Home Page Home Page
Front Page News Digest Cardinal George Observations The Interview MarketPlace
Learn more about our publication and our policies
Send us your comments and requests
Subscribe to our print edition
Advertise in our print edition or on this site
Search past online issues
Site Map
New World Publications
Periódieo oficial en Español de la Arquidióesis de Chicago
Katolik
Archdiocesan Directory
Order Directory Online
Link to the Archdiocese of Chicago's official Web site.
The Catholic New World


A regular feature of The Catholic New World, The InterVIEW is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today’s Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.


Advertisement

Should manners be important to a Christian?

Zenit, an international news service with Vatican ties, discusses manners with Nancy Sherman.



What we do, how we do it and how we appear to others, often make an ethical difference, says a scholar in the field of ethics.

Nancy Sherman, author of “Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind” (Oxford University Press), is a philosophy professor at Georgetown University and the inaugural holder of the visiting Distinguished Chair of Ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy

She talked about how an “aesthetic of character” affects us, and how acting with good manners helps us grow in the life of virtue.



Zenit: What is the look and feel of virtue?

Nancy Sherman: By referring to “the look and feel of virtue,” I am trying to capture the idea of the “aesthetic of character.” Basically, I mean how we appear to others as conveyed through formal manners and decorum, as well as through manner in the wider sense of personal bearing and interpersonal attitude.

The latter can be a matter of looks and gesture, tone of voice and posture, facial expression, or more generally, overall emotional and physical comportment. The way we comport ourselves is often an important ingredient in formal manners, as in expressing politeness by looking a person in the eye when we greet them hello or showing gratitude through a smile.

I would say formal manners and more general comportment are part of how we convey socially sensitive behavior. Thus, it is not just what we do but how we do it and how we appear to others that often ethically matters.



Z: Why do manners matter?

NS: I became interested in manners during my stint as chair in ethics at the United States Naval Academy. The first time I entered the Academy gates what caught my eye—indeed what catches the eye of any outsider—is the attention paid to manners and decorum.

“Honor, courage and commitment” may be written on Academy walls, replacing Harvard’s “Veritas.” But written on the faces and bodies of the midshipmen is not just a commitment to character, but a commitment to an aesthetic of character. Indeed, the world of the military takes seriously the inner stuff of character, but also its appearance.

At the mealtime formation, visitors line up to see a brigade of crisply pressed uniforms and straight bodies. Officers and midshipmen greet civilians with a “sir” or “ma’am,” locked eye gaze and firm handshake. Hair is in place and uniforms are impeccable; Marine shirts have creases like no civilian dress shirt has ever seen.

But it is not just a trim and neat uniform that conveys good conduct in the midshipman. It is the overall demeanor and bearing that the visitor notices—a sense of politeness and respect, an air of helpfulness and civility.

As I saw this in these young officers in training, I asked myself how important some aspect of external bearing is in nonmilitary life. My answer was that it had a role that philosophers, in particular, often feel hesitant to defend.

And yet, as parents, we often insist on training our children to look others in the eye when saying hello or thank you, or to look “presentable” when going out with company, etc. We count on certain facial and bodily gestures to be part of the full package of morally good conduct. And we praise and blame accordingly.

In this sense, the outer stuff of virtue is, at times, continuous with expectations for inner character—I wanted to write about that continuum.



Z: Do external conventions help cultivate authentic virtues or do they simply mask hypocrisy?

NS: You raise an important objection against manners—namely that they condone, and even encourage, inauthenticity. Favors done gruffly may offend, but a veneer of politeness that masks meanness can be just as offensive in its deceit. Moreover, a false-self can alienate others, but also oneself.

But I think the charge of hypocrisy is typically overdone; I argue against the charge in several ways.

First, while the demand to fully bare one’s soul may be on some occasions appropriate, to know when it is not, is itself a sign of moral sensitivity. To know when to hold back, to know when polite behavior counts for something and full disclosure for less, seems altogether a morally good thing.

Moreover, “posed” facial expressions—or we might say, “faking it”—may please others and express respect as well as function as self-exhortations. They are a way of coaxing along a corresponding inner change. We nurse a change from the outside in, as it were.

Experimenters have shown that those who read the “funnies” with upturned lips find the cartoons funnier than those whose lips are not in the smiling position. Other studies show that overt facial expression can affect the intensity of emotional arousal.

Immanuel Kant, the great 18th-century German Enlightenment philosopher, captures the point surprisingly well.

He says, “Men are, one and all, actors—the more so the more civilized they are. They put on a show of affection, respect for others, modesty and disinterest without deceiving anyone, since it is generally understood that they are not sincere about it.”

The point is significant coming from Kant’s mouth, for he is often thought of as a philosopher who is almost “moralistic” about not lying. Yet here he suggests that a bit of role playing—a bit of “faking it”—goes a long way both to lubricate the wheels of society and to nudge along inner character change.



Z: So, how we speak, act and comport ourselves can help shape our deeper moral selves and our character. But also it seems important in conveying the right attitude to others. Is that right?

NS: As I have suggested, I think “faking it,” or role playing, can be terribly important in social interaction.

Seneca, a late Roman Stoic from the first century A.D., emphasizes the continuum between inner and outer moral behavior. His point is that kindness and gratitude are typically captured in the manner of conduct. How to play “the role of the good person” becomes key.

And surprisingly for a Stoic—who by doctrine ought to be wary of emotional engagement—he demands that kindness and gratitude have much to do with the emotions we express through body, facial language and voice. In shows of kindness and gratitude, he emphasizes a kind of back-and-forth loop in the language of emotional gesture.

Thus, the look and feel of virtue matter. They indicate attitude, even if that attitude is, at times, feigned. The point is that an important part of everyday moral interaction just is the attitude we “show” to others.

> Front Page