Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University. Born in 1954 in Washington, D.C., Professor Carter was educated in the public schools of New York City, Washington, and Ithaca, New York. In 1976 he received his bachelor's degree with honors from Stanford University, where he majored in history, and in 1979 he received his law degree from the Yale Law School. Following his graduation from law school, Professor Carter served as law clerk to Judge Spottswood W. Robinson III of the United States Court of Appeals in Washington D.C., and, the next year, as law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States. After practicing law for a year, Professor Carter joined the Yale faculty in 1982. Three years later, he became one of the youngest members of the faculty ever voted tenure. His critically acclaimed books include The Culture of Disbelief and Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby. He is currently at work on Civility, the sequel to Integrity. Professor Carter lives with his family in Connecticut.
Integrity is defined in one standard dictionary as a "steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code." Carter (law, Yale) writes of integrity as first among the virtues that define good character. He defines integrity operationally as consisting of three traits: knowing the difference between what is right and wrong; acting on the knowledge of that difference; and an open and public commitment to acting on that difference. Carter writes of everyday experiences, of events in his own life, and of major public events, in which displays of integrity may or may not be apparent. These lead to discussions of the possibility of requiring that people always act with integrity and to the place of traditional visions of Christian integrity in public discourse. None of this seems particularly novel or too controversial. It also seems that much of this has been treated, perhaps in other forms, in Carter's earlier books, most notably in The Culture of Disbelief (LJ 9/1/93) and The Confirmation Mess (LJ 5/1/94). The message still seems to be that American society needs some form of radical reshaping. While his book doesn't really rise to the level of dramatic insight, Carter remains influential. Recommended for public libraries.-Jerry E. Stephens, U.S. Court of Appeals Lib., Oklahoma City
When we talk about character, writes Yale law professor Carter (The Culture of Disbelief), integrity ``is in some sense prior to everything else''; thus his mix of anecdote and meditation is a worthy but quirky entree to an important yet hard-to-discuss subject. Integrity, he writes, is more than honesty‘it requires actions and a willingness to spurn conformity. After his conceptual musings, Carter addresses the role of integrity in performance evaluations (he avoids routine hyperbole), in journalistic objectivity (he thinks the press should apply to itself the standards it applies to others), in law and in sports. Carter virtually ignores the broad question of integrity in business, but he does have interesting, if sometimes convoluted, thoughts on the role of integrity in marriage. He advises caution in legislating integrity in speech or in politics; his arguments spill over, somewhat overambitiously, into suggesting how integrity can help clean up politics (``We must listen to one another'') and how the concept can help people face larger questions of evil. $50,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Mar.)
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