The alleged problem of the dirty hands of politicians has been much discussed since Michael Walzer’s original piece (Walzer 1974). The discussion has concerned the precise nature of the problem or sought to dissolve the apparent paradox. However there has been little discussion of the putative complicity, and thus also dirtying of hands, of a democratic public that authorizes politicians to act in its name. This article outlines the sense in which politicians do get dirty (...) class='Hi'>hands and the degree to which a democratic public may also get dirty hands. It separates the questions of secrecy, authorisation, and wrongfulness in order to spell out the extent of public complicity. Finally it addresses the ways in which those who do and those who do not acknowledge the problem of dirty hands erroneously discount or deny the problem of complicity by an appeal to the nature of democracy, a putatively essential need for political openness or to the scope of ideal theory. (shrink)

According to one understanding of the problem of dirty hands, every case of dirty hands is an instance of moral conflict, but not every instance of moral conflict is a case of dirty hands. So, what sets the two apart? The dirty hands literature has offered widely different answers to this question but there has been relatively little discussion about their relative merits as well as challenges. In this paper I evaluate these (...) different accounts by making clear which understanding of concept distinctness underlies them and which of them is, ultimately, the most plausible one in the case of dirty hands and ordinary moral conflict. In order to do so, I will borrow from the terminology employed in recent debates in the philosophy of evil which have tackled a similar problem to the one at hand, i.e. defining what sets evil apart from ordinary wrongdoing. Here it has been argued that concepts could be distinct in three ways: they can have a quantitative difference, a strong qualitative or a moderate qualitative difference. I conclude that the most convincing definition of dirty hands draws a moderate qualitative distinction between ordinary moral conflict according to which dirty hands are those moral conflicts that involve a serious violation or betrayal of a core moral value. (shrink)

Should those who get dirty hands be punished? There is strong disagreement among even those who support the existence of such scenarios. The problem arises because the paradoxical nature of dirty hands - doing wrong to do right - renders the standard normative justifications for punishment unfit for purpose. The Consequentialist, Retributivist and Communicative approaches cannot accommodate the idea that an action can be right, all things considered, but nevertheless also a categorical wrong. This paper argues (...) that punishment is indeed appropriate for those who dirty their hands and that there are three normative justifications that can be used to support this claim. These are the justifications from ‘Catharsis’, ‘Recognition of Evil Suffered’ and ‘Causal Responsibility’. Together they provide the sui generis justifications for punishing dirty hands. (shrink)

Under a ‘dirty hands’ model of undercover policing, it inevitably involves situations where whatever the state agent does is morally problematic. Christopher Nathan argues against this model. Nathan’s criticism of the model is predicated on the contention that it entails the view, which he considers objectionable, that morally wrongful acts are central to undercover policing. We address this criticism, and some other aspects of Nathan’s discussion of the ‘dirty hands’ model, specifically in relation to state entrapment (...) to commit a crime. Using János Kis’s work on political morality, we explain three dilemmatic versions of the ‘dirty hands’ model. We show that, while two of these are inapplicable to state entrapment, the third has better prospects. We then pursue our main aim, which is to argue that, since the third model precludes Nathan’s criticism, a viable ‘dirty hands’ model of state entrapment remains an open possibility. Finally, we generalize this result, showing that the case of state entrapment is not special: the result holds good for policing practices more generally, including such routine practices as arrest, detention, and restraint. (shrink)

This paper argues that ‘dirty hands’ (DH) scenarios, where an agent is forced to do wrong in order to do right, are conceptually coherent. The charge of incoherence is a widespread and common criticism made by deontologists and consequentialists alike. They argue that DH theorists erroneously assume the existence of real moral dilemmas and then compound this error by claiming that it is possible to engage in justified moral wrongdoing. However, such critics argue that there are only _prima (...) facie_ moral dilemmas and hence it is not only irrational and obtuse to argue for DH scenarios, but also undermines our search for sound moral judgments in very difficult situations. Given the gravity of these charges, surprisingly little has been written in defence of DH as a coherent and necessary part of our moral vocabulary. If there can be no successful defence of the possibility of DH, then all talk of such scenarios become futile. This paper responds to two influential and what initially appear to be strongly plausible arguments used by critics of DH. I call these the ‘Arguments from Deontic Logic’ and the ‘All-Things-Considered Argument’. I present three responses which seek to raise serious doubts about their efficacy. I then support the possibility of DH by exploring what we can learn about our moral reality from the moral emotion of ‘tragic remorse’. This approach endorses the role of emotions in determining moral knowledge. It also rejects the view that ethical theories ought to dismiss DH experiences as incoherent in favour of questionable theoretical a priori assumptions, which seek a reductionist account of our moral reality. (shrink)

