What are the duties of a politician when facing a climate catastrophe?

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Patrick Grady

A Thesis in the Field of Philosophy for the Degree of Master of Philosophy

Word count: 18594 Universiteit van Amsterdam

December 2019

What are the duties of a politician when

facing a climate catastrophe?

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Abstract

In this thesis, I argue that it is the politician’s duty to dirty their hands when facing climate catastrophe (should this be the mandated interest of their citizens). They will be required to act immorally, and undesirably so. I will further claim that political duties, in light of this, ought to be re-framed in order to better capture new types of moral conflicts. To make this argument, I will first

claim that political morality is distinct from personal morality and deserving of conceptual space. Then, I will analyse the case of a politician facing climate catastrophe through the lens of political

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Research Question

The question I want to answer in this thesis is, what are the duties of a politician when facing a climate

catastrophe? Though I generalise to a politician, for the case study I will theorise primarily with a

political leader in mind. This allows for a focus on those at the frontier of policy, with the most agency in such a case, as well as providing a control variable with which to compare politicians from different countries – this will provide an important pivot with which to view new, globalised, moral conflicts. Though I take this focus for the case study, the limitations of political ethics will apply similarly to all politicians, including those that will have to deal however directly with such a catastrophe. Therefore, this thesis seeks to uncover the duties for all kinds of politicians.

The motivation for this thesis derives from the apparent responsibility gap within international climate governance. Various actors are considered praiseworthy or blameworthy for their efforts to reduce the risks associated with climate change, but it is not clear whether there are any ethical persuasions to make such efforts. There is certainly no sufficient legal impetus, as shown by the ineffectiveness of the 2015 Paris Accord (the majority of the countries have not met their substandard pledges [National Geographic, 2019]). There seems to be momentum for urging politicians to do more with regard to climate change. But the question is, why should they?

The history of political morality has, by enlarge, not had to deal with such trans-border obligations and duties. Related disciplines in political philosophy, such as Humanitarianism and Just War Theory, make some ground in urging international conscientiousness and border-blind ethical frameworks. Yet, I aim in this thesis to take a political morality (ethics) perspective to see if additional duties and obligations can derive from this field. Or, indeed, whether new issues such as these show the field to be lacking.

The structure and methodology I will deploy will be as follows. In chapter 1, I will introduce the concept of role morality – additional duties and obligations that one realises in a role – and distinguish it from personal morality. To do so, I present the three traditional sources of ethics and morality – consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics – and suggest that they cannot sufficiently cope with the realities of role morality. This is because, in situations of moral conflict, their prescriptions allow actors to forgo the additional duties of their role. This chapter will be largely theoretical, using few examples, and I will generalise these traditional sources broadly. The goal is

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not to decipher which of these sources may deal best with roles but instead to provide a conceptual case for an independent role morality; one that need to derive necessarily from those sources.

In chapter 2, I will detach political morality as a specific genre of role morality and then formulate an ethic based on its principles. To do so, I will first present the unique challenges that actors face when operating within the political domain. Such challenges include, problems of representing a large number of conflicting interests and the responsibility to dirty one’s hands. From this, I will derive normative parameters that should guide politicians when handling moral conflicts. Finally, I present three principles of political morality that together constitute an ethic. The attempt of such an ethic is to evaluate to rightness or wrongness of political actions, as well as to provide a tool with which to assess considered actions. I will draw on numerous examples during this chapter’s analysis, in order to colour the field and make sense of political justifications past and present.

In chapter 3, I will present the central case of this thesis: a politician facing a climate catastrophe. I will present two politicians – more precisely, political leaders – from two different countries. As will be apparent, their duties differ vastly and are undesirably contingent upon the situation of each country. On the one hand, a politician will be justified in committing deeply immoral acts to save her country. On the other, a politician will find the relevant motivations to aid others left wanting. This, I argue, poses a threat to the political ethic. I then propose the political ethic is re-framed in order to capture contemporary, global, issues and the kinds of duties and obligations politicians ought to have. I close the thesis with suggestions about how this may be done, and where future research on this topic may be productive.

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Chapter 1: Moral Theory, Moral Conflict and Role Morality

I explore two things in this chapter. First, the way in which the three schools of moral thought – or ethics - deal with conflict. Namely, consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. As I will suggest, virtue ethics best acknowledges the possibility of moral conflicts and (unsurprisingly) best proposes how to deal with them. Consequentialism and deontology are left wanting here; it is not persuasive that moral conflicts are conceptually possible within these schools, and genuine moral dilemmas are certainly implausible. Therefore, dirty hands scenarios seem conceptually unavailable within consequentialism and deontology.

Second, I will explore the degree to which these schools provide action-guiding criteria in scenarios in which actors have assumed specific duties of a role. I will argue that all three schools fail to effectively guide action in such situations. Though virtue ethics provides some flexibility to such actors, its framework is too vague, and its lack of prescriptiveness is unsuitable for role ethics. The possibility of dirty hands scenarios, and a sufficient degree of action-guidance will be requirements of the political ethic I propose in the following chapter.

Before making these claims, a couple of clarifications are in order. First, my intention here is not to assess the merits of each of these schools of moral thought, per se. Though some may eventually appear to be of greater merit than others in this context, the goal of this chapter is to instead flesh out their limits in specific (role-based) domains, in order to eventually motivate the need for a political ethic.

As part of this focus, I will be quite economic when summarising each school; I will prioritise classic utilitarianism within consequentialism, Kantianism within deontology and (mostly) modern neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. These I consider the contemporary or paradigm strains of each theory that serves to best capture its essence and relevance here. The scope of this thesis cannot cover the full extent of each. To stress again, my intention here is not to assess each school and its variants per

se, but only to suggest the monist way of thinking about morality, generally, is insufficient when

considering additional duties of roles.

Second, I will assume that it is conceptually possible, and indeed desirable, to speak of role morality as different in some important way from personal morality. What is meant by ‘important’ here is that thinking of it as different better provides action-guidance for actors facing moral decisions.

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In other words, actor who are bound by duties that arise from institutional arrangements ought to operate in a manner different to actors who are only bound by their personal obligations. Before assessing each school, this conception distinction – between personal morality and role morality – should be made explicit.

Personal Morality and Role Morality

Throughout this thesis, I will use ‘personal morality’ to mean that which dictates our personal interactions and that which we typically derive from the three aforementioned schools of moral thought. Some authors call this ‘ordinary morality’ (Tillyris 63; Alexandra, 2006), ‘common morality’ (Walzer, 1974), ‘impartial morality’ (Jones, 2016), ‘individual morality’ (Nagel, 1978) and ‘general morality’ (Monge 2015) – all admit the possibility of a distinct sphere. This is to be compared with ‘role morality’ which takes into account that one’s potential role induces different duties than one has – ceteris paribus – without that role. Such a role may be that of a police officer, a doctor or – of primary relevance to this thesis – a politician.

