|
When used loosely character means little more than the superficial and idiosyncratic sum of virtues and vices we imagine in another's life. ("What a character he is.") Character, used in this superficial way, is a substitute for personality. Character can be used in a different way, to evoke images and sensibilities that lead to thinking and talking about "the kind of people we should be, [with] the kind of virtues...we should have." [Stanley Hauerwas, Natural Law, Tragedy and Theological Ethics, 20 Amer. J. Juris. 1, 5 (1975)]. (1) What kind of experience, before and during law school,
has most implicated your character? (4) Is there an incident, conversation, or something you've read or learned during the course of your legal education that has introduced you to individuals who have character. (5) How has the legal education effected your character? Have the intellectual attributes associated with a legal mind--objectivity, detachment, precision, discipline, cool demeanor, become a part of your character?
(6) Martin Buber, the philosopher and theologian, says that as soon as his students saw that he wanted to educate their character they resisted. Was Buber misguided in his belief that teachers should educate the character of their students?
(7) What kind of education does one need to be a person with character? (8) What do we mean when we say a lawyer has character? In the writings of your law school colleagues asked to write about ethics, one finds that to have character means:
(9) In the market place of contemporary life, success depends on selling ourselves, on what Erich Fromm calls a "marketing" character. [Erich Fromm, Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics (New York: Rinehart and Company, 1947)]. The marketing of character places emphasis on personality over ethics. Prestige and status substitute for an authentic self. (The persona denies its shadow.) The following passage from the journal of a first year law student hints at the process described by Fromm.
The student realizes his "nonexisting expertise" but derives satisfaction from the fact he is able to sell himself to others, that he has a role others will buy. While he ascribes to others (parents, friends, and neighbors) the notion that lawyers are well paid and respected, it is equally possible that we are seeing his own fantasy, a projection onto others of ideas he is unable to consciously attribute to himself. His identity as a professional rests on respect that comes from role, not skill; from the acclaim of others rather than self-worth. The marketing character is not centered in self but in an image of success, respect, power and prestige, all of which depend on others. Self-esteem for such individuals depends on others, "One is driven to strive relentlessly for success, and any setback is a severe threat to one's self-esteem; helplessness, insecurity, and inferiority feelings are the result." [Fromm, at 79-80] We cannot talk about what lawyers do, and should do, without bringing into the conversation the idea of character and our own moral sensibilities. In thinking about ethics, or talking ethics, we do not start with a clean slate. Sidney Hook, a philosopher, points out that "[w]e never start de novo or form scratch. We carry with us a heavily funded memory of things previously discovered to be valuable, ends or goods to which we feel committed as prima facie validities." [Sidney Hook, The Quest for Being 52 (1961)]. By holding moral views expressed in living the way others see us living, telling the stories we tell, and using the rhetoric we deploy in providing reasons for our choices, ethics becomes an integral part of our day-to-day practices and character. It is Sunday, September 27, 1987, and the Sunday New York Times provides a wonderful day of diversion from work. I find a booth at the Dove Restaurant, order the $2.09 breakfast special (three eggs scrambled with diced ham and three pancakes). Following the custom of Sunday paper readers, I discard sections as I read them. With the paper pared to manageable portions, I turn to the news of the day where I find, as I do so many days, talk of ethics (and morals). My attention on this long ago Sunday focuses on two "character" stories. The first is an account of an NFL football player who crossed the picket line of football colleagues during an NFL players' strike. The other story concerns Senator Joseph Biden and revelation of his law school plagiarism. But first, the football story... A caption on the sports page catches my eye--WHY DO THEY CROSS THE LINE? [William c. Rhoden, "Why Do They Cross the Line?" New York Times, September 27, 1987, p. 1S, c.2]. The two columns of story print are sandwiched between pictures of Chris Brown and Jay Brophy, two of the three NFL players who crossed the picket lines in the NFL strike. The caption under Chris Brown's photo says: Chris Brown, dreamer: "It's not every day that you get an opportunity to play pro ball." The picture of Jay Brophy is captioned: Jay Brophy, among the needy: "Believe