared conception of the public sphere and the requirements of good communication. Civic solidarity and shared citizenship rest upon the ability to communicate and develop social relationships despite our differences. Good communication involves attentiveness to the social dimension of communication. Communication does not happen unless certain social conditions are fulfilled: basic needs have to be satisfied, power differentials have to be accounted for, and communicants need to have developed some basis for trust. Civility in its political sense involves understanding these social aspects of the communication situation. Good communicators are attentive to these social aspects as a pragmatic matter: if we want communication to occur, we must respond to the social dynamics of the communication situation. But social attentiveness can remain merely strategic and pragmatic. Good communicators are adept at manipulating the social dynamic in order to persuade others, with civility emerging as a basic skill of social intercourse. Politicians and salespeople are good at engaging in civil discourse, even as they try to manipulate us. A moral basis for social attentiveness goes deeper, resting upon respect for one’s dialogue partners. Civility as a moral virtue (and not as a merely pragmatic skill) develops out of concern for the well-being of one’s interlocutors and respect for their autonomy.
At most, merely tolerant citizens agree about basic “political” goods in John Rawls’ sense of the term. In the U.S., these political goods include First Amendment principles. Such principles are especially important for a religiously diverse polity. The First Amendment prevents the establishment of state-sponsored religion, while also respecting the free exercise of religion. While it makes sense to think that the free exercise of religion is closely related to the principle of freedom of expression, it may seem odd that a law against the establishment of religion is so closely connected with the principle of freedom of expression. But the history of the world is such that when political power is too closely associated with religious power, freedom of expression is at risk along with freedom of worship. This is what Obama was trying to explain at the United Nations. And it was what the Muslim leaders rejected. This is linked to Rawls’ idea that civility is a value within a political community. This case shows us that it is very difficult to imagine how civility can develop across political and religious borders—since foreigners and strangers do not share a commitment to the shared political sphere.
Civility may only properly function within a narrowly defined polity. Political agreement, in Rawls’ sense, merely establishes the limits of tolerant government, while mandating minimally decent behavior among citizens. Citizens in religiously diverse democracies will not agree about much in terms of substantial goods. They will disagree about the sources of psychological and spiritual well-being; they will disagree about the proper structure of family life; they will disagree about economic and vocational choices; and they will disagree about the meaning of history and the metaphysical structure of the world. But they can agree to keep the state neutral and tolerant, allowing the citizens the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression. As stated previously, this agreement about state neutrality and tolerance may either be a pragmatic agreement or a deeper moral agreement. It is possible for a polity to be grounded in plural sorts of agreement along lines explained by Rawls in his idea of “overlapping consensus.” So long as there is agreement—whether pragmatic or moral—a tolerant polity can survive.
A polity that consists of religiously diverse citizens who agree about tolerance either as a pragmatic modus vivendi or as a moral principle will, however, not be a genuine community. A more robust form of interaction seems to be essential for the development of genuine caring communities. While tolerance establishes the floor for public discourse and shared governance, something more than mere tolerance and minimal decency would be preferable from the standpoint of human beings who value friendship, community, trust, and love. The paradigm of a caring community is one in which the members are united by mutual respect, friendship, trust, and love. In robust caring communities, the members engage in mutually supportive activity grounded in a shared vision of the good life. Love, respect, and care are mediated by shared adherence to a common set of moral and metaphysical commitments. The ideal of caring community has been described in various ways—from Aristotle’s account of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics to Nel Noddings’ description of the ethics of care. A central feature of genuine communities and friendships is an attentive attitude of listening, including what Noddings describes as “engrossment” and “motivational displacement.”24 In genuine friendships and caring communities, not only are the friends free to speak their minds but the friends actually listen to one another, attend to each other, and displace their emotions toward one another. However, love and respect demand too much of those whose religious differences run deep, who will not agree on a common set of moral or metaphysical commitments. We cannot expect to love one another or share mutual respect when we disagree about existential, psychological, and metaphysical goods. Nonetheless, we do need to aim at something more than mere tolerance.