To be clear, personal morality and role morality are not necessarily independent of each other and indeed some ideas, principles or concepts within each school will apply sensibly to role morality. Consider, by example, a Minister for Health whom has been placed with the responsibility of the welfare of her state. Consequentialism (and specifically utilitarianism) seems to be an effective morality to draw upon when attempting to calculate and govern the fairest allocation of, for instance, hospital resources within an entire state. Similarly, we may hope that a Minister for Justice follow deontic laws that govern integrity, such as ‘Do not lie’, as that role will likely be held to a higher account because it itself is expected to uphold the law. Lastly, we can hardly deny the general desirability of our politicians showing virtues such as wisdom or prudence. However, each of the schools claim that there is only one morality which is sufficiently available in multiple domains, including that of politics.

These moralities are not so fully applicable, and we ought to instead acknowledge an overlapping - but distinct - sphere of role morality. As Nagel suggests, the ‘spheres’ of morality – personal morality and role morality – may derive from the same source but produce different results when applied to the “widely differing circumstances of private and public life” (1978, 79).

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The morality of some roles is certainly closer to those of personal morality than others and, in some cases, actors take on only a slither of additional duties. Other roles seem entirely amoral and do not require such a distinction for actors in the field. As Jones puts it, “a role’s morality hinges on the nature of the institution it serves” (2016, 494). An interior designer, for instance, does not appear to assume additional duties for her role as an interior designer. The interior designer is able to be a good interior designer without concern for her being ‘good’, as a person generally. That is to say, the duties of her role do not compromise her following the prescriptions of personal morality.

A parent, on the other hand, is expected to be highly partial to the interests of their child. This violates the moral principle of impartiality common to traditional schools of moral thoughts - most clearly, within utilitarianism. That is not to say that these schools cannot find a way to justify a parent treating their child with special care. My point here is that role morality need make no such space for such claims. Within role morality, this partiality is uncontroversial; the institution of parenthood requires high partiality in order to uphold parental duties that come with the role.

As Wolgast states, “a role serves – or is thought to serve – as a justification for doing things that would otherwise be wrong…. a military officer needs to be partial to his or her troops, a parent partial to his or her child, a lawyer partial to the advantage of his or her client” (1991, 279). Bellamy imagines a case of a sinking ship, wherein it is clear that a mother’s duty is to prioritise her own children from drowning (2010, 417) – even, perhaps, above her own life. Yet, he further argues that, should the mother be also captaining the ship, this would be a “dereliction of her professional obligations” – as a captain, to keep the ship afloat as best possible – and an abuse of her power in office.

Some arenas require stark obligations in order for the institution to work effectively, as a whole. This can justify actions that would otherwise be wrong. Consider a catholic priest who must hear a murderer’s confession but nonetheless protects this information for the functioning of catholic practice, and that of confession, to function as a whole. Or, the hospital staff who must treat the wanted criminal without informing the authorities, so that the responsibility to protect life can be upheld. As Keohane points out, “Having responsibilities for other human beings creates moral dilemmas more complex than those which involve only our individual behaviour” (2014, 15).

This is the point of role morality: it says which actions are permissible, forbidden or obligatory

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within a given institution, but it as a claim about what ought to be considered effective considering the restraints of the role. In some roles, such as the captain of a ship, it may be desirable to appeal to prioritise consequences – namely, furthering the lives of those on board. In other roles, such as a priest hearing confession, it may be more desirable to fulfil intrinsic duties such as trust. To make sense of moral conflict, role actors are better served with an independent normative ethical theory. One that need not draw upon the traditional sources of morality, and need only appeal to what is ‘effective’ within its institutional morality. First, let us define scenarios of moral conflict and moral dilemma.

Moral Conflicts and Moral Dilemmas

A moral conflict is a scenario wherein an agent has moral reasons to do multiple actions or inactions but cannot do them all. For clarities sake, I will hereafter generally present conflicts of two choices. Some may appear multifaceted but can nevertheless be simplified to two. Henceforth, a moral conflict is a scenario wherein an agent has moral reasons to do both of two choices but cannot do both. The duties that encumber the actor are incommensurable and fulfilling one does not dissolve the other.

By example, you may have promised to meet a friend at 7pm for dinner. Just as you are about to leave the house you receive a call that a close relative has been admitted to intensive care. You have moral reasons to meet your friend (a promise has been made) but also reason to drop everything to visit your sick relative (whom needs your support). You ought not to break promises, but also have a duty toward your relative. However fine a prospect the dinner may be, most of us will forgo it for the sake of the visit to the relative. One duty has overridden the other, but a wrong (the breaking of a promise) has been nonetheless committed.

This can be contrasted with a genuine moral dilemma; a situation of moral conflict wherein “there can be no right overall choice to be made between incompossible oughts” (de Wijze, 2007, 9). Take an example from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. A situation presents itself wherein The Joker has taken hostage two ferries of people. He informs both ferries that each is filled with explosives that are due to detonate in a set amount of time. Moreover, each is supplied a trigger with which they can denotable the other ferry and, in doing so, save their own from explosion. As time ticks down, both sets of ferries are faced with a genuine moral dilemma. It seems no wrong is worse than another, and that no one can survive without dirtying their hands.

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Moral conflicts and dilemmas arise from the incommensurability of moral values but also, and most central to this thesis, from the specific duties and incomparable obligations that arise if agents have assumed a role of office. Rationalist moral theories, those of consequentialism and deontology, generally do not admit of the possibility of moral conflict, considering such dilemmas as merely prima

facie moral conflicts. Virtue ethics admits of the possibility of such scenarios, and the possibility of

moral remainder, but does not sufficiently provide action-guidance to the actors involved.

Consequentialism

Consequentialism dictates that that the rightness (or wrongness) of normative practices lies within their consequences. In simpler terms: we ought to act in a way that creates better outcomes. This is an intuitively persuasive premise and, as the consequentialist will point out, it proves rather difficult to conjure a reason for acting that does not care for consequences in some way. Any appeal to something other than the result (or likely result) of actions, consequentialists contend, reveals only an instrumental claim to consequences. Without such a reason, the consequentialist’s position looks unbeatable if not unfalsifiable.

Here, I do not distinguish between act (or direct) consequentialism and that of rule (or indirect) consequentialism. What is important to this thesis is the justifications for acting, and both these forms are sufficiently similar insofar as they both appeal to consequences, alone, for so acting.