me, I never wanted it to come to this--I never wanted to have to play this way." There is, one suspects, something symbolic about a picket line. Even in an era of declining unionism, a picket line stands for something. For those of us with working class parents (my father was in the carpenter's union, my mother in a clothing workers' union), picket times were a symbol of courage and sacrifice, of seeking collective effort a dignity demanded from those who owned and controlled the salaries crucial to their livelihood, that they could never secure as individuals. A picket line may have no meaning to Mr. Brown and Mr. Brophy, yet, they feel it necessary to justify to the journalist William Rhoden, the public, their fellow players, and perhaps themselves, their reasons for crossing a player union picket line; they cross the picket line and argue that we should respect their decision. Mr. Rhoden asks: "What manner of dream prompts a man to cross a picket line of hostile football players and endure the daily humiliation of jeers and tossed eggs?" For Mr. Brophy the justification is basically economic. Released from the New York Jets during the summer prior to the strike he returned home, to Akron, Ohio, to work with his brother in an asbestos-removal company. "I want to play football; I don't want to go back working asbestos. I never thought I'd cross a line, I grew up in a union family. My father drove a truck for 27 years as a member of a union." Brophy tells the reporter:
Rhoden, goes on, on the question of money, to report:
Chris Brown's story follows a different logic. Like, Brophy, Brown makes clear that he is not anti-union.
Another player interviewed by Rhoden, Maurice Turner provides another twist to the story. He says, "It was some kind of funny.... Two weeks ago nobody wanted me. Now I'm a wanted man." Returning to the New York Jets, who had earlier cut him from the roster, Turner says, "I've been fighting odds all my career.... I've never carried the ball in two full years. That's 32 games. My job has been special teams. Everybody's got a role, a job. I considered it an honor to be drafted because I can always tell my kids, 'I got drafted.'" Rhoden points out that Turner has a degree in business administration and is prepared to work but is "still full of football." Turner tells Rhoden: "I was talking to Freeman McNeil during training camp and he put it in a way that I never thought of, but it's true.... He said he was committed to the game of football, and that's why he played. I feel the same way. Why else would I keep fighting the odds and trying to make it if I wasn't committed?" Rhoden wonders whether money wouldn't prompt a man to cross the line. "That's the bottom line," Turner said. "But I don't look at the materialistic aspect of it, I look at how I feel about what I'm doing. If I'm playing football I believe that I'm successful because that's what I enjoy doing." Both Brophy and Brown express support for the union. They want the reader to believe they can see the situation from the perspective of colleagues on the picket line. But their empathy does not affect their actions. What then is one to make of this plea of empathy? When empathy does not result in action, is it empathy or platitude? Perhaps bad faith? For Brophy, the justification seems to be hard times. When you owe bills and you have a family to look out for, crossing picket lines is justified. But the argument begins to look suspect when Mr. Rhoden explores Brophy's financial situation. Brophy is intrigued with the possibility of making money, more money than he can make in an asbestos-removal business with his brother in Akron. As Brophy puts it: "I'm just looking after myself and my family." The "I just want to play football," reason for crossing the picket line is more perplexing. Football, one must assume from these stories, gets in the blood. It is like rabbit hunting, farming, or being a trial lawyer, not everyone can do it, or wants to. And so, Maurice Turner talks about crossing the player picket line because of his commitment to football. We are asked to believe he crossed the picket line because of his joy in playing his love of the game. One sees here a claim to principle, a principle that can justify crossing union picket lines, a love of craft. But the union players, too, express their love of the game in supporting the strike. Turner's notion of principle implies that no football player or classroom teacher (at least those who love their work) would strike. Love of the game, it seems can be perverted to that being in the game is all, finally, that counts. Another Sunday, in 1987, brings news of Senator Joseph Biden's withdrawal from the race as a Democratic candidate for President of the United States. Mr. Biden has withdrawn because of news accounts of plagiarism during his first year of law school, his use of speeches of other politicians without credit, and lying about his law school record (that he graduated in the top half of his class when he was actually at the bottom, that