The middle ground between mere tolerance and more robust caring or love is where I locate civility and civil discourse. Tolerance allows us safely to ignore one another under the protection of the secular state, so long as we do not interfere with one another’s moral and religious commitments. Civility allows us to talk and listen to one another, while not requiring that we agree or love one another. Rawls himself employs the notion of civility in his discussion of how citizens remain engaged together in a common political project despite the fact that they disagree with some of the specific outcomes of that project. Rawls explains, “we have a natural duty of civility not to invoke the faults of social arrangements as a too ready excuse for not complying with them, nor to exploit inevitable loopholes in the rules to advance our interests. The duty of civility imposes a due acceptance of the defects of institutions and a certain restrain in taking advantage of them. Without some recognition of this duty, mutual trust and confidence are liable to break down.”25 Rawls’ point is that civility provides the social glue (or perhaps the social lubrication) that allows us to remain together despite disagreements, loopholes, and dysfunction. It is interesting that Rawls explains that when we are civil, we limit the act of taking advantage, even though we could legally get away with taking advantage. The point is that legally and morally we are free to exercise our liberty rights to the disadvantage of others. But civility in its political sense is self-restraint of liberty that refrains from exercising liberty in the name of social cohesion.
A related recent discussion of civility by Albert Borgman explains it as a common agreement that lies between legality and morality:
There must be a force that is morally more powerful than the laws and more inclusive than the various religions and philosophies of life. We can call it civility. It lies halfway between legality and morality. It is common, that is, less than universal; it is encouraged rather than enforced; and its requirements are morally demanding though not supremely so.26
Borgman is right in locating civility midway between the minimum level of what is morally required (where I would locate mere tolerance and freedom of expression) and the more inclusive moral requirements of specific religions and philosophies of life (where I would locate the consensus and love that can develop among like-minded individuals who share a community of value). That being said, civility is essential for a religiously diverse democracy because the very fact of religious diversity prevents any further development toward the more robust community that would be founded in love. But Borgman points out, following Robert Putnam, that many of the sources of civility are threatened by our increasingly fragmented society and our lack of common activities in the sphere of what used to be called “civil society.” Religious diversity poses a problem here: there is no way that Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, Mormons, Muslims Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Shamanists, and atheists will agree about fundamental moral and metaphysical commitments; and it is unlikely that these diverse peoples will join together in the associations and organizations of “civil society.” Thus it is unlikely that diverse people will ever be able to love one another, attentively engross themselves in one another, and share a common life of mutual trust and respect.
However, we can listen to and learn from one another well enough to allow for the creation of shared public goods, especially, I would argue, the shared good of education about religion. Indeed, civility is especially needed in public discussions of religion. At the very least, we should engage in civil discussions of our religious differences: exercising appropriate restraint when it comes to public discussions of religion. But these discussions should not settle for a soft pluralistic approach to religious diversity, which pretends that we love one another and share a common worldview. Instead, we should frankly admit the depth of our differences and affirm our diversity, while also embracing civility. In fact, it is useful to hone the ability to engage in civil dialogue about our most fundamental religious differences as the test case for civil discourse. If we can remain civil while discussing our deepest religious differences, then it should be easier to remain civil in other less-demanding circumstances.
Conclusion
We have seen that civility is a virtue that only makes sense within the context of freedom of expression and toleration. We have discussed civility as a virtue and also as part of the personal art of living. We have also seen that civility may only operate within a community that shares some conception of the political or public sphere: civility may, at most, be a virtue for relations among citizens who already share much in common.
Civility involves self-restraint under conditions of liberty, when such restraint is based either upon a pragmatic recognition of the need for tact or a more moral recognition of the need to respect one’s interlocutors. One would presume that all cultures and religions would understand the pragmatic need for restraint (out of hope for subsequent cooperative endeavor, for example). And one would hope that all cultures and religions would understand the moral need to have respect for the feelings of the other. This gives us reason to hope that toleration and civility can develop as universal values. Such a development is crucially important given the nature of religious diversity in our increasingly integrated global society. There is no way we are going to be able to agree across our religious divisions. Nonetheless, there are ways that we can live together in a free and civil society. We must accept freedom of expression as a primary good. But we must also acknowledge that the virtue of civility is essential for knowing how, when, and in what amount we should exercise our right to free expression.