The paradigm strain of consequentialism is classic utilitarianism, which makes the hedonistic claim that our moral motivation ought to aim for the maximum good: that is, the total pleasure for all minus the total pain for all. Bentham introduces this notion in such a way:

“Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do” (1789, p.

1).

For Bentham, all types of experience can be dissolved into either pain or pleasure. To enable this possibility, Bentham distinguishes between simple pleasures and complex pleasures (33). Simple pleasures include (the pleasure of) intoxication, that of imagination and sex. Whilst simple pains include (the pain of) sensory disturbance, awkwardness and enmity. We can sometimes realise the

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culmination of both pleasure and pain, thus create complex pleasures (or pains). For example, the experience following a difficult gym workout may fall into this category. The no-doubt pleasurably feeling of having worked out (largely, a release of dopamine in the brain) nevertheless comes with the baggage of a sense of burning lactic acid that aches the muscles. A ‘good’ feeling, nonetheless.

Utilitarians do not necessarily claim the maximum good to be realistically attainable but only that it should serve as the goal when considering what we ought to do in any situation. Crucially, given the utilitarian’s dissolvability of values (into utility), moral conflicts do not truly arrive. Instead, the estimated ‘greater good’ is evaluatively the right action – there is not more to be said. Through this framework, the mother ought to abandon her children and captain the ship until the end; and, there is no moral remainder for her doing so.

There are instances familiar to our lives wherein some cost is endured for the ‘greater good’. In such cases, we implicitly import some form of utilitarian arithmetic. We may ask a spouse to attend intimidating family gathering, despite their noted apathy toward such occasions, because of the approximated greater good of their attending (their companionship during the event, the desire of the family for their attending and the forgone embarrassment of explaining their absence). We are also familiar with scenarios wherein we must abort an argument with a friend, concluding it to be ‘not worth it’. The total pain (of the argument itself or of the risk of it having a damaging conclusion) is not worth the total pleasure of success (the satisfaction of seeming ‘right’).

Yet, these scenarios still fail to constitute moral conflicts for utilitarians. Whether it be choosing between a pain or a pleasure, a pleasure or a greater pleasure or a pain or a greater pain, there is only path which provides the greater net utility. There is nothing that is wrong, for instance, with my dragging my partner to a family ‘do’, so long as the greater good is achieved by doing so. As Walzer argues, consequentialists should not even feel they have committed a wrong – even if committing atrocities - when they have no reasons for believing their actions did not achieve the best consequences (1974, 171-172).

A further issue arises from the supposed commensurability of values within consequentialism, one that is most relevant to the discourse of this thesis. Namely, consequentialist theories are not able to distinguish the specific duties of those who have a role have assumed. If the only thing that matters is the consequences of one’s actions, the school admits of no other values we should wish to uphold in certain institutions or specific values that certain actors, given their role, should prioritise. Though

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some political consequentialist theories aim for equality or fairness, instead of please and pain, these are also goal-centred and make irrelevant the actor involved. As such, the values that ought to uphold the duties of a role are necessarily crowded out by consequentialist arithmetic.

Consider a teacher and a ‘slow child’. It is clear that the child’s slow progress is holding back the rest of the class from progressing as they would in the absence of the slow child. The teacher is quite confident that if she were to ignore the child, the rest of the class would do much better. That is to say, if she were to ignore the child, doing so will serve the ‘greater good’ more effectively. Yet, the teacher, as part of her role, has a specific duty to educate the child as best as she can. This principle would deem total abandonment unjustifiable. The teacher’s duty, to educate the child as best she can, is not commensurable with the utility that the other students would gain from their progressing more productively.

Furthermore, should she continue to educate the slow child as best she can, utilitarians would hold her responsible for the forgone utility of the class at large. William’s coined this the problem of negative responsibility (1973, 93-100). He exemplifies the problem with the following case:

Jim the explorer wanders upon a small town and finds Pedro, who is preparing to execute twenty Indians in an effort to dampen protests against the local colonial government. Noticing Jim’s arrival, Pedro offers the honoured guest a gift: he may choose to kill one Indian, and then relieve

the remaining nineteen. Pedro will otherwise continue as he was.

Utilitarians would demand Jim kill one Indian, lest he be responsible for the death of all twenty. That is to say, he would otherwise be negatively responsible for their deaths. Whilst Williams was primarily concerned with how negative responsibility prohibited our having personal projects, such as not having to shoulder the burden of having committed a murder, this problem also illustrates the way in which utilitarianism ties the hands of actors who have assumed a role. As with earlier, the teacher must let the slow child fall behind, lest they uphold the whole class. In the same way that we do not want our personal projects crowded out by utilitarianism, we also do not want the duties of role morality crowded out.

Consequentialism fails to provide both conceptual space for moral conflict and thus fails to provide suitable ethic for those who have assumed a role. Moral conflict is a necessary possibility for

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dirty hands scenarios and, as we will see in the following chapter, dirty hands scenarios populate the distinct realm of politic morality. By denying the possibility of dirty hands scenarios, utilitarianism cannot cope with the reality of political morality and the way in which political actors ought to operate within it.

Deontology

Deontological ethics discerns which kind of acts ought to be forbidden, permitted or required, and which acts ought not to be, by a series of rules and obligations. This is most apparent with divine-command deontology, whereby such rules are explicitly presented in religious texts such as the Old Testament’s Ten Commandments. In direct contrast with consequentialist theories, the morality of acts is not judged by their consequences and indeed may be permissible in spite of negative consequences. For instance, lying is often prohibited by deontologists even if doing so prevents another greater harm.

Central to deontological moral theories is Kantianism. Whilst I wish not to delve too deeply into the broader Kantian framework, for it is not of particular use here, the most important formulations of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (Kant’s concept of deontology moral philosophy) are (i) that rational beings are ends in themselves; not ever to be used as a mere means to another’s end (ii) any such maxim (or rule) must withstand universal applicability. Korsgaard clarifies these principles, again with the example of lying, “lies are usually efficacious in achieving their purposes because they deceive, but if they were universally practiced they would not deceive” (1986, 328) and, moreover, lying “treats someone’s reason as a tool” (334) and so uses persons as a means.

Kantians insist that situations wherein an agent must do some measure of evil, those of moral conflict, are morally mistaken. By tabling universal principles, there are no situations of moral compromise. That is to say, there can be no moral conflicts. A uniform feature of deontological ethics is the focus on what is intrinsically right (or wrong). Thus, they cannot admit of the possibility of moral conflicts – let alone moral dilemmas – because these scenarios would undermine the theory’s rationalist motivation. That is, the create context-free action guidance for any and all situations.

