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Political Leadership and the Problem of “Dirty Hands”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

Stephen A. Garrett
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Extract

It is one of the striking phenomena in discussions of the interplay between ethics and international relations that there continue to be a good many —including those with a strong interest in moral philosophy —who remain doubtful about whether it is really possible to define a “moral ” leader. They quest ion whether there is any objective basis for a comparative evaluation of the ethical standards of one statesman as opposed to another, except insofar as their basic goals may be described as good or evil; for example, Churchill and Roosevelt in World War II compared to Adolf Hitler.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 8 , March 1994 , pp. 159 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1994

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References

1 The term “dirty hands” appears in a play by Jean-Paul Sartre of the same title. The communist leader Hoerderer proclaims rather impatiently that “1 have dirty hands right up to my elbows. 1 have plunged them in filth and blood. Do you think you can govern innocently?” See also, Walzer, Michael, “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 2 (Winter 1973)Google Scholar.

2 G. M. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Making of Modern Italy (London: Longmans. Green. 1948), 23.

3 These “primordial demands,” moreover, are innately selfish and even brutal when compared to the sort of aspirations considered admirable in individual life. Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society (New York: Charles Scribners, 1932) still constitutes one of the classic treatments of the notion that “collectives” cannot be held to the same moral standards as individuals.

4 E. M. Forster, Two Cheers for Democracy (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951).

5 Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince and the Discourses, Chapter XV (New York: The Modern Library, 1940), 56.

6 Cited in Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977). 290.

7 Jimmy Carter, Why Not the Best? (Nashville TN: Broadman Press, 1975), emphasis added.

8 Immanuel Kant, “Eternal Peace,” in Carl J. Friedrich. ed. The Philosophy of Kant (New York: Random House, 1949). 469.

9 Dean Acheson, “Ethics in International Relations Today. Our Standard of Conduct,”Vital Speeches of the Day 31 (Pelham NY: City News Publishing Company, 1965), 228.

10 Sissela Bok offers a very apt description of what she calls the “moralizers” in international affairs, especially those who are “high-handed in the face of human complexity.” For other examples of the moralistic temptation, see her A Strategy for Peace (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 118–25.

11 Donald Warwick, “The Ethics of Administrative Discretion,” in Joel Fleishman, el al., eds., Public Duties: The Moral Obligations of Government Officials (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981). 93.

12 Cited in Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 240.

13 J. E. Hare and Carey B. Joynt. Ethics and International Affairs (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982), 4–5.

14 Cited in Coll, Alberto R., “Normative Prudence as a Tradition of Statecraft,” Ethucs & International Affairs 5 (1991), 41Google Scholar.

15 Walzer. Just and Unjust Wars. 29. 136.

16 Rushworth Kidder, “The Three Great Domains of Human Action,”Christian Science Monitor (January 29, 1990), 13. For Lord Moulton's original essay, see “Law and Manners,”Atlantic Monthly (July 1924), 1–5.

17 Mark Moore, “Realms of Obligation and Virtue.” in Public Duties: The Moral Obligations of Government Officials, 10.

18 Garrett Hardin is one of the best-known critics of the presumed morality of massive food aid programs. For a representative sample of his arguments in this regard, see Promethean Ethics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1980) and Living Within Limits (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).

19 Alberto R. Coll, “Normative Prudence.” 33–50.

20 For an interesting discussion of this principle, see G. Elfstrom and N. Fotion, Military Ethics (London: Routiedge and Kegan Paul, 1986). 17.

21 Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, trans. Martin Ostwald (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), VI, 1143a, 17–33.

22 Thomas McCollough. The Moral Imagination and Public Life (Chatham NJ: Chatham House Publishers. 1991). 16–17.

23 The above arguments are adapted from Michael Walzer. “Political Action.” 169–74.

24 S. I. Benn, “Wickedness,” in John Deigh, ed., Ethics and Personality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 197.

25 Ibid., 199.