Once we have established the floor of mere tolerance, then we can begin to engage in mutual critique and philosophical discussion. But we should also note that for critique to work in a world of radical diversity, we must not rush to judge and condemn one another. We should also realize that inflammatory statements and defamatory artworks are not helpful, even though we each have the right to express them.
A remaining problem is whether civility, liberty, and toleration are merely the values of Western secular society—as particular and culturally relative as manners and etiquette—or whether it makes sense to claim that these are universal values. Further argument is needed to show that liberty and civility should be viewed as universal values. It is possible that those with different religious and cultural affiliations may see things differently. However, the civil debate that occurred at the United Nations between President Obama and the leaders of the Muslim world shows us that radical disagreements can be expressed with restraint and without violence. It is important to note that despite their difference, Obama and the Muslim leaders remained civil and they continue to cooperate and remain in dialogue. Despite the difficulty of inter-religious dialogue and cross-cultural encounters, this gives us reason to hope that civility can help us make progress toward a more peaceful world.
Notes
1. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 6.
2. See Andrew Fiala, Tolerance and the Ethical Life (London: Continuum, 2005).
3. The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “Remarks by the President to the UN General Assembly” September 25, 2012.
4. “At U.N., Egypt and Yemen Urge Curbs on Free Speech” New York Times, September 27, 2012. Accessed February 11, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/27/world/united-nations-general-assembly.html.
5. UN Human Rights Council (adopted March 24, 2011). At: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/type,RESOLUTION,,,4db960f92,0.html (accessed February 11, 2013).
6. “Blasphemy Laws Exposed,” Human Rights First (March 2012): http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/Blasphemy_Cases.pdf (accessed February 11, 2013).
7. HR 35, as amended August 23, 2012: http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11–12/bill/asm/ab_0001–0050/hr_35_bill_20120823_amended_asm_v98.html (accessed February 11, 2013).
8. I discuss hearing and listening in more detail in The Philosopher’s Voice (SUNY Press, 2005); and in “Civility, Virtue, and Tragedy” Dialogue and Universalism (Forthcoming).
9. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Ross Translation (Internet Classics Archive: http://classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/nicomachaen.html, accessed September 2012).
10. See Howard J. Curzer, Aristotle and the Virtues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), especially Chapter 9, “Friendliness and Civility” (N.E. IV.6).
11. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
12. Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (New York: Viking, 2011), Chapter 3: “The Civilizing Process.”
13. Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (London: Blackwell, 2000), 47.
14. Desiderius Erasmus, Erasmus on His Times: A Shortened Version of the Adages, ed. by Margaret Phillips (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): “Dulce Bellum Inexpertis,” p. 133; and On the Freedom of the Will in Gordon Rupp, ed., Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1969): “Prefatory Remarks,” p. 36.
15. See Andrew Linklater, “Norbert Elias, The ‘Civilizing Process’ and the Sociology of International Relations,” International Politics 41 (2004), 3–35.
16. See Andrew Fiala, Tolerance and the Ethical Life (London: Continuum, 2005).
17. The following quotes are from John Locke Some Thoughts Concerning Education (New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; at www.bartleby.com/37/1/), § 143, p. 240 ff.
18. Ibid., p. 247.
19. John Locke, “Letter Concerning Toleration,” in Classics of Modern Political Theory, ed. Steven M. Cahn (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
20. P.M. Forni, Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), 6.
21. Ronald Arnett, Communication Ethics (New York: Sage Publishing, 2008), 92.
22. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 217.
23. Jürgen Habermas, “Religion in the Public Sphere” European Journal of Philosophy 14:1 (2006), 5.
24. Nel Noddings, Caring (Berkeley: University of California, 1984).
25. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 312.
26. Albert Borgman, Real American Ethics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 26. Also see Mark Kingwell, A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue, and the Politics of Pluralism (University Park, PA: Penn State Press, 2007).