he had a full academic scholarship when he had a non-academic scholarship). Biden contended that the plagiarism and the distortions of his academic record were trivial, or at least, irrelevant to the larger issue--whether he was qualified to serve as President. Those who made an issue of Biden's misrepresentations contend that plagiarism was no small matter, and that the plagiarism, in conjunction with the speeches he "borrowed" without credit to their authors says something about Biden's character. How are we to talk about Senator Biden's character in light of these revelations? R.W. Apple, in the New York Times, has an article, "Candidates Transgressions Loom Large on Home Screen," prefaced with a smaller lead-in "Biden Flunks the 'Character' Test." [New York Times, September 27, 1987, p.E1, c.1.)]. Mr. Apple argues that Biden was
Lurking in the Biden story, as when Gary Hart withdrew from a Presidential race admitting he had spent an amorous night on a boat with Donna Rice, a woman to whom he was not married (Mr. Hart was married), is the idea that it is the press disclosures rather than character flaws, which were responsible for thwarting Biden's and Hart's presidential ambitions. Mr. Apple uses the word "transgressions" to describe Biden's actions. It is a swing word, it sounds weighty, but being so seldom used, its meaning (or should we say, Mr. Apple's meaning) is unclear. Is transgression used to suggest that Mr. Biden's actions have moral implications? Transgression does have a theological ring to it. Or is it used to suggest trespass, a technical violation of a moral code? It is not just Mr. Apple's language, but his suggestion that any one of the so- called transgressions might have been "overlooked," but that taken together they must be examined. Mr. Apple lumps together Mr. Biden's plagiarism as a first year law student, an indiscretion and act of poor judgment from the distant past, and Biden's current use of political speeches of others while conveying the impression to his audiences that the speeches are his own. Is there no difference, one might ask, between an "old" transgression and a "new" one? Old and new transgressions exist on different moral planes and have different moral meanings for an evaluation of character. The old transgression might be used to show that Mr. Biden's character has long been suspect, or having once gone astray, he is now entitled to be seen as a man of character, character evidenced by growth, character understood in light of old transgression(s). But Biden's "use" of political speeches given by someone else and the resulting deception of his audience, leading them to believe that the sentiments of others are his own, cannot be so easily dismissed. Mr. Biden may share the sentiments of those he quoted without arbitration, indeed in which case the deception is one of authorship rather than sentiment. But the only way to know what sentiments Mr. Biden represents as a political candidate is to hear Mr. Biden speak for himself. (This may, in the political climate of the day, sound rather quaint.) To know his sentiments, I must know what ideas he holds. Sentiment, as I use it here, means the interaction of thought and feeling. It is difficult, if not hubris, to suggest that ultimately any idea is original or belongs to a particular person--knowing the adage that there is nothing new under the sun--but it is not just ideas that Biden voices, but sentiments and the subjectivity of feelings and emotions of others. Mr. Biden's thieving is not of ideas but of another's voice, claiming it as his own. One defense of Senator Biden is that no politician today speaks for himself or herself. Biden is, in this view, being punished for the transgressions of all politicians in American political life. Perhaps we should simply accept the fact that politicians are serving up warmed-over ideas and that we are fools to expect anything personal, real, or original. Biden's transgressions are trivial, then, because they reflect what politicians do every day. We learn to ignore political speeches and indeed "politics" because politicians do not speak for themselves. We accept as routine and ordinary fraudulent political speech. Politicians are not frauds because they do not write their own speeches; they are frauds because their "speech" is constructed to reflect what we most want to hear. What speech writer today writes speeches to reflect the views and sentiments of the speaker in contrast to what an audience wants to hear (or some muddled and confused combination of the two). Political speeches have little moral weight because we cannot determine whether they reflect the concerns of the speaker or the speaker is simply pandering to our fears and desires. Mr. Apple agrees with Mr. Biden's appraisal of the events that was to his withdrawal, as an "exaggerated shadow." Mr. Apple does not say how the shadow of Biden's transgressions are "exaggerated." Mr. Biden tried, early in the fight to remain in the Presidential race, to show how the matter was