This paper argues that ‘dirty hands’ (DH) scenarios, where an agent is forced to do wrong in order to do right, are conceptually coherent. The charge of incoherence is a widespread and common criticism made by deontologists and consequentialists alike. They argue that DH theorists erroneously assume the existence of real moral dilemmas and then compound this error by claiming that it is possible to engage in justified moral wrongdoing. However, such critics argue that there are only _prima facie_ moral (...) dilemmas and hence it is not only irrational and obtuse to argue for DH scenarios, but also undermines our search for sound moral judgments in very difficult situations. Given the gravity of these charges, surprisingly little has been written in defence of DH as a coherent and necessary part of our moral vocabulary. If there can be no successful defence of the possibility of DH, then all talk of such scenarios become futile. This paper responds to two influential and what initially appear to be strongly plausible arguments used by critics of DH. I call these the ‘Arguments from Deontic Logic’ and the ‘All-Things-Considered Argument’. I present three responses which seek to raise serious doubts about their efficacy. I then support the possibility of DH by exploring what we can learn about our moral reality from the moral emotion of ‘tragic remorse’. This approach endorses the role of emotions in determining moral knowledge. It also rejects the view that ethical theories ought to dismiss DH experiences as incoherent in favour of questionable theoretical a priori assumptions, which seek a reductionist account of our moral reality. (shrink)

I explore how agent-regret and its object—faultlessly harming someone—can call for various responses. I look at two sorts of responses. Firstly, I explore responses that respect the agent’s role as an agent. This revolves around a feature of “it was just an accident”—a common response to agent-regret—that has largely gone ignored in the literature: that it can downplay one’s role as an agent. I argue that we need to take seriously the fact that those who have caused harms are genuine (...) agents, to ignore this fails to allow these agents to move on. Secondly, following Sussman and MacKenzie, I explore responses that benefit the victim. I argue that we should strive to understand how to configure these responses in a way that does not blame the agent. To do this I look at the role of actions in our self-understanding, as people who have done particular things. I end by briefly considering the ways in which tort law and restorative justice might help us to understand how to appropriately respond to accidentally harming someone. I urge that we need to take this as a starting point to find a better way to respond to the agents of faultless harms. (shrink)

Theodore Sider has argued that while there are some philosophical debates about which there is no fact of the matter, debates in normative ethics are likely not among them. This essay investigates a possible counterexample: the debate about so-called dirty hands. The essay first surveys several cases where No-Fact-of-the-Matter (NFM) claims have been made. Taking its cue from these cases, it then outlines two strategies that factualists about some domain can take, as well as two non-factualist counter strategies. Next, it (...) shows how an NFM claim can be defended for the debate about dirty hands. Finally, it argues that this NFM claim is at least as, if not more, plausible for normative ethics as it is for the other instances where NFM claims have been made. (shrink)

Under a ‘dirty hands’ model of undercover policing, it inevitably involves situations where whatever the state agent does is morally problematic. Christopher Nathan argues against this model. Nathan’s criticism of the model is predicated on the contention that it entails the view, which he considers objectionable, that morally wrongful acts are central to undercover policing. We address this criticism, and some other aspects of Nathan’s discussion of the ‘dirty hands’ model, specifically in relation to state entrapment to commit a crime. (...) Using János Kis’s work on political morality, we explain three dilemmatic versions of the ‘dirty hands’ model. We show that, while two of these are inapplicable to state entrapment, the third has better prospects. We then pursue our main aim, which is to argue that, since the third model precludes Nathan’s criticism, a viable ‘dirty hands’ model of state entrapment remains an open possibility. Finally, we generalize this result, showing that the case of state entrapment is not special: the result holds good for policing practices more generally, including such routine practices as arrest, detention, and restraint. (shrink)