This paper defends the possibility of dirty hands against the longstanding skepticism that an action cannot be simultaneously right and wrong and that dirty hands cases are therefore impossible. While skeptics are right to recognize that prima facie reasons against violating moral duties may be overridden, they are wrong to deny that actions required by necessity may nevertheless remain wrong. Dirty hands cases capture the simultaneous necessity of disregarding moral duties in certain circumstances and (...) the reprehensibility of wronging people even in cases in which this is all-things-considered permissible. Rather than indicating any deficiency in our moral reasoning, the capacity to accommodate the possibility of dirty hands, along with the reality of moral conflict, is a strength of a moral theory. (shrink)

The United States has been waging the “War on Terror” for nearly two decades. Obscured among the more obvious costs of that war is the moral injury borne by many of the soldiers who have fought and participated in it. Unlike post-traumatic stress disorder, which is rooted in fear, moral injury is rooted in shame, shame for having committed a moral transgression, a violation of the moral code. Haunted by the memory of their misdeeds, these soldiers are plagued by all (...) manner of illness and infirmity, from anxiety and depression to substance abuse and suicide. In this article, I explore whether these soldiers have a right to forget, one that would entitle them to use pharmacological or psychological manipulation to cleanse their minds of the memory that they have dirtied their hands, and in that way relieve themselves of the anguish and torment from which they suffer. (shrink)

Can liberal ideals clean up dirty politicians or politics? This article doubts they can. It disputes that a ‘clean’ liberal person might inhabit the dirty clothes of the real politician, or that a clean depoliticized liberal constitution can constrain real-world dirty politics. Nevertheless, the need for a democratic prince to wear clean liberal gloves offers a necessary and effective political restraint. It also means that citizens share the hypocrisy and dirt of those who serve them — for (...) we legitimize the dirtiness of politics by requiring politicians to seem cleaner than we know they ever can be in reality. (shrink)

Organisational politics can raise the problem of “dirty hands,” illustrated in this paper by an example drawn from a textbook on organisation theory. The initial question is whether the main character has different ethical and political obligations, but this leads on to the question to what extent we can distinguish various different categories of obligation. The example may be of special interest because of the importance of close personal relationship in organisational politics, which brings the dirty (...) class='Hi'>hands problem together with the question to what extent friendships generate distinctive obligations. However, it is doubtful whether the allocation of obligations to different categories can be sustained in a useful way. It may be that we can put aside loyalty to an organisation, as a consideration which does not generate any distinctive obligation, but balancing other factors against one another may require the sort of judgment that has sometimes been called “political wisdom,” and sometimes “moral imagination.”. (shrink)

Nigel Biggar argues against ‘dirty hands’ reasoning for two reasons. The first is that dirty hands reasoning is paradoxical. The second is that ‘dirt’ in dirty hands is often—and wrongly—conceived as guilt. According to Biggar, the dirt should instead be understood as regret. In this article, I defend dirty hands reasoning against both criticisms. On the one hand, I argue that dirty hands reasoning is not necessarily paradoxical. On the other, (...) I argue that, because guilt, more than regret, is meant to motivate the agent we should prefer a prima facie interpretation of the ‘dirt’ in dirty hands as guilt instead of regret. (shrink)

When Huck Finn embarks upon his hilarious education of the slave Jim in the moral vagaries of the monarchies of Europe, he takes himself to be propounding the merest common sense. He may have thought large‐scale villainy restricted to autocracies, but his creator was clearly not so naive. More to the present point, Huck ends his discourse on princely rule with remarks that show he was not merely cataloguing the fact of widespread royal vice, but willing to countenance it as (...) necessary. As he puts it, ‘kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot’. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: A Problem in Applied Ethics or Ethical Theory? Opportunity Costs, Compromise, and Political Action The Conflict of Consequences and Principles Dirty Hands as a Dilemma Dirty Hands and Vice Dirty Hands as Coerced Betrayal Resulting from Evil Projects Conclusion.

