ABSTRACT
This chapter presents accounts of office in the work of Jeffrey Minson and Raimond Gatia, two philosophers who have written about morality, politics and law in Australia. Jeffrey Minson's account of civil prudence can be presented as part of a revival in the 1980s and 1990s of forms of 'civil jurisprudence' undertaken by scholars associated with Griffith University and later the University of Queensland. The challenge presented by Minson is to find the rhetorical and social resources to live with constraints of office shaped by civil authority. The one presented by Gaita is to find forms of public office and language capable of acknowledging, and making judgments worthy of, the preciousness of life and shared humanity. The obligations of office are a matter of comportment or style. For Minson, such obligations are addressed through 'ordinary' virtues of office; for Gaita, such ordinary virtues are illuminated by the extraordinary, the attempt to remain lucid about goodness and the love of humanity.
