ABSTRACT
The noble cause is the heart of police culture: it inspires the values that officers carry and animates their daily work routines. If police officers are so moved by the noble cause that they are willing to do anything to achieve so-called good ends, they have corrupted their craft. Morality is concerned essentially with humans in their relations with each other, whether those relations are interpersonal, collective, or structural. Humans are the ends, not the means. Law and order are the means, not the ends. The police in America are not about making war. All the metaphors are cockeyed. Warriors search out and destroy the enemy. But this is not how the police can maintain order. Peace is, after all, the visible, social expression of people's ability to get along. To ensure that people somehow, and against some pretty long odds, survive as a democratic people.