Traditional articulations of the conception of dirty hands, as the doing of wrong in order to do right, invite construals of the issues raised thereby as mired in conceptual confusions and inconsistencies, and moreover as generating unproductive discussions of the scope of the proposed notion itself. The status of the concept of dirty hands is thus precarious, in spite of its provenance in the work of political thinkers such as Machiavelli. This essay articulates one nonparadoxical conception (...) of dirty hands, as the uncomfortable phenomenology of agents authorized to act on behalf of others, when they are called upon to do things that, while morally correct, are also personally or morally distasteful. The key point is that the dirt of action remains on these agents’ hands, even if moral responsibility for the relevant actions should be conceived as falling on the persons in whose name they take the said action. This articulation opens up for investigation questions about the phenomenology of authorized agency, as well as the moral labor involved in leadership and in other contexts of authorized distasteful action. These are questions of social ontology. Here there is important philosophical work that remains to be done. (shrink)

The problem of “dirty hands” concerns the possibility that there are situations in which, no matter what one does, there is no way to avoid committing a moral wrong. By presenting a taxonomy, this paper contends that the different ways of responding to the problem correspond to different positions as regards the classic metaphysical theme of “the One and the Many.” It is then suggested that the best, because most realistic, response aligns with an approach that would have (...) us move “towards One, as Many.”. (shrink)

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 49, Issue 4, Page 739-767, December 2021.

Moral injury describes the effects of violence on veterans beyond what trauma discourse can describe. I put moral injury in conversation with a separate but related concept, dirty hands. Focusing on Michael Walzer's framing of dirty hands and Jonathan Shay's understanding of moral injury, I argue that moral injury can be seen as part of the dirt of a political leader's dirty hands decisions. Such comparison can focus more attention on the broader institutional context (...) in which such dirty hands decisions are executed, while contributing to the growing vocabulary of moral conflict, trauma, and harm. (shrink)

Contra the prevalent way of thinking about the dirty-hands problem, this article suggests that dirty hands need not necessarily entail suffering and that a politician who does not suffer for his dirty-handed acts should not be cast as a bad politician. In so doing, the article: argues that the connection between DH and suffering is unsatisfactorily totalising and rests on a contentious conception of conflict as a dysfunction and develops an alternative account of the good (...) dirty-handed politician, which is associated with what proponents of the prevalent view of the problem find impossible: calm acceptance of – even indulgence in – one’s dirt. This recognition has important implications for our contemporary culture of contrition and for the way we evaluate the characters of our politicians. (shrink)

Dirty hands cases are often seen as a crucial challenge for political ethics. Michael Walzer’s analysis of dirty hands cases has been especially influential. On closer inspection, however, Walzer’s analysis contains some serious flaws. This article examines how and to what extent the political ethics of Paul Ricoeur can remedy the problems in Walzer’s approach. It is shown that Ricoeur’s approach can offer a better understanding of what is at stake in dilemmas in political action and (...) that it can provide guidance for dealing with such issues. Ricoeur’s analysis, furthermore, provides the foundation for a more critical political ethics than Walzer can offer. (shrink)

This paper revisits many of the key ideas I explored in my earlier 1973 article “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands”. I respond to some of the criticisms made over the last 50 years and emphasis certain key ideas that I believe are central to understanding this particular difficult problem for politicians.

