Civility is a core ethical virtue but a tricky one, both to define and to maintain. Peter Wehner has written a superb (and short!) essay on the topic at the Commentary Magazine site, applying it especially to political discourse.

” We can possess civility while at the same time holding (and championing) deep moral and philosophical commitments, ” Wehner writes. “In fact civility, properly understood, advances rigorous arguments, for a simple reason: it forecloses ad hominem attacks, which is the refuge of sloppy, undisciplined minds. “Before impugning an opponent’s motives,” the philosopher Sidney Hook once said, “even when they may rightly be impugned, answer his arguments.”

He has done a superb job, and I recommend it to all. Especially astute, in my view, is this passage:

“…Civility does not preclude spirited debate or confrontation. Clashing arguments are often clarifying arguments. Civility does not mean we do not call things by their rightful name. Evil is sometimes evil; and wicked men are sometimes wicked men. Nor does civility mean splitting the difference on every issue under the sun….I would add that the most important debates and many of the most important figures in American history were polarizing. They stirred deep passions in people, which is precisely when civility and even a measure of grace are most needed, to keep democratic discourse from jumping the rails.”