Civility, Legality, and Justice in America

Throughout American history, the discourse of civility has proven quite resilient, and concern for a perceived lack of civility has ebbed and flowed in recognizable patterns. Today we are in another era in which political leaders and commentators bemoan a crisis of incivility and warn of civility’s demise. Civility, Legality, and Justice in America charts the uses of civility in American legal and political discourse. How important is civility as a legal and political virtue? How does it fare when it is juxtaposed with the claim that it masks injustice? Who advocates civility and to what effect? How are battles over civility played out in legal and political arenas? This book brings the work of several distinguished scholars together to critically assess the relative claims of civility and justice and the way law the weighs those virtues.