By denying the importance of consequences, deontology fails to provide reliably desirable action-guidance. For instance, imagine that a person runs past you, seemingly terrified. Moments later, another person (with a poorly hidden knife) runs by you but then stops and pauses in confusion. They

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ask you if you happened to see someone running past, and in which direction they may have ran. Despite knowing exactly which way they ran; one should nevertheless attempt to deceive the assailant. Regardless of how consequentially beneficial the lie may be, at least to the health of the runner, it would nonetheless be deontologically forbidden.

Ellis states, “that absolutely nothing could justify infringing a deontological rule, even a very stringent one, seems excessively hard to believe” (1992, p. 857). Hill (1983) points out the more general problem of idealism within deontological ethics. The theory seems unable to sufficiently guide action in cases of moral conflict. Here, by undesirably restraining a lie toward the assailant.

Moral conflicts often arise from institutionally driven circumstances. That is to say, non-ideal contexts. For instance, the deontologist forbids killing. Yet we must have armed forces who are willing to do so when inertia would otherwise lead to further killing. This is but one example of institutional wrongs that are necessary, given the reliable arising of moral conflict. When assuming responsibility for a population at large, consequentialist-type considerations must be taken into account.

Deontologists have tried to accommodate the possibility of such conflicts by introducing the idea of a threshold deontology. This is opposed to the absolute deontology we have assumed thus far. Threshold deontology dictates that we ought to have prima facie prohibitions of certain acts. At some point, however, prohibitions may be overturned if when the consequences of doing so have a sufficient magnitude. In this way, killing may be justified if a sufficient number of others are saved in doing so.

Two issues remain in spite of this move. Firstly, as has been claimed elsewhere, the point at which to plant the threshold flag is arbitrary. In reply to this charge, Ellis proposes a continuum, contending that there cannot be a defendable cut off in such, and instead “we gradually move from acts that are clearly wrong into acts about which we are not clear and into acts that are clearly right” (1992, 867). ‘Right’, here, meaning it would be right to cross the threshold and submit to consequentialist considerations.

Still then, according to the deontologist, no wrong will have been committed. An action is only right, and completely right, on deontological terms, or right on threshold consequentialist terms. This fails to admit of the possibility that one must do wrong in order to do right. As stated earlier, this is often the position of those in roles of office – especially those of politicians.

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Secondly, the issue of incommensurability remains. Specifically, the threshold deontologist assumes that the norms of deontology (violation of rational persons) and consequentialism (total utility) are commensurable. Yet, it is not clear how to weight each of these against each other. As Alexander suggests, “that we are resources for others is as fundamental to the consequentialist as that we are not resources for others is to the deontologist”. This issue deepens further when considering how to incorporate duties of role morality, and where preferences should be made. In attempting to reconcile these values, the deontologist then cannot truly make sense of the demands of a role.

Take the example of a deontological doctor that feels motivated to euthanise their patient, who is experiencing their final days in extreme pain. The doctor may attempt to evaluate whether the pain of the patient has reached some threshold, but there is no mechanism within deontology to reconcile this value with the duty to preserve life.

Role morality, on the other hand, need not attempt to excuse the doctor’s behaviour. From the perspective of role morality, it is the duty of the doctor, as the patient’s doctor, to euthanise the patient (should this be in the patient’s interest). Indeed, to fail to do so would be to violate their office and its demands. Deontological theories cannot make proper sense of moral conflict, nor the prioritisation of institutional duties, and therefore cannot sufficiently guide actors who have assumed a role.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics, of the three traditional schools of moral thought, deals best with both how to make sense of moral conflicts and how to guide actors in roles. In particular, by the way in which virtue ethics incorporates feelings of regret and remorse.

Consider the dilemma in Sophie’s Choice. A Nazi solider confronts a mother and informs her that she must choose to take with her only one of her two children – lest he take both from her. The utilitarian would have to say that this is a zero-sum situation: the only wrong that would be committed is refusing to take either child (leaving aside the crude possibility that the mother could calculate which child would produce the greatest utility for all). The deontologist, on the other hand, would decree a duty to save a life. But that which choice does not matter. Indeed, it would not matter even if she had three children and was able to save two at the expense of one. For the deontologist, the duty has been upheld by saving any life and that is all that deserves moral consideration.

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Virtue ethicists deal more realistically with such scenarios. For Hursthouse, this situation would constitute a “tragic dilemma” (1986, 77) that can be survived only by feeling immense remorse for having done wrong. Unlike rationalist schools of morality, virtue ethics concentrates on persons and character, rather than simply on acts themselves. An actor, despite doing a right action, can be nonetheless morally polluted and feel emotions of regret or remorse for their so acting. However, as we will see, the framework of virtue ethics is vague, even deliberately so, and ultimately left wanting when trying to incorporate duties of a role.

Virtue ethics is best conceived as following of a normative list of ways we ought to be (virtues) and an opposing list of ways we ought not to be (vices). Typical virtuous traits are honesty, courage and benevolence; typical vices are dishonesty, cowardice and malevolence.

The fundamental premise is:

“An action is right iff it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically (i.e. acting in character) do in the circumstances” (Hursthouse, 1999, 28).

Crucially, virtue ethicists claim that the notion of right and wrongness cannot be captured by deontic rules or consequentialist calculations. As Annas (2004) argues, these ‘theories of action’ wrongly claim to have a fix for all moral realities. Annas imagines the possibility of an idiot savant: “the young person with technically brilliant understanding may be a moral idiot” (64) due to the context of their actions. This flexibility caters for the possibility of moral conflicts but also creates vagueness with regard to what to actually do in such situations (a degree of guidance, I will argue, we need for those in certain roles).

Hursthouse attempts to ameliorate such concerns by proposing v-rules (based on virtues) such as ‘Do not lie’ to add some deontic rigor to the concepts (1999, 36-39) and provide clearer action guidance. Annas, moreover, claims that virtuous people survive moral conflicts, as virtuous, even when making wrong decisions by asking themselves why they made the wrong decision (2004, 65-69). In this way, what to actually do is of less concern than why one has done it. In aspiring for an ideal, learning to be moral becomes a practical skill, rather than the ability to read a technical moral manual.

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The charge may then be that this is a weak form of deontology and, by abandoning rigid context-free rules, the theory then fails to provide action guidance in cases when v-rules conflict. Therefore, the deontic move undermines the distinct benefit of the theory at large.