being "exaggerated." The important point, from Biden's perspective was that he did indeed have a scholarship at Syracuse, although admittedly not an "academic" scholarship as he had claimed. In the use of speeches written by or for others, he argued that he had sometimes given credit, at other times not. In the plagiarism episode at Syracuse, he had actually quoted one paragraph from the plagiarized article--of which he used five pages--and cited the plagiarized article only for the quoted paragraph. Later in the week of the public disclosure, appearances with his staff in New Hampshire and Iowa, Biden seemed to accept responsibility for his downfall when he told campaign workers not to be bitter, that it was his own fault, and that the press had treated him fairly. In these statements he retreats from the earlier suggestion that his transgressions were "exaggerated by the press." To say that a shadow fell over Mr. Biden's candidacy and "exaggerated" the problem is a way of saying Biden's actions have no moral bearing on his candidacy for the Presidency. Mr. Apple goes on to observe that the emphasis on character in the Presidential campaign was itself part of the debate in the campaign. What, if anything, are we to learn about a person's character about revelations such as those about Mr. Biden? The real question is whether and how Mr. Biden's actions, old and new, then and now, should be used to assess his character? (Or is it Senator's Biden's actions in response to what kind of character do we want of politicians who occupy highest political office? Again, Mr. Apple is ambivalent. "In the early stages of a courtship, transgressions can be fatal," Mr. Apple reports, "but in a well-rooted marriage, they may be quickly forgiven; so it is in politics." There is something peculiar about the use of courtship and marriage as a metaphor for politics. First, one might want to quarrel with the analogy. Is it really the case that deception and lying are "quickly forgiven" in marriage? Or is it more likely that we so quickly forget transgressions of our national leaders (those who are already in office, those to whom we are of necessity bound by a "public marriage") because each week brings to light new transgressions? In political life, transgression is a way of life. We become numb to the constant parade of transgressions in political circles. But there are those who do not forget so quickly the transgressions of spouses and politicians. Mr. Apple's account of Biden's study in ambivalence. Immediately following the courtship-marriage metaphor, Mr. Apple suggests Mr. Biden "had done things that most people consider a bit questionable at best." To say that actions are "questionable" and only "at best," conveys the idea that we are talking about the most minor of moral matters. For Apple, the question is not one of ethics, or even character, but actions "most people" consider questionable. Mr. Apple comments on an emerging public concern for character
in politics. Character finds its way into Presidential races,
according to Apple, because "'personality' -- a familiar
and overused word for character -- will count for more"
in a campaign where there is so little difference between candidates
on the issues. Mr. Apple suggests that in the juxtaposition of
campaign issues and character, issues are privileged over character
(an issue is more serious, more significant, than character);
character is equated to personality. Mr. Apple sees character
as a fancy word for personality. But to equate character with
personality is to devalue character, to trivialize it. Mr. Apple
alludes to a background of disillusionment that may heighten
voter suspicions and offers Lyndon B. Johnson and Vietnam, Richard
M. Nixon and Watergate, Jimmy Carter and the hostages in Iran,
Ronald Reagan and the Iran contra-controversy as examples in
which the electorate has watched Presidents become involved in
activities that raise grave questions about their judgment, competence,
rectitude, and character. Mr. Apple has difficulty dealing with whether the moral character of candidates is a serious question. Yes, it looms "large on the home screen" as the headline suggests, but what does that mean? Mr. Apple is so ambivalent about moral character in public life that he implies that character matters only because we are in the courtship phase of the political romance with the candidates, only because there is too little different between the candidates on what is really important in a Presidential campaign which is the issue, only in the context of the public's disenchantment with their President, only because what we have learned about Gary Hart and Joseph Biden confirms longstanding rumors "that Mr. Hart had been a philanderer and that Mr. Biden lacked substance and was merely a vehicle for the ideas of the polltaker Patrick Caddell." It matters only because journalists have taken on the role once performed by the electorate of evaluating candidates, only because of the news of their transgressions, in an electronic