Political ethics

Political ethics (also known as political morality or public ethics) is the practice of making moral judgements about political action and political agents. It covers two areas. The first is the ethics of process (or the ethics of office), which deals with public officials and the methods they use. The second area, the ethics of policy (or ethics and public policy) concerns judgments about policies and laws.

The Italian Niccolò Machiavelli is heralded as the founding father of the political ethics. He believed that a political leader may be required to commit acts that would be wrong if done by private. In contemporary democracies, this idea has been reframed as the problem of dirty hands, described most influentially by Michael Walzer, who argues that the problem creates a paradox: the politician must sometimes do “wrong to do right”. The politician uses violence to prevent greater violence, but his act is still wrong even if justified. Walzer’s view has been criticized. Some critics object that either the politician is justified or not. If justified, there is nothing wrong, though he may feel guilty. Others say that some of the acts of violence that Walzer would allow are never justified, no matter what the ends. Dennis Thompson has argued that in a democracy citizens should hold the leader responsible, and therefore if the act is unjustified their hands are dirty too. He also shows that in large political organizations it is often not possible to tell who is actually responsible for the outcomes—a problem known as the problem of many hands.

Political ethics not only permit leaders to do things that would be wrong in private life, but also requires them to meet higher standards than would be necessary in private life. They may, for example, have less of a right of privacy than do ordinary citizens, and no right to use their office for personal profit. The major issues here concern conflict of interest.

In the other area of political ethics, the key issues are not the conflict between means and ends but the conflicts among the ends themselves. For example, in the question of global justice, the conflict is between the claims of the nation state and citizens on one side and the claims of all citizens of the world. Traditionally, priority has been given to the claims of nations, but in recent years thinkers known as cosmopolitans have pressed the claims of all citizens of the world.

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