Political morality and the problem of dirty hands: a philosophical critique and re-interpretation

This thesis articulates a new account of political morality by developing a novel critique of the standard dirty hands (DH) thesis and a new interpretation of DH. Taking its cue from Machiavelli the DH thesis postulates that the possibility of harmony between morality and politics is unsatisfactorily idealistic. This thesis endorses Machiavelli's contention, but argues that the DH thesis misconstrues Machiavelli’s insights: it fails to live up to its capacity to capture the complexity of political ethics and collapses into the idealism it seeks to evade. The DH thesis is inadequately ‘static’: it conceives the conflict between morality and politics as a momentary paradox of action - an anomaly disrupting the normality of harmony. As such it misconceives both the extent and the nature of the rupture between morality and politics. For, Machiavelli does not say that one must merely ‘learn how not to act well’. Machiavelli is clear that ‘one must learn how not to be good’. By exploring this discrepancy, I demonstrate that the DH thesis’ overemphasis on action ignores the way moral character enters and jeopardizes politics. I then develop a dynamic account that captures DH in all its complexity. The key insight of that account is that approaching political ethics entails conceiving politics as a practice and a way of life. In short, DH involves a conflict between two incompatible ways of life, each with its own virtues and standards of excellence. Hence, the dynamic account captures a more crucial paradox, the paradox of character: virtuous politicians should become partially vicious and no longer innocent. The thesis then argues that the dynamic account has crucial implications for contemporary politics: democratic politicians operate in a context of perpetual conflict and dependence which renders the cultivation and exhibition of certain moral vices, including hypocrisy and compromise, necessary

Reflections on a crisis: political disenchantment, moral desolation, and political integrity

Declining levels of political trust and voter turnout, the shift towards populist politics marked by appeals to ‘the people’ and a rejection of ‘politics-as-usual’, are just some of the commonly cited manifestations of our culture of political disaffection. Democratic politics, it is argued, is in crisis. Whilst considerable energy has been expended on the task of lamenting the status of our politics and pondering over recommendations to tackle this perceived crisis, amid this raft of complaints and solutions lurks confusion. This paper seeks to explore the neglected question of what the precise nature of the crisis with which we are confronted involves, and, in so doing, to go some way towards untangling our confusion. Taking my cue from Machiavelli and his value-pluralist heirs, I argue that there is a rift between a morally admirable and a virtuous political life. Failure to appreciate this possibility causes narrations of crisis to misconstrue the moral messiness of politics in ways that lead us to misunderstand how we should respond to disenchantment. Specifically, I suggest that: (i) we think that there is a moral crisis in politics because we have an unsatisfactorily idealistic understanding of political integrity in the first place; and (ii) it is a mistake to imagine that the moral purification of politics is possible or desirable. Put simply, our crisis is not moral per se but primarily philosophical in nature: it relates to the very concepts we employ—the qualities of character and context we presuppose whilst pondering over political integrity

Arendt and political realism: towards a realist account of political judgement

This article argues that Hannah Arendt’s thought can offer significant insights on political judgement for realism in political theory. We identify a realist position which emphasises the need to account for how humans judge politically, contra moralist tendencies to limit its exercise to rational standards, but which fails to provide a sufficient conception of its structure and potential. Limited appeals to political judgement render the realist defence of the political elusive, and compromise the endeavour to offer a meaningful alternative to the moralist tendency to displace politics. The potential and limitations of realist discussions on judgement are made visible in relation to proto-realists Judith Shklar and Isaiah Berlin. In seeking to enrich the realist conception of the political, the article introduces the displacement critique found in the neglected Arendtian ‘realism’. It also provides the foundations for a distinctly realist account of political judgement which, we argue, requires elaboration along two dimensions: the social coding of political judgement and the political capacities that help judgement build a suitable political sphere