Description:
Why do we care more about winning than about playing by the rules? Integrity - all of us are in favor of it, but nobody seems to know how to make sure that we get it. From presidential candidates to crusading journalists to the lords of collegiate sports, everybody promises to deliver integrity, yet all too often, the promises go unfulfilled. Stephen Carter examines why the virtue of integrity holds such sway over the American political imagination. By weaving together insights from philosophy, theology, history and law, along with examples drawn from current events and a dose of personal experience, Carter offers a vision of integrity that has implications for everything from marriage… and politics to professional football. He discusses the difficulties involved in trying to legislate integrity as well as the possibilities for teaching it. As the Cleveland Plain Dealer said, "In a measured and sensible voice, Carter attempts to document some of the paradoxes and pathologies that result from pervasive ethical realism... If the modern drift into relativism has left us in a cultural and political morass, Carter suggests that the assumption of personal integrity is the way out."
Author bio:
Stephen L. Carter was born in Washington, D.C. on October 26, 1954. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Stanford University in 1976 and a law degree from Yale University in 1979. After graduation, he served as a law clerk for Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. In 1982, he joined the Yale University faculty and is currently the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law. He is the author of numerous non-fiction works including Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby (1991); The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious… Devotion (1993); The Confirmation Mess: Cleaning Up the Federal Appointments Process (1994); Integrity (1996); The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty (1998); Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy (1998); and God's Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics (2000). He has also written several fiction works including The Emperor of Ocean Park and Jericho's Fall. He was the first non-theologian to receive the prestigious Louisville-Grawemeyer Award in religion.