A number of Christian theologians and philosophers have been critical of overly moralizing approaches to the doctrine of sin, but nearly all Christian thinkers maintain that moral fault is necessary or sufficient for sin to obtain. Call this the “Moral Consensus.” I begin by clarifying the relevance of impurities to the biblical cataloguing of sins. I then present four extensional problems for the Moral Consensus on sin, based on the biblical catalogue of sins: (1) moral over-demandingness, (2) agential unfairness, (3) (...) moral repugnance, and (4) moral atrocity. Next, I survey several partial solutions to these problems, suggested by the recent philosophical literature. Then I evaluate two largely unexplored solutions: (a) genuine sin dilemmas and (b) defeasible sinfulness. I argue that (a) creates more problems than it solves and that, while (b) is well-motivated and solves or eases each of the above problems, (b) leaves many biblical ordinances about sin morally misleading, creating (5) a pedagogical problem of evil. I conclude by arguing that (5) places hefty explanatory burdens on those who would appeal to (b) to resolve the four extensional problems discussed in this paper. So Christian thinkers may need to consider a more radical separation of sin and moral fault. (shrink)

The experience of ‘moral distress’ is an increasing focal point of contemporary medical and bioethics literature, yet it has received little attention in discussions intersecting with ethical theory. This is unfortunate, as it seems that the peculiar phenomenon may well help us to better understand a number of issues bearing both practical and theoretical significance. In this article, I provide a robust psychological profile of moral distress in order to shed a newfound light upon the longstanding problem of ‘dirty hands’. (...) I argue that moral distress offers evidence of the existence of dirty hands situations. By examining moral distress and its relationship to cases of dirty hands, it appears that few of us are completely immune to susceptibility to these sorts of troubling experiences. With this concern in mind, I provide various recommendations to help alleviate our morally distressing personal and professional lives. (shrink)

H.L.A. Hart’s lost and found essay ‘Discretion’ has provided new insight into the issue of how legal systems can cope with indeterminacy in the law. The so-called ‘open texture’ of law calls for the exercise of judicial discretion, which, I argue, renders judges susceptible to the problem of dirty hands. To show this, I frame the problem as being open to an array of appropriate emotional responses, namely, various senses of guilt. With these responses in mind, I revise an example (...) from Michael Walzer’s original analysis in a way that highlights purely personal sacrifices in solutions to dirty hands situations. I then turn to an account of moral emotions in legal decision-making and show how judges—in failing to advance all interests—might be left with a unique sense of guilt. With an application of this account to Hart’s legal positivism, it can be seen that a judge’s hands are often dirtied in resolving borderline cases. If discretion leaves judges in situations where they must do wrong in order to do right, Hart’s endorsement of a closure view of wrongdoing will lead to difficulties in how he can explain the presence of moral remainders in jurisprudence. (shrink)

‘It is necessary to a Prince to learn how not to be good’. This quotation from Machiavelli’s The Prince has become the mantra of the standard dirty hands thesis. Despite its infamy, it features proudly in most conventional expositions of the dirty hands problem, including Michael Walzer’s original analysis. In this paper, I wish to cast a doubt as to whether the standard conception of the problem of DH—the recognition that, in certain inescapable and tragic circumstances an innocent course of (...) action is unfeasible—fully captures Machiavelli’s message and its terrifying implications. In particular, I argue that the standard DH thesis is inadequately ‘static’: it conceives the conflict between ordinary morality and political morality as a stark, momentary and rare 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. In this sense, the argument I shall advance does just involve an exercise in the history of political thought. Rather, I want to suggest that, by virtue of its failure to take Machiavelli’s insights seriously, the standard DH thesis fails to live up to its purported capacity to capture the complexity and fragmentation of our moral cosmos and that, consequently, it is nothing more than a thinly veiled version of the idealism and monism it purports to reject. (shrink)

This paper revisits many of the key ideas I explored in my earlier 1973 article “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands”. I respond to some of the criticisms made over the last 50 years and emphasis certain key ideas that I believe are central to understanding this particular difficult problem for politicians.

