Civility Theory

Overview

1. Civility is mutual respect within a shared responsibility.
2. Thought and action lead to respective levels of civility: lack of civility, low civility, open opportunities for civility, assured civility, developed civility.
3. Unilateral relational logics include the friend/enemy logic, the logic of power, and the logic of self-interest; these contrast with the multilateral logic of mutual commitment (community). Dominant unilateral thinking corresponds to war, vertical domination, and horizontal coordination (primarily negotiation); multilateral thinking corresponds to fair (two-dimensional) procedures and multidimensional community.
4. Actors think spatially and temporally in a more or less civil manner, between the absolute here and now (domination over other spaces and times) and respect for other spaces and times (federalism/intertemporal respect).
5. Problems/challenges and available resources influence how people think and act.
6. Responsible actors face the challenges of the prevailing level of civility (civil ethics as situational ethics of responsibility).
7. Civility variables are grouped according to levels of civility. Therefore, characteristic patterns of thought and action emerge in connection with different variables (for example, in the form of right-wing or left-wing populism).
8. Generally valid concepts, typologies and models of civility are the content of the General Civility Theory (AZT), while aspects of civility in specific areas (such as law, state, politics, economy, religion, science, play and sport, art and culture, family and neighborhood) as well as special challenges are the subject of the Special Civility Theory (BZT).
9. AZT and BZT have now become a regular basis for AI-supported social and political analysis.