The problem of “dirty hands” has become an important term, indeed one of the most important terms of reference, in contemporary academic scholarship on the issue of torture. The aim of this essay is to offer a better understanding of this problem. Firstly, it is argued that the problem of “dirty hands” can play neither within rule-utilitarianism nor within absolutism. Still, however, the problem of “dirty hands” represents an acute, seemingly irresolvable, conflict within morality, with the moral agent understood, following (...) Nagel, as necessarily holding mixed, absolutist-consequentialist moral intuitions, pulling in opposite directions. Secondly, a distinction is drawn between real situations of “dirty hands,” and other conflictual scenarios, which are commonly, but unjustifiably placed under the metaphorical title of “dirty hands.” Finally, it is suggested - utilizing Nagel’s own ideas, as developed in his later work, and Sen’s notion of evaluator relativity—that the moral “blind alley” manifested in the problem of “dirty hands” may not be totally blind after all, at least from the situated agent’s own internal point of view (as opposed to that of an external observer trying to put herself in the agent’s position by way of moral simulation). Thus, contrary to Walzer’s approach, it is possible for a person (politician) acting in a situation of “dirty hands,” not to believe herself to be guilty, but still be a moral person. (shrink)

La condena popular pesa sobre los abogados que, conscientes de la culpabilidad de su cliente, argumentan en favor de su inocencia, cuestionando la validez y la fuerza de la evidencia en su contra. El propósito de este trabajo es ofrecer una nueva réplica al argumento que sirve de base para esta condena. La refutación que es ofrecida en el trabajo está fundada en la concepción prospectiva de obligación.

William H. Simon, The Practice of Justice: A Theory of Lawyers? Ethics Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998, viii + 253 pp.