According to Hursthouse, however, this need not undermine the action-guidingness of virtue ethics. Indeed, no moral theory can cater for each and every conflict that arises. Instead, she argues, virtue ethicists promote a moral wisdom, which becomes ever more sophisticated as one endeavours to become virtuous and learns from both their experience and that of truly virtuous people. In this way, v-rules can be heuristics for those gaining practical wisdom, and not obstacles to its realisation. It is more pragmatic, Annas contends, to imagine moral wisdom as a source of action guidingness than to appeal to context-free rules that claim to guide every case. In this way, virtue ethics is not just about being a virtuous person - doing as a virtuous person would - but also the practice of aspiring to be a virtuous person.

Virtue ethicists deal well with the possibility of genuine dilemmas scenarios and how to reconcile the wrongdoing of the actor involved. Van Zyl (2007) contends that a virtuous person can survive even tragic dilemmas, as a virtuous person, if equipped with appropriate set of emotion; namely, regret and remorse. Virtue ethicists note the plausibility of moral conflicts and moral dilemmas, and make good ground suggesting how one may survive them in a morally acceptable way.

On the contrary, it is still not clear what the virtue ethicist would tell Sophie what to do. On the one hand, she should show bravery and make the unthinkable choice to save one child. Afterward, she ought to feel immense and appropriate remorse at having doomed one of her children (indeed, this is the choice she makes and is indeed haunted by it). On the other hand, perhaps the virtue ethicist would tell Sophie to forgo the choice altogether. After all, this is an evil that has been brought upon Sophie, and she ought not to participate in it and degrade her nobility. The choice is not to doom her children, only to relieve the Nazi of the guilt of having taken both. This ambiguity is undesirable.

Moreover, the problem of incorporating the importance of roles remains. The theory does not admit of the need for bespoke virtues for different roles. The case most central to this thesis, is that of the politician. As will be laid out explicitly in the chapter following, the virtues do not sufficiently lay the moral ground we want of our politicians. Indeed, whilst Aristotle regarded the virtuous person as a politically active one, this was a claim to the good life and not one of duty. It is not the case that virtuous people are ‘good’ politicians (at least, not necessarily so).

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Hollis, too, rejects the inference that a good, virtuous, citizen is necessarily a good politician (1982, 389-393). Claims such as these constitute the ‘citizen squared’ view of morality, a misunderstanding according to Hollis. For Hollis, what makes a solider a good solider is not whether they are good men, but whether they are correcting follow the code of a good soldier (391). Saving a downed comrade at the expense of the mission at large is a failure to acknowledge one’s role. Of course, the military purposely infuse a deep sense of brotherhood within the ranks. But this is only because of how effective it makes soldiers in their role.

Similarly, Weber distinguishes the ‘occasional politician’ (a politically conscious Aristotelian, for instance) from an elected politician in this way, and that no amount of enthusiasm for the projects of the former can account for the duties of the latter (1998). Indeed, there are many ‘virtue saints’ we could imagine – philanthropists, volunteers or even religious prophets – whom would nonetheless fail to be effective in the role of a politician. Due, namely, to the specific duties that come with an elected and representative office. Duties above and beyond those that govern personal moralities. More generally, this thesis argues against the view that one morality can account for the entire ‘moral cosmos’ (Tyrillis, 2015, 61).

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Chapter 2: Political Morality and Political Ethics

▪ Case A: In 2009, the ‘Cash for Influence’ scandal breaks in the UK, wherein it is revealed that four Labour Party peers (members of the House of Lords) influenced amendments to legislation in return for cash payments of up to £125,000 (The Independent, 2009). Operating within a grey area of the law, all four escaped criminal punishment. Though, two were suspended from the House – the first such suspensions in nearly 400 years.

▪ Case B: In 2010, Nick Clegg – then leader of the Liberal Democrat’s in the UK – pledged to vote against the Conservative government’s plans to raise student tuition fees. Following a general election, the Liberal Democrats gain enough seats to form a small part in a coalition with the Conservatives. The pledge was dropped as part of coalition negotiations, and the public (mostly, the young) have since never forgiven Clegg for this utter ‘betrayal’ (Moore, 2019).

▪ Case C: In 2015, David Cameron – then Prime Minister in the UK – called a referendum on whether the UK should remain a member of the European Union, under pressure from a nationalist faction of his party. The public vote to leave and, after four and a half years, the UK has not yet left. Cameron is blamed by all sides for sending the country into subsequent turmoil.

These three examples from the UK furnish the kind of ethical problems that arise in the political domain. The actors in the first and last, I will argue, violated principles of political morality. In the second example, however, Clegg’s actions were just, and the public’s reaction constituted a misunderstanding of political morality and its demands. The reasons for these evaluations will be made explicit throughout the analysis.

In this chapter, I propose a political ethic. It is constituted by three principles of political morality. Namely, (i) it is forbidden to use the office for private gain (ii) it is permissible to operate only within the window of partiality (iii) politicians are obliged to dirty their hands when necessary.

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A few clarifications are in order. By ‘political morality’, I am referring to (as motivated before) a realm of role morality distinct from that of personal morality – namely, that of politics. By ‘political ethic’, I merely mean a set of rules or guidelines that ought to be adhered to by actors within the realm of political morality. For the sake of scope and clarity, I will assume a theoretical politician to be an elected official in a liberal nation-state. One which enjoys a working representative democracy, with legitimate elections, democratic accountability and a responsive public.

Furthermore, I will assume a theoretical politician who does in fact intend to be do good. The goal here is not to decipher how a bad actor may best navigate the pollical landscape. The ethic I put forward will imply what is meant by ‘good’, through the upholding of relevant duties, and should fail to guide a dictator or an otherwise unscrupulous actor. Before proposing an ethic, it is important to first understand the unique moral demands of holding political office.

Why do we need a Political Ethic?

As has been argued for in the previous chapter, those that assume a role of office are actors who now ought to operate within the domain of role morality, as opposed to that of personal morality. This distinction is perhaps most stark in the domain of politics. The actions and decisions of political leaders are far more complex than those acting within the domain of personal morality. As de Wijze summarises, “The oath of office, greater powers, the need to protect all citizens, the stress on having to make decisions with limited information and scarce resources impose additional duties which are not part of a person’s private life” (2007, 10).

I will argue for the need for a political ethic by presenting two categories of problems that political leaders face. The first category concerns their role as a representative of a people. The second concerns their responsibility to act and, if required, dirty their hands. The first category can be prevalent to other role moralities but, as we will see, the second category derives from a Machiavellian concept of politics and may indeed be found only in this arena. I will address each category in turn.