On Michael Walzer's influential account, "dirty hands" characterizes the political leader's choice between absolutist moral demands (to abstain from torture) and consequentialist political reasoning (to do what is necessary to prevent the loss of innocent lives). The impulse to torture a "ticking bomb terrorist" is therefore at least partly pragmatic, straining against morality, while the desire to uphold a ban on torture is purely and properly a moral one. I challenge this Machiavellian view by reinterpreting the dilemma in (...) the framework of the Humean theory of justice and moral sentiment. By interpreting the ticking bomb scenario as a dramatic narrative, I argue that it appeals to properly moral sensibilities, which speak in favour of the use of force against the terrorist. The absolute ban on torture, by contrast, is an artificial virtue and a product of political prudence. On this account, the ticking bomb terrorist dilemma therefore imposes a different burden on the political leader from Walzer's version: an ethic of political responsibility demands that the political leader be prepared to sacrifice her moral soul by upholding the law against moral but politically imprudent demands to break it; while the ticking bomb romance appeals to her feelings of compassionate moral concern towards particular individuals. She dirties her hands morally, not by authorizing torture, but by allowing the terrorist's bomb to detonate and take the lives of the innocent. (shrink)

We studied the role of social dynamics in moral decision-making and behavior by investigating how physical sensations of dirtiness versus cleanliness influence moral behavior in leader–subordinate relationships, and whether a leader’s self-interest functions as a boundary condition to this effect. A pilot study (N = 78) revealed that when participants imagined rewarding (vs. punishing) unethical behavior of a subordinate, they felt more dirty. Our main experiment (N = 96) showed that directly manipulating dirtiness by allowing leaders to touch a (...) dirty object (fake poop) led to more positive evaluations of, and higher bonuses for, unethical subordinates than touching a clean object (hygienic hand wipe). This effect, however, only emerged when the subordinate’s unethical behavior did not serve the leader’s own interest. Hence, subtle cues such as bodily sensations can shape moral decision-making and behavior in leader–subordinate relationships, but self-interest, as a core characteristic of interdependence, can override the influence of such cues on the leader’s moral behavior. (shrink)

This essay considers the morality of torture in light of Michael Walzer's argument in "Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands." Walzer argues that, under certain conditions, actions such as torture may be politically necessary but should never be given moral justification. This argument is analyzed in light of the question of responsibility in Christian ethics and in light of current U.S. policies on torture.

Despite rarely explicitly thematizing the problem of dirty hands, this essay argues that Merleau-Ponty’s political work can nonetheless make some important contributions to the issue, both descriptively and normatively. Although his political writings have been neglected in recent times, his interpretations of Marxism and Machiavelli enabled him to develop an account of political phronesis and virtù that sought to retain the strengths of their respective positions without succumbing to their problems. In the process, he provides grounds for generalizing (...) the problem of “dirty hands” beyond Michael Walzer’s influential understanding that pertains primarily to “emergencies” and singular time-slice actions, and addresses concerns about the coherence of the very idea that there is justified action that one ought to do which remains wrong. Merleau-Ponty does this by emphasizing the diachronic relationship between theoretical principles and concrete political action over a period of time, thus imbuing the problem of dirty hands with a historicity that is not sufficiently recognized in the more static and action-focused discussions. (shrink)

We studied the role of social dynamics in moral decision-making and behavior by investigating how physical sensations of dirtiness versus cleanliness influence moral behavior in leader–subordinate relationships, and whether a leader’s self-interest functions as a boundary condition to this effect. A pilot study revealed that when participants imagined rewarding unethical behavior of a subordinate, they felt more dirty. Our main experiment showed that directly manipulating dirtiness by allowing leaders to touch a dirty object led to more positive evaluations (...) of, and higher bonuses for, unethical subordinates than touching a clean object. This effect, however, only emerged when the subordinate’s unethical behavior did not serve the leader’s own interest. Hence, subtle cues such as bodily sensations can shape moral decision-making and behavior in leader–subordinate relationships, but self-interest, as a core characteristic of interdependence, can override the influence of such cues on the leader’s moral behavior. (shrink)

(2001). Whose dirty hands? How to prevent buck‐passing. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 4, Trusting in Reason: Martin Hollis and the Philosophy of Social Action, pp. 106-122. doi: 10.1080/13698230108403367.