age, travels so fast. We are left, at the end of Mr. Apple's evaluative speculations in "Candidates Transgressions Loom Large on Home Screen," knowing no more about what counts as character in public life than when we started. The irony is that in careless, loose talk about character, we trivialize it even as we attempt to understand its place in public life. Does anyone know what Mr. Biden's transgressions, or Gary Hart's denials about Donna Rice, have to say about character? William V. Shannon, a contributing columnist, in the Boston Globe, writes that the issue (which he refers to as "press raised questions") of Mr. Hart's character and judgment remains unresolved. "The answers to those questions [about his character and judgment] seemed at best ambiguous and inconclusive." [Shannon, "Press and Biden," Boston Globe, September 23, p. 23, c. 5] Mr. Shannon characterizes Mr. Biden's use of the British politician's speech, giving the audience the appearance that a personal statement of another political was actually his own sentiments about public life, without credit, is "much ado about not much of anything." Mr. Shannon's argument is that Biden is simply doing what politicians and others who are "inspired by masters of their craft" do--"borrowing good lines and phrases, gestures, metaphors and bits of stage business, sometimes with attribution and sometimes not." There is, for Mr. Shannon, something wrong with a "world" that gets things like deception, theft of intellectual property, and misrepresentation out of proportion. "In a world where a sense of proportion and a sense of humor prevailed," we would not, Mr. Shannon tells us, become so riled over the Biden matter. Mr. Shannon sees the matter as the press feasting at a political debacle. Biden received the treatment he did when the "opportunity arose to do him in by exposure and ridicule." Even Mr. Biden came around to the view that it was not the press but his own mistakes that did him in. Mr. Shannon's argument, like that of the bank robber who asks us to believe that his only mistake was to be caught, is misplaced. One might conclude that it is the robbery that constitutes the mistake. In the matter of Joseph Biden (and Gary Hart) it is hard to keep our eye on the question of character and what character means, if we follow the press accounts of character. We can't get a clear picture of character so long as we are obsessed, as is the press, with the fact that it is the press that has made character an issue. Mr. Shannon has less ability to keep his eye on the character issue than did Mr. Apple. Biden's law school plagiarism, Mr. Shannon argues, is a "borderline form of plagiarism." How the use of five pages of a published law review article in an assigned student brief could be characterized as "borderline" Mr. Shannon does not explain. Mr. Shannon argues that this "minor transgression could be duplicated in the experience of countless students, brilliant as well as mediocre." On this point Mr. Shannon displays his ignorance of student mores and academic life. "Countless students," mediocre and brilliant, may indeed be plagiarizing their way through school, but when they are caught, as was Biden, they will be fortunate to be treated as leniently as was Biden. Mr. Shannon argues that indiscretions other than serious crimes before the age of twenty-five do not have a bearing on one's character. On this point Mr. Shannon's plea for a statute of limitations is well taken. The problem in Mr. Biden's case is that the early incident of plagiarism is strikingly similar to Mr. Biden's practice twenty-five years later in using political speeches without giving credit to the author of the speak. The old and new transgressions are similar in character. More problematic still is the fact that Mr. Biden gained a national reputation for his oratory skills, for his elegance in public oratory. The concern about Biden's character flows less from the indiscretions of a reckless law student, but from a life time practice of reckless disregard in giving credit to others. The failure to give others appropriate credit is deception, plain and simple. Mr. Shannon, to the contrary, concludes with the view that Mr. Biden's "minor embarrassments: are not "mortal sins" and that we should not hold political figures to "inhumanly severe standards." Mr. Apple was, as we have seen, fond of lumping the dissimilar together; Mr. Shannon practices another shadowy intellectual move -- offering two extreme possibilities as if they were our only choices. To scapegoat Mr. Biden by using "inhumanly severe standards" we would translate embarrassments into sins. But Mr. Shannon leaves the reader with the uneasy feeling that anything short of "mortal sins" (and serious crimes) are to be forgotten (if not forgiven), and if we cannot forget, then there must be no talk about how particular actions short of mortal sins are to be evaluated in terms of character. A. Bartlett Giamatti, one-time President of Yale and later Commissioner of Baseball, in a letter to the New York Times argued that plagiarism should not be trivialized by viewing it as simply a "literary echo or allusion" used intentionally and has as its purpose recognition rather than deception. [New York Times, September 27, 1987, p. 22 E, c. 4.]