Austin Sarat
Sarat has written, co-written, or edited more than 75 books in the fields of law and political science. His primary research interest is the use of the death penalty which, he believes, provides a unique opportunity to examine American values and beliefs and how they are manifested in the American legal system. His most recent book, Mercy On Trial: What it Means to Stop an Execution, investigated the use of executive clemency. His research more broadly studies the intersection of law and culture and the ways in which law may be said to be socially organized. Sarat’s seminar, Murder, has been profiled in The New York Times.
Sarat on civil discourse, from “Keeping Civility in its Place”:
Civility is not, in my view, a virtue in and of itself. It is a secondary and contingent virtue whose value ultimately depends on other things. All too often we hear the call for civility made with no reference to the background conditions that bring forth breaches of civility. All too often we ignore the limit cases where injustice not lack of civility is the problem that needs to be addressed, and we act as if civility uniformly was aligned with justice and advanced the cause of human dignity. In what follows I call civility to account, or rather hold it to account, in the name of justice.
