Civility

The Iron Law of Civility Governs Traffic @ the Harrods Creek Bridge

A History of Civility: From Plato to the KBACode of Professional Courtesy [abridged by the author August, 2009]

36 Bench & Bar September 2008
By Donald H. Vish

The tie that holds me by the law of courtesy seems to me much tighter and stronger than the law of legal compulsion — Michel de Montaigne.

Be Brief

An invitation to write or speak about civility provides the recipient with an opportunity to demonstrate its first law: be brief. There is a more elaborate formulation of the rule: pensa molto, parla poco, e scrivi meno which I hasten to translate into English: think much, speak little, and write less. Otherwise, the useful Italian dictum violates George Washington’s 72nd Rule of Civility:

Speak not in an unknown tongue in company, but in your own language....

What is civility

So what does civil conduct have to do with speaking briefly, writing concisely and speaking in a language the audience understands? The common denominator is that each is based on thoughtful concern for the comfort and convenience of others. That is the cornerstone of civility. Civility transcends the realm of the merely useful and belongs to the higher realm of ethics and morality. Civility is more than a way of acting — it is a way of living. George Washington’s lifelong interest in civility began at the age of 14 when he wrote in his journal 110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation. His First Rule of Civility could serve as the ONLY rule of civility, a complete and brief treatise on the subject:

Every action done in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those that are present.

Civility is more than courteous, well-mannered behavior. Being civil means being constantly aware of others and weaving restraint, respect, and consideration into the very fabric of this awareness, according to P. M. Forni, the co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project and a noted author and speaker on the subject of civility. Civility is a form of goodness, he concludes in his best-selling book Choosing Civility: the Twenty Five Rules of Considerate Conduct. Those who practice civility, Dr. Forni believes, find both serenity and contentment. Benjamin Franklin was similarly inclined. Franklin believed practicing the art of civil virtue leads first to personal happiness and eventually to greatness.

Emulating Washington and Franklin, the Kentucky Bar Association codified eleven aspirational rules of professional courtesy in 1993 and petitioned the Kentucky Supreme Court to adopt and promulgate the Code of Professional Courtesy [CPC] by formal order. Effective September 1, 1993, Kentucky lawyers had two sets of civil rules: The Rules of Civil Procedure, governing civil actions, and the Rules of Professional Courtesy, governing civil behavior....The CPC is intended as a series of guidelines for lawyers in their dealings with clients, opposing parties, their lawyers, the courts and the general public. While not constituting a disciplinary code or a legal standard of care, Kentucky attorneys are expected to comply with the letter and spirit of the Code adopted by the Supreme Court. The eleven rules in their totality encompass Washington’s First Rule, be considerate of those present, and Plato’s dictum, be kind every one you meet is fighting a hard battle.

...incivility is contagious. One uncivil act begets another which treads on the heels of another and spreads like the Swine Flu. So are there antidotes to the Plague of Incivility? Well, if there are not enough Rules already, I would propose four more:

• Think much, speak little, and write less
• Save your anger for the right occasion but always withhold it in two cases: 1) where you can’t change the outcome and 2) where you can
• Look and overlook , bear and forbear
• Always make haste slowly.
  DV

Donald Vish is an attorney with Middleton Reutlinger in Louisville.
The author would like to acknowledge and thank Kentucky Supreme Court Justice James E. Keller (retired) for his encouragement of and enthusiasm for the advancement of civility and the expert editorial and stylistic advice provided by lawyer James Dady. Errors and omissions, however, are those of the author alone.

Lockerbie Compassion Release Proves Nothing is so Good it Can't be Bad

Compassion and the Straight Face Test August 23, 2009

Compassion is the basis of morality. ---Arthur Schopenhauer

For Schopenhauer, compassion, the direct participation in the suffering of another, is the foundation of ethics from which humanitarianism and justice derive. He relates compassion to the Great Pronouncement of Hinduism: this is thyself or sometimes translated this thou art. The Hindu dictum posits the oneness of the world—the reality that what one does to another one does to oneself.

This is not the selfless compassion of the selfless love called agape. It is instead the pragmatism of the golden rule do unto others, as you would have others do unto you because they are you and the rationalized compassion of the old biblical injunction to love your neighbor as yourself.

In Schopenhauer’s construct, compassion sees through the artificial wall between thee and me and regards separateness as an illusion. Schopenhauer's ethics of compassion may be contrasted with Kant's ethics of pure reason.

The clash between the two can produce either chaos or a mature social justice system stabilized by opposites. The difference is rooted in wisdom. Like a symphony composed of many notes, tones and timbres, some sharp, some soft, some sweet and some harsh, a justice system achieves its harmony when balanced by contraries under the steady hand of a skilled conductor. Rational laws and human compassion are the handmaidens of justice. Law is good. Compassion is good.

The recent release of the convicted mass murderer called the Lockerbie bomber, however, proves the truth of the old adage: Nothing is so good it can’t be bad. The same thing might be said of the recent legal pronouncement by at least two members of the United States Supreme Court in the Troy Davis death penalty case: that is, the United States Constitution does not recognize innocence as a legal defense to an impending execution.

Both decisions give law and compassion a bad name and leave one asking; whatever happened to the popular correctives of the law called fairness and common sense?

But is the release of the Lockerbie bomber really an example of compassion? I suggest it is not.

Compassion is not for the exclusive benefit of the subject whose condition provokes it—compassion is a reaction to excessive suffering of the subject of the observer’s pity. The compassionate act provides relief to both the subject and the observer.

No one is entitled to compassion—one is entitled to the strict reckoning required by law based on the constant and perpetual disposition to give everyone his or her just due. Official acts of grace or mercy guided by pity for the excessive suffering of the prisoner is the first but by no means the excusive characteristic of legal compassion.

The dynamics of justice and compassion each involve proportionality. In order for a punishment to be proportionate to the crime, two elements are required. First, the punishment must fit the crime in the sense that it is like the punishment others receive for the same crime; and, secondly, the punishment must vindicate a valid state interest. If the punishment does not vindicate a state interest then the punishment is excessive and violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

In one application the punishment must not be too much for the prisoner and in the other application the punishment must not be too much for the warden. In a different context Seneca said, in so many words; I understand what the evil man did to deserve his fate, execution by being fed to the lions, but what did I do to deserve the trauma of having to watch it?

Pity is a burden on those who bear it. Compassion is pity in action. So while the suffering of another person provokes the compassion of the observer, compassionate acts minister to each.

The rationale of releasing a prisoner on the verge of death may be that the state no longer has no official interest in further punishment and, therefore, continued incarceration is excessive punishment.

The release of the Lockerbie bomber under color of a compassionate act fails all the basic tests and purposes of compassion. In the Lockerbie case, there was no consensus that the inmate*s suffering was excessive or, indeed, any different from the type of suffering that was actually contemplated when the prisoner was originally sentenced to life in prison, which really means to die in prison. Nor was there any cathartic relief to the community in whose name the compassionate action was taken.

Not only does the Lockerbie decision fail the compassion test, it fails Kant’s rational law test and two lesser-known tests applied by average people everywhere: the smell test and the straight face test.

DV

From Noose to Needle, an Interview with Dean Allen Ault

http://www.justice.eku.edu/courses/cor320/video/COR320_DeanInterview.html

The Devil's Prize

The Devil's Prize

Richie's neither dumb nor wise
He never wins, he never tries
He never sings, he never sighs
He never laughs, he never cries
He never loves, he never lies
and so he is the Devil's Prize:
A man who's dead before he dies.