The role of representative

One of the primary purposes of politicians in representative democracies is to represent the interests of those that have elected them. Populations are typically too large to represent themselves directly and so much entrust their vote in delegates who decide matters for them (though some forms of direct

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democracy persist, such as citizen-initiated referendums in Switzerland). For instance, members of parliaments are expected to represent their constituents’ views, and, in some instances, this ought to come at the cost of partisan loyalty. That is to say, they are sometimes expected to show greater partiality toward their constituents than their party.

A politician is expected to remain impartial even with respect to their own personal relationships – hereafter, impersonality. At least, when this impinges upon the efficacy of their office. As Hollis states, it is “morally corrupt to use the powers of office to further personal relationships” (1982, 393). This is a theme common to role morality, but most crucial to the role of a politician because of the sheer number of people they represent, whom rely on their impersonality.

For instance, a university dean may - through an act of nepotism - admit their lacking child into their university. This is clearly wrong but far less damaging than, say, a politician who appoints their lacking child into a position of power - one that has the potential to affect a great number of others. The nature of the nepotism is different within the two cases, in important ways. First, because of the greater magnitude of damage that the ‘talent gap’, created by nepotism, will cause. Second, the additional violation of legitimacy that elected officials foster when committing nepotistic acts constitutes an additional wrong. Moreover, the immorality of the politician’s actions here can be more reliably explained through the lens of role morality.

Consider, even, that a politician has made a promise to a close ally. She promises her ally that, should she be promoted to a position of Minister of Department X, she will reward the ally’s loyalty with a position of power within the ministry. This constitutes a moral conflict, whereby she is torn between her duties of the role (to appoint only those with merit) and her duties as an ally (to retain her promise).

Through the lens of political morality, it is clear she ought to prioritise her duty as a representative, in cases of moral conflict such as this, over her duties to her personal allies. A political ethic makes this evaluation more comprehensive. It may, of course, be the case that there is substantial political capital or otherwise sufficient utility to retaining the closeness of the friend – in which case, it may be best to retain such a promise (and the political capital).

Moreover, a president, prime minister or other political leaders must represent entire nation-states. They are expected to represent the country they lead, as a whole, and must be somewhat impartial toward their own interests, their party’s interests and the interests of all legitimate actors

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with their state. Impartial insofar as they each deserve proportional consideration, unaffected by the leader’s personal views. Consider the following two ways in which impartiality is expected to be upheld by a political leader.

Firstly, a political leader - unlike mere party leaders or any other politicians - must act “as a representative of the whole community… not just those who put him in office” (Wolgast, 1991, 275). This is, in part, the function of the inaugural address, wherein the incoming United States (US) president takes the opportunity to unite the nation under one banner, following a typically nation-dividing election campaign. Once they are elected, they now represent the nation and not merely their own party. This was (at least, in theory) the motivation behind this line in US President Donald Trump’s inaugural address: “We, the citizens of America, are now joined in a great national effort to rebuild our country and to restore its promise for all of our people” (The White House, 2017). A ‘national effort’… ‘for all of our people’.

Secondly, a politician must largely be impartial to even their own ideologies. This is similar but different from impersonality whereby they must not bias the interests of themselves or their personal relationships, such as financial interests or power-hungry relatives. They now represent the agenda of the people, and not one of their own ideological preference. As Wolgast argues, the leader has a duty to act as a ‘political surrogate’ for their people, and thus “representation may require speaking and acting disingenuously, putting aside personal moral convictions and acting on the convictions of others, behaviour that is normally censurable as deceitful and hypocritical” (1991, 279).

This point can be well furnished by the example of Tim Farron, a former leader of the Liberal Democrats party in the United Kingdom (UK). Following intense media pressure over his religious identity, after his admitting that he considered homosexual sex a sin, he considered his position ultimately untenable. He resigned in the following manner:

“The consequences of the focus on my faith is that I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader… to be a politician – especially of a progressive,

liberal party in 2017 – and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faithfully to the Bible’s teaching, has felt impossible for me” (Conservative Home, 2019).

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I do not mean to claim that, as a Christian, Farron’s ideology deemed him necessarily unfit for office. Indeed, it is quite the opposite case in the US wherein this is, seemingly, in practice, a necessary ideology for a president. Nor do I mean to claim that Christians necessarily believe homosexual sex to be a sin. Instead, I only point out that this was his view of homosexuality and he would not escape it because of his Christian ideology.

Farron recognised the demands of the office- that he must forgo his personal ideology in order to lead - and so he resigned. In other words, he recognised the demands of political morality, that it interfered with his personal morality, and that he was unable to abide by its demands.

The inescapability of moral conflict and the responsibility to dirty one’s hands

The second category of problems that politicians face derives from the fact they assume the responsibility to act (one cannot choose inertia) and, if required, to dirty one’s hands. According to Machiavelli, a politician ought “to learn to be able not to be good, and to use this and not use it according to necessity” (1998, 61). This paradox constitutes the problem of dirty hands, whereby political leaders find themselves in situations of moral conflict or moral dilemma and cannot escape without doing wrong. Inaction implicates politicians in the same way as their action, because the dirt remains. The term first arrives in Jean-Paul Sartre’s play Dirty Hands, wherein one character postulates to another, “But what do you hope? Do you think you can govern innocently?” (1949).

Politicians are inundated with moral conflicts and dilemmas, and institutionally so. They cannot, and ought not, maintain their innocence if doing so costs their expediency as a representative - “society needs people who are less than the most virtuous” (Wolgast, 1991, 280). Some may choose, when faced with a moral conflict, to resign. Yet, even this move does not alleviate their culpability – they may escape the office but not the responsibility (Hollis, 1982, 393-394). De Wijze formulates the politician’s responsibility to action as such: (i) if the politician acts, they dirty their hands (ii) if they resign, they only pass on the dirt to their successor (2007, 4). This is the inescapability of immorality within political ethics.

Walzer imagines a scenario in which a prospective candidate contemplates whether to make a deal with a dishonest ward boss (1974, 165-166). Whilst they know the deal may well win them the election and enable them to do a great amount of good for their constituents, they are hesitant to dirty their hands in this way. Yet, they have undertaken the duty to do so.

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That is not to say we want to encourage dirty-seeking behaviour, but politicians must be willing to when necessary. In this case, the candidate must be willing to compromise with the ward boss should this win him the election for his supporters. As Hollis argues, “the integrity of the martyr is saved at his own expense, whereas the statesman’s refusal to compromise is paid for by his people” (1982, 390). The must be a balance of expediency and reluctancy; we do not want a politician who all too easily dirties their hands. The politician must be both “too good for politics and good enough” (Walzer, 1974, 168).