This essay locates the problem of dirty hands within virtue ethics – specifically Alasdair MacIntyre’s neo-Aristotelian thesis in After Virtue. It demonstrates that, contra contemporary expositions of this problem, MacIntyre’s thesis provides us with a more nuanced account of tragedy and DH in ordinary life, in its conventional understanding as a stark, rare and momentary conflict in which moral wrongdoing is inescapable. The essay then utilizes elements from MacIntyre’s thesis as a theoretical premise for Machiavelli’s thought so as (...) to set the foundations for a nascent but richer framework of DH in politics and move beyond the standard, ‘static’ conceptualization of the problem within this context. In developing a dynamic account of DH, I conceive of politics as a distinct practice and way of life, with its own demands and standards of excellence, and draw on Machiavelli’s thought to sketch some of these. The dynamic account uncovers an inexhaustible tension between two ways of life, each with its own demands and standards of excellence: a virtuous politician should become partially vicious and no longer innocent. Understood in dynamic terms, DH in politics involves a paradox of character, not just a paradox of action as the standard, ‘static’ DH thesis suggests. (shrink)

There is widespread agreement that politics calls for dirty hands in general, and for secrecy and duplicity in particular. The claim is, of course, most famously made by Machiavelli in The Prince, but it is also to be found in Book 3 of Plato’s Republic. However, in arguing that politics calls for duplicity, neither Plato nor Machiavelli was writing about democratic societies, and we might therefore wonder whether, in democratic societies, the problem of dirty hands should (...) be differently understood. (shrink)

The article connects the debates surrounding the problem of dirty hands with those regarding collective responsibility, mainly via René Girard’s scapegoat mechanism and his view on mimetic violence. By virtue of the distinction between group intentions and individual pre‐reflective intentions, the article will explore the notion that groups are morally responsible for acts accomplished with dirty hands, and whether individual participants in group actions are also responsible. Moreover, the article introduces a reflection on the collective shame (...) of a larger community for what only a small group has done in its name. In a religious framework of thought, both the idea of a limited individual responsibility and that of collective guilt are valuable for furthering the dialogue on religious reconciliation. (shrink)

Should those who get dirty hands always be punished in the same way? Must their punishment be regardless of the background elements that determined the DH dilemma, which has polluted their morality? This paper holds that common arguments in favour of punishing DH overlook the important difference between classic DH dilemmas that are structurally inescapable and those that are caused by a collective action problem. My thesis emphasizes that in talking about DH, our analysis should go beyond the (...) structure of the dilemma. We should also take into serious consideration the background dynamics that made the choice between two evils inevitable. (shrink)

In 2003, Peter Singer and others sounded a warning in the pages of the journal Nanotechnology that research into the ethical, social, and legal implications of nanotechnology was increasingly lagging behind research into nanotechnology itself. More recently, Alfred Nordmann and Arie Rip have argued that while the pace of ELSI inquiry has now picked up, the inquiry itself is focused far too much on hypothetical and futuristic scenarios. But might there be advantages for ethicists and philosophers of technology interested in (...) the ELSI of emerging technologies to continue to think in a speculative vein? Drawing upon some lessons learned from the development of environmental ethics, and looking primarily at information and computing technologies, I suggest three reasons as to how speculative thinking can add value to ELSI reflection. I argue that it can allow for critical values to emerge that might otherwise go unheeded, open up avenues to reframe issues that might otherwise go unnoticed, and, perhaps most importantly, permit questions to be raised that might otherwise go unvoiced. (shrink)

Every problem of dirty hands is a moral conflict in which a highly unpalatable course of conduct is chosen for the sake of fulfilling a stringent moral duty, and in which either the chosen course of conduct is evil or else it would have been evil in the absence of the exigent circumstances to which it is a response. To support this conception of problems of dirty hands, this paper endeavors to elucidate the nature of moral (...) conflicts and the nature of evil. (shrink)