. Mr. Biden used the speeches of others in a context in which the listener was fully expected to view them as his own. Knowledge that the words were not Mr. Biden's would have destroyed their intended effect on the listener, a desire to persuade an audience of Biden's political sensibilities. A "literary echo or allusion"--the use of a phrase or expression used by a famous figure that has now entered popular culture--works in exactly the opposite way. Crediting the source of such references would insult the intelligent listener. There is in this "anxiety of influence" (Harold Bloom) a measure of both pleasure and play. The writer/speaker creates a realm of pleasurable play that surprises rather than deceives the audience. The recognition of material, phrases, expressions, ideas, that belong to others is a mark of education, extensive reading, developed intellect, and cultural sophistication. Mr. Giametti warns that the Biden plagiarism, first in law school and now in his Presidential candidacy is not comparable with this more honorable tradition of thieving. "The theft of another's intellectual property...is not a trivial occurrence, excusable on the ground that everyone does it," Mr. Giamatti says. Biden's plagiarism, first at Syracuse and then in his campaign, reflected an intent to deceive, a deception that reflects on Mr. Biden's character. Mr. Giametti does not venture an opinion about the plagiarism admitted by Mr. Biden and what it says about character. Mr. Giametti's concern seems to be more with keeping the record straight about the nature of plagiarism -- he tells us it is derived from the Latin word, plagium, which means kidnapping, and that it constitutes "stealing." Is Mr. Giametti telling us that Mr. Biden should be viewed as a thief? If not, then what are we to make of his view of plagiarism? Another letter, appearing alongside Mr. Giamatti's, points out the seriousness of plagiarism, calling "scandalous" the attempt of the dean of the Syracuse Law School to excuse Mr. Biden's conduct. But Professor Damich, the letter writer, himself a law school professor, does not go so far as to comment on "[h]ow this incident [of plagiarism] should affect Senator Biden's political career...." [New York Times, September 27, 1987, p. 22 E, c.5] Epilogue: Leaving Mr. Shannon's column on the Biden matter, I found another Biden story in the Boston Globe the same day Mr. Shannon's column appeared. Mr. Shannon says that the Biden revelations are "much ado about not much of anything." Under a picture of Senator Biden, there is a caption that quotes Biden as saying that the fuss over borrowing other politicians's works was "much ado about nothing." Mr. Shannon's view of Mr. Biden's plight is described not in his own words but in the words of Mr. Biden: it is "much ado about not much of anything." In attempting to dismiss the notion that Mr. Biden's actions have consequences for his moral character, Mr. Shannon falls prey, unconsciously one assume, to the influence of Mr. Biden's words. No one, or at least I would not, characterize Mr. Shannon's uncredited use of the common expressions--"much ado about nothing" --which he has evidently taken from Mr. Biden himself, as an act of plagiarism, or even that he should cite Mr. Biden as the immediate source of his statement. The use of this expression is radically different than the intentional use of five pages of published material as if it were your own writing. Epilogue: Less than a month after the Biden story played in the news, the AP wire service carried another plagiarism story. Rosemarie Tong, who earlier in the year had been named Carnegie Foundation professor of the year, publicly apologized to her Williams College students and colleagues for plagiarizing from a book review in a speech Ms. Tong gave in September at Greenwich High School in Connecticut. Ms. Tong explained the plagiarism by noting that the "unattributed material was in a pile of notes" she and helpers had "quickly pasted together for the speech, which she gave, unrehearsed, at the high school." "Ms. Tong blamed the plagiarism on her haste in preparing the speech and meeting the many demands on her time since she was chosen professor the year in 1986" by the Carnegie Foundation. Ms. Tong is quoted as saying: "I tried to do too much for too many people and wound up disappointing the people who mean the most to me: my family and the Williams community...." "What I have learned from this episode is that overcommitment is as much of a vice as undercommitment." Ms. Tong is a philosophy and ethics professor. ["Former Professor of the Year Admits to Plagiarism in Speech," Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Massachusetts), October 16, 1987, p. 8, c. 5]
 Course
Readings
Home Page |
to favor what is ethically right;