Consider the case of Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Opposition in the UK. His tenure, even amongst his allies, can be defined as one in which he failed to take this responsibility seriousness. On numerous occasions, it has been demanded of Corbyn to loosen his principles: to dress more professionally to appeal to more voters, to condemn foreign leaders (on reputation, if not merit) and to distance himself from his radical grassroots support.

As a backbench MP, his persona of uncompromising dignity and campaigning style was lauded, even amongst his enemies. In his role as a leader of the opposition, however, he ought to do whatever he can to take power from the incumbent Conservative government, and has failed to do so. In politics, the “best is the enemy of the good” (Hollis, 1982, 388). This responsibility is somewhat inescapable: what was once considered decent political behaviour was rightly condemned in his new role – a role that he was nonetheless obliged to take.

For Walzer, the problem of dirty hands is not a bug of political morality, but a feature. Indeed, “no one succeeds in politics without getting his hands dirty” (1974, 164). One reason the problem of dirty hands seems truly inescapable is the nature of incumbency within politics. Take the case of Dutch Minister of Defense, Ank Bijleveld. In 2019, in was revealed that – four years prior – the Dutch military had inadvertently killed 76 civilians as part of a military operation, and that this information had been purposely kept from the public. Despite not being the head of the ministry at that time, Bijleveld felt nonetheless responsible, stating “As Minister, I am responsible, also for the actions of my predecessor” (NL Times, 2019).

She was accused of lying to the public, by withholding this information for so long. Yet, it is not clear that Bijleveld or her predecessor acted wrongly, by the standards of political morality. Clearly, it is wrong to lie to the public, and (perhaps more so) to mislead one’s parliament. Nevertheless, as the role of Ministry of Defence, they are duty-bound to prioritise the interests of the

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military and so may have been obliged to keep the civilian deaths a secret (if, we assume, this was indeed in the interests of the military). Both Bijleveld’s withholding, and her predecessor’s initial censorship may have been justified on these terms. They had a responsibility to dirty their hands in this way. Furthermore, Bijleveld’s apology may have been rightly performed, however disingenuously, if only to appease the troubled public.

Take another example from the UK. In 1972, during the deadliest period of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, three car bombs detonated in the village of Claudy, killing nine people and injuring a further 30. No responsibility was assigned, though rumours circulated that it was a catholic priest – a revelation that would have considerably fuelled further conflict and potentially risked a civil war. A Police Ombudsman report revealed in 2010 that Father James Chesney – director of IRA operations in South Derry and, indeed, a catholic priest – was responsible for the attack. Moreover, this information was hidden from the public in a concerted effort from the Catholic Church, the Northern Irish Police and the British Government (Bowcott, 2019).

Following Stocker, de Wijze defines dirty hands acts as “(i) justified, even obligatory, but also (ii) nonetheless somehow wrong” (2007, 6). In the above example, the ‘dirt’ is the hiding of truth, both violating principles of justice and preventing the healing process for victims and families involved. Yet, the triage of political actors considered powerful consequentialist reasons for covering up Chesney’s action and this overrode notions of truth and justice. But that these duties have been overridden does not mean that so has the wrongness of their violation (as the rationalist schools would stipulate). The dirt remains, and this is the baggage of a politician.

To the contrary, Neilson (2007) argues that the very idea of dirty hands is conceptually misguided: one cannot both do right and do wrong. This line is understandable if one imagines that all moral situations can be interpreted by one of the aforementioned rationalist theories of morality. That is to say, if you deny the possibility of moral conflict at all.

All argued in the previous chapter, this is an unrealistic picture of morality and is grounded by uncompromising moral principles. Uncompromising insofar as it is claimed to be impossible to both do right and wrong at the same time, and all act evaluations fit easily on one side (of right or wrong). Indeed, it is refusing precisely this that motivates the need for dirty hands analysis. As Walzer states, dirty hands situations are realised by an “effort to refuse ‘absolutism’ without denying the reality of the moral dilemma” (1974, 162).

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The phenomenon of dirty hands is not exclusive to politics and can be found in our personal lives too (de Wijze, 2007, 10-14). Yet, the extreme nature of politics means that the phenomenon is perhaps most starkly seen in politics. It may be the only domain that truly necessitates it. As Walzer states, the problem of dirty hands “arises not merely as an occasional crisis in the career of this and that unlucky politician but systematically and frequently” (1974, 162).

Whilst it may be a moral hazard for, say, a lawyer having to defend a clearly guilty criminal, it is a not necessary wrong in the office (a lawyer’s duty of the role overrides the potential effects of too-leniently punishing criminals). Or, say, for a lobbyist tasked with defending the interests of Big Oil, whose actions the lobbyist highly disregards. For the politician, dirty hands are an institutional hazard and cannot be avoided.

As Harel and Sharon (2011) point out, the nature of politics itself is extreme and coloured with uncodifiable necessities. Even benign politicians will inevitably inherit evil situations occupied by evil actors. To keep one’s hands clean would be to forgo the duties of the office. As Hollis states, a leader “cannot practice the virtues of a good citizen without betraying the interests of his subjects” (1982, 389). Nagel argues that this forgoing of virtue, as a result of the office, must imply that the moral requirements are different to that of personal morality (1978, 77). Indeed, that the requirements are different warrants a separate ethic.

The goal a political ethic

My ambition here is not to provide a moral flow chart, with which a troubled politician can refer for specific guidance in each and every case. Instead, I will argue that political morality illuminates when power can and cannot be justified. I follow de Wijze, in his view that “a political ethic attempts to provide the minimum that can and must be said about a political morality” (1994, 194).

The extent of power that can be wielded will depend on the role, the nature of the conflict and case-by-case caveats – thus, it is far too complex for specific prescriptions of action. This ethic will suggest what must me off the table, what may be on it and how this may be justified. It will provide necessary constraints and illuminate the range of possible moral explanations. By the end of this chapter, it will be clear why the three cases (A-C) that introduced this chapter ought to be considered in the way they were.

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3 Principles of Political Morality

I will present three principles of political morality that ought to act as the minimum we can say about how public officials should act. Together, they constitute a political ethic. With this framework, we can decipher the duties that may arrive to politicians in different scenarios. The principles will decipher what is forbidden, what is permissible and what is obligatory. Namely, it is forbidden for a public official to use their office for private gain, it is permissible to operate within a respective window of partiality and it is obligatory that one is prepared to dirty their hands when necessary. I will draw each of these out, in turn.