This paper outlines and explores the problem of democratic dirty hands, the sui generis moral situation where democratic politicians justifiably violate both a cherished moral principle and the fundamental processes of democratic governance. Some recent contributions to the dirty-hands debate have argued that the principles of democratic governance render DDH impossible. The paper rejects this view as based on a misunderstanding of the minimal and necessary conditions for both DH and democratic overnance. However, DDH does raise (...) interesting issues concerning the complicity of citizens with their politicians’ DH. Citizens are accessories to such acts and have a duty to contribute to the reparations for the victims of DDH. Furthermore, as citizens bear some responsibility for the moral violations that were done in their name, they properly ought to feel some of the moral pollution that these actions generated. (shrink)

The claim that democratic politics is the art of compromise is a platitude but we seem allergic to compromise in politics when it happens. This essay explores this paradox. Taking my cue from Machiavelli’s claim that there exists a rift between a morally admirable and a virtuous political life, I argue that: a ‘compromising disposition’ is an ambiguous virtue—something which is politically expedient but not necessarily morally admirable; whilst uncongenial to moral integrity, a ‘compromising disposition’ constitutes an essential aspect of (...) political integrity. In so doing, I question certain moralistic assumptions which fuel contemporary vilifications of compromise—that, in theory, democratic politics should be inhospitable to compromise and that political integrity should be akin to moral integrity—and which are shared by Walzer’s Dirty Hands thesis which professes to be sensitive to the realities of politics. These assumptions displace the complex realities of politics and misconstrue the standards of political excellence; they unsatisfactorily idealize political integrity and the messy context in which democratic politicians operate—a context characterized by a plurality of incompatible traditions, each with its own values and principles. Whilst commitment to a set of principles stemming from one’s tradition or pre-election promises implies commitment to realize these, leading a virtuous political life amidst such a grubby domain often requires abandoning some of these. An innocent, all-or-nothing pursuit of one’s principles in politics might prompt political disaster or defeat: an uncompromising disposition entails the entire abandonment of any hope of realizing all of those principles. (shrink)

The period known as the “War on Terror” has prompted a revival of interest in the idea of moral dilemmas and the problem of “dirty hands” in public life. Some contend that a policy of targeted killing of terrorist actors is (under specified but not uncommon circumstances) an instance of a dirty-handed moral dilemma – morally required yet morally forbidden, the least evil choice available in the circumstances, but one that nevertheless leaves an indelible moral stain on (...) the character of the person who makes the choice. In this chapter we argue that, while dirty hands situations do exist as a persistent problem of political life, it is generally a mistake to classify policies of target killing (such as the current US policy) as examples of dirty hands. Instead, we maintain, such policies, if justified at all, must ordinarily be justified under the more exacting standards of just war theory and its provisions for justified killing – in particular the requirement that (with limited and defined exceptions) non-combatants be immune from intentional violence. Understanding this distinction both clarifies the significance of dirty hands as a moral phenomenon and also forestalls a set of predictable and all-too-easy appropriations of the concept to domains it was never intended to address. (shrink)

This paper draws on the underappreciated realist thought of Isaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire and Judith Shklar, rehearses their critique of moralism and extends it to a position which seems far from obvious a target: the dirty hands thesis, which is mostly owed to Michael Walzer, and which a number of contemporary realists have recently appealed to in their endeavour to challenge moralism and/or tackle the insufficiently addressed question of what a more affirmative, realist public ethic might involve. In (...) illustrating that the DH thesis is a thinly disguised brand of the moralism which realists reject, I shall not merely put some flesh on the bones of Shklar’s scattered, unsystematic objections to Walzer’s thought – the only realist who explicitly criticized his DH thesis. Rather, I wish to cast doubt on the internal coherence and ‘realism’ of contemporary realist positions which invoke that thesis and to illustrate that the discrepancy between Berlin’s, Shklar’s and Hampshire’s thought and the DH thesis: i) enriches our understanding of how we might wish to distinguish more meaningfully realism from the ideal/non-ideal theory debate; and ii) enables us to pursue a particular direction in which a more positive realist approach to public ethics and integrity might be developed – an approach which we might term Heraclitian realism, and which follows from their idiosyncratic, innovative, and radical account of the place of conflict in human life. (shrink)