Private gain in public office

When it was revealed in 2019 that UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid an ex-model £100,000 for ‘technology lessons’ at her London home (Weaver and Murphy, 2019), the point was not that the public thought this affected his competence in office (as mayor of London, at the time). Rather, it was that a public official ought not to use their office for private gain. This, I contend is the concrete floor of responsibility in public office: officials cannot abuse their powers for private gain, in any case. The role specifically requires officials to act on behalf of others.

This is not to make the unrealistic demand that public officials cannot act for themselves outside of the office and in their private lives. A politician, of course, gains privately from their being in office. Through a higher salary, reputational aspects or a variety of gratuities from their constituents. These gains seem wholly attached to the role and are generally uncontroversial.

We must require only, then, that politicians cannot abuse their political power for private pursuit. For instance, by selling national fiscal intentions to financial speculators or by using public funds for private ‘technology lessons’. Upon being elected, politicians undertake an ‘ethic of responsibility’ and must keep a “distance to men and things” (Weber, 1919, 21)

Two issues arise at this point, both with regard to how applicable this restrain may be in practice. First, the problem of the revolving door in politics. Many people enter politics as a personal aspiration and often use these experiences to later enter a more generous private sector – this, alone, is not an issue.

Yet, the practice itself creates a systematic problem of the revolving door, wherein it is hard to distinguish genuine political actions from actions which are privately motivated by politicians looking

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to further their post-political. By example, upon resigning as the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2017, George Osborne took enjoyed a shower of lucrative roles (The Economist, 2019). One of the more alarming was a one-day-a-week, £650,000 a year, offering from BlackRock bank, whom directly and substantially benefited from Osborne’s deregulations only a few years prior. Whether or not Osborne had schemed this far ahead is as doubtful as it is unnerving.

The second problem is, many who enter politics to already have conflicts of interest with their private lives. These are only of concern ex-post, upon being elected. This is particularly complicated for spouses of political candidates, who find their privately financial assets immediately implicated by the policy of their political other (Dobel, 1998, 131-132). It would seem undesirable to require that all politicians, and their partners, drop all potential conflicts of interest at the very possibility of it becoming an issue.

A caveat then is necessary: they ought, whilst in power, to limit incumbent conflicts of interest. More generally, any private benefit that a politician enjoys from the office must result from their acting primarily interest of their people. Perhaps, the doctrine of double effect is useful here – wherein we are concerned with the primary intention of the politician. That intention must be to serve the public, and it ought to be reasonably and obviously primary. We should, of course, expect there to be a secondary effect for the politician’s wealth, status and career prospects – this is permissible. The principle then is such: it is forbidden for a politician to use the powers of the office primarily for personal gain.

Having presented the first principle, it is clear by the 4 Labour peers in the above example (Case A) acted so wrongly. They explicitly used their legislative power in a way that only benefitted themselves. That is to say, their primary intention was self-beneficial. There is no way to justify this behaviour through this political ethic.

The permissible window of partiality

By partiality, I mean a deliberate bias toward one group’s interest. A window of partiality, then, would constitute a scope of interests that one is bias toward. As eluded to earlier, a key task of political representatives – that is say, politicians – is exhibiting partiality to those they represent. This partiality, however, is very much contingent upon their role.

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A local councillor, for instance, is expected to be totally partial to their constituents, with only a vague ideological attachment to their party. An MP, however, is expected to be partial to their constituents but also expected to (by some proportionality) support the interests of their party – these two commitments are often in conflict.

A leader of a country, on the other hand, is expected to be almost totally impartial to the interests of the different groups within society. Impartial insofar as they take a neutral stance (that is to say, show no bias) toward different conceptions of the good, for instance. They may of course wish to further the interests of the party that elected them, but only as far as they are mandated to do so. A leader’s partisanship must be proportionate.

There is something of a partisan-proximity scale for politicians. Local councillors, who enjoy relatively little power or fame, are certainly expected to represent their council’s interests first and foremost, with only a shade of their party’s ideological influence reliably showing up. As the politician escalates in power and prominence, they are expected to increasingly represent the interests of their own party.

During the HS2 saga in the UK, it was proposed – and affirmed – that the UK would build a high-speed train network through the middle of the country. As with many cases of NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard), local inhabitants were outraged at the prospect of a train track running through their town or village. It would destroy the local environment, create noise pollution and, ultimately, deflate house prices.

Local councillors had no problem speaking out against their party’s initiative. Yet, it would have embarrassed the party should the Minister for Transport had done so – even if their own constituents suffered. In that position of power, prominence and relevance, the Minister is expected to show a partiality bias toward their party and its HS2 policy. Nevertheless, I will claim, it is always

permissible to disregard this in favour of their constituent’s interest (and likely at the cost of their

careers, having so embarrassed their party).

Within political morality, partiality best viewed as a normative function – one that is required to fulfil the role of representative for constituents, the role as a member of a party and the demands of the institution. The leader has the broadest scope here. Their constituents, technically speaking, now include the entire nation. As Keohane argues, this makes the leader’s partiality distinct as insofar as they must to partial to their people as a whole (2014, 18-19). In practice, as de Wijze suggested, this

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would mean putting the concerns of one’s nation even “before those of the rest of the world” (1994, 201-202). This point will become immediately relevant in the final chapter.

Somewhat paradoxically, the leader must also be impartial to the interests within their nation, showing a degree of interest-blindness. By this, I simply mean that there is a range of legitimate interests within the window that deserve consideration. Such consideration should be proportionate to what has been democratically mandated and, often, a political leader’s party will often enjoy privilege here a priori in light of their being elected. A 70% landslide election, for instance, will allow a leader to show a strong bias toward the interests of her party.

Once again, however, it would nonetheless be permissible for a leader to show concern for their constituents (the nation as a whole) at the cost of their party’s interest – indeed, it is often praiseworthy to do so. Still, it not obligatory to do so as the two duties are often opposed and so its resolution will depend on the nature of the conflict. Politicians window of permissibility ranges from their constituents’ interests, to their party’s interests.

Constituent Partiality Partisan Partiality

Local mayor Member of parliament (backbencher) Leader of a party

Leader of a country

This window of permissible partially may be conceived as above. A local mayor ought to be largely partial to the interests of his city and it would be outside of this window – that is to say, impermissible - to operate in their party’s interests directly at the expense of their city. A leader of a party should be highly partisan, with the goal of achieving power. It would be outside the window of permissible partiality should they favour the interests of their local constituency, at the expense of their party’s interests. A regular (backbencher) MP is allowed to show a degree of partiality to both their party and their constituents, as appropriate. The leader of a country operates within the largest window of permissible partiality, and with a slight bias toward their party (whom typically enjoy the largest mandate).