This paper considers three arguments by David Shugarman and Maureen Ramsay for why dirty hands cannot be democratic. The first argues that it is contradictory, in principle, to use undemocratic means to pursue democratic ends. There is a conceptual connection between means and ends such that getting one’s hands dirty is incompatible with acting in accordance with democratic ends. The second claims that using dirty-handed means, in practice, will undermine democracy more than it promotes it (...) and therefore cannot be justified. The final criticism states that politicians with dirty hands are a sign that politics is no longer meeting the criteria necessary to be called democratic. The paper shows that such rejections of democratic dirty hands are based on misunderstandings of the nature of dirty hands and democratic politics. (shrink)

This understanding of dirty hands should dispell the air of paradox so often associated with it. Dirty hands is a genuine moral problem, but not a conceptual one. The temptation to see it as a conceptual one arises from a hasty acceptance of these assumptions:Moral criticism is appropriate if and only if we can always do what is right. If we cannot do X or avoid doing Y, we cannot be criticized for failing to do X (...) or for doing Y.We are always free to avoid moral compromise since goodness is a matter of having the will to do what is right.We are morally compromised if and only if we either intentionally do what is wrong, or if we do what is right for the wrong reasons.As a general description of conscientiousness, these conditions are uncontroversial. However, conscientiousness does not exhaust the moral realm. The problem with the individuals in the cases above is not that they are guilty of being unconscientious. They are conscientious and still cannot avoid dirtying themselves.The Kantian aspiration to render ourselves invulnerable to moral compromise is well-intentioned and deserves our respect insofar as it alerts us to the importance of struggling with courage and imagination against evil. But to the extent that it rejects or ignores the possibility of moral tragedy, the Kantian conception paints too optimistic and artificial a picture of the human condition. We are complicated creatures with diverse and often conflicting ethical loves. Rigging our ethical theories to eliminate such conflicts does nothing to change life as real-life moral agents experience it. As with any kind of theory, we need to be careful about unwittingly deforming the world in order to make it conform to the beloved castles we so often build in the air. (shrink)

This thesis explores the concept of dirty hands in democracies. It argues that dirty hands are instances of moral conflicts in which some of our core moral values and commitments clash. Accepting the existence of such a clash, contrary to what some critics have argued, does not have to be irrational and we can make sense of this phenomenon irrespective of the wider beliefs about the nature of rational moral judgement that we hold. The thesis goes (...) on to defend the view that getting one’s hands dirty results in a moral remainder that can best be described as “tragic-remorse”. Experiencing this emotional response, it is argued, fulfils important functions because it helps the agent understand what is morally required in the situation, ensures that they deliberate in the right way, and makes their behaviour intelligible to others. The thesis then goes on to argue that being confronted with a dirty hands conflict is particularly pernicious because, once faced with such a situation, it is impossible to keep our hands clean. Dirty hands therefore point us towards morality’s tragic nature. The thesis then questions what this means for democratic politics. It rejects criticisms that dirty hands can, neither in theory nor in practice, be compatible with democratic politics. If dirty-handed measures can indeed be a part of democratic politics, we should then ask who gets their hands dirty and can share the moral responsibility for the dirty-handed outcome. The thesis emphasises that political leaders do not share this burden alone. They act in a complicated web of relations with other politicians and public officials and many of them will get their hands dirty as well. Additionally, it is argued, to the extent that citizens voluntarily participate in or contribute to a given dirty-handed decision or the wider democratic process, they will also share some of the dirt and moral responsibility for what their politicians do for them and in their name. The thesis concludes by arguing that dirty hands in democratic politics are not borne by a single political leader acting alone, but are shared by many in the polity. (shrink)

Is torturing innocent people ever morally required? I rebut responses to the ticking-bomb dilemma by Slote, Williams, Walzer, and others. I argue that torturing is morally required and should be performed when it is the only way to avert disasters. In such situations, torturers act with dirty hands because torture, though required, is vicious. Conversely, refusers act wrongly, yet virtuously, thus displaying admirable immorality. Vicious, morally required acts and virtuous, morally wrong acts are odd, yet necessary to preserve (...) the ticking-bomb dilemma’s phenomenology, the role of habituation in moral development, the virtue/continence distinction, and morality’s overridingness, consistency, and plausibility. (shrink)