This paper outlines and explores the problem of democratic dirty hands, the sui generis moral situation where democratic politicians justifiably violate both a cherished moral principle and the fundamental processes of democratic governance. Some recent contributions to the dirty-hands debate have argued that the principles of democratic governance render DDH impossible. The paper rejects this view as based on a misunderstanding of the minimal and necessary conditions for both DH and democratic overnance. However, DDH does raise interesting issues concerning the (...) complicity of citizens with their politicians’ DH. Citizens are accessories to such acts and have a duty to contribute to the reparations for the victims of DDH. Furthermore, as citizens bear some responsibility for the moral violations that were done in their name, they properly ought to feel some of the moral pollution that these actions generated. (shrink)

Michael Walzer’s foundational essay on dirty hands raises the very possibility of a good person in politics. Dilemmas in the context of high stakes situations sometimes require politicians to compromise their morality and character for the sake of the greater good by choosing the lesser evil. Much has been written about dirty hands, but little has been said about Walzer’s implicit virtue ethics. This essay sketches this implicit virtue ethics, which is central to Walzer’s argument. These are “dirty” virtues, however, (...) that allow one to choose the lesser evil in a dilemma while recognizing that, although evil was mitigated, and some degree of good achieved, wrong done is still wrong done. For this to work, Walzer argues the politician must be and feel guilty, making this an odd virtue ethics that requires a degree of suffering from the politician. The essay further develops this notion of dirty virtue through comparison with Lisa Tessman’s “burdened virtue,” arguing at the end that the guilt and instrumental suffering, which are so central to Walzer’s virtue ethic, may be more corrosive to practical reasoning and character than Walzer allows for. (shrink)

A number of recent authors have argued for the problem of ‘democratic dirty hands’. At least within a democracy, public officers can be rightly said to act in the name of the public; and thus, as agents to principals, the dirty hands of public officers are, ultimately attributable to that public. Even more troubling, so the argument goes, since dirty hands are necessary for public officers in any stable political order, then such democratic dirty hands are necessary for any stable (...) democracy. Our dirt is the unavoidable cost of democratic survival.In this paper, I offer an argument against this disconcerting conclusion. My central claim is that proponents of ‘democratic dirty hands’ have missed the import of another feature of contemporary governance: public institutions. Public institutions, as organisational agents, intermediate the relationship between public officer and public; and in so doing, the dirt necessary for stability may be ‘laundered’: the public may still gain the benefit of a public officer’s hands, but remain clean of the dirt. I illustrate this case by an extended discussion of the case of La Comisión Internacional contra la Impunidad en Guatemala (‘CICIG’). (shrink)

The problem of dirty hands is, roughly speaking, concerned with situations in which an agent is faced with a choice between two evils so that, no matter what they do, they will have to violate something of important moral value. Theorists have been primarily concerned with dirty hands choices arising in politics because they are thought to be particularly frequent and pressing in this sphere. Much of the subsequent discussion in the literature has focused on the impact that such choices (...) have on a well-functioning democracy and how, if at all, we can ensure that a politician dirtying their hands does not undermine core democratic values and processes. A particular concern has been whether dirty-handed politicians ought to publicly reveal their actions after the fact and whether they should be held accountable through some form of punishment. The first aim of this paper is to point out that the focus on what is required in the wake of a dirty-handed decision, based on the need to protect the democratic system ought to be balanced with a genuine concern for reparative justice and what is owed to the victims of dirty hands. In the second part of this paper, I then examine the suitability of one common way in which perpetrators partly repair the damage they have done to victims, namely apologizing, in the dirty hands context. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the Special Issue and offers an overview of the corpus of work on the topic since the publication of Michael Walzer’s seminal article, ‘Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands’.

This paper argues that the dirty hands literature has overlooked a crucial distinction in neglecting to discuss explicitly the issue of, what I call, symmetry. This is the question of whether, once we are confronted with a dirty hands situation, we could emerge with our hands clean depending on the action we choose. A position that argues that we can keep our hands clean I call “asymmetrical” and one that says that we will get our hands dirty no matter what (...) we do I call “symmetrical”. Not acknowledging this distinction is a problem because, firstly, it adds to the existing confusions about how best to define what dirty hands are. Secondly, it prevents the concept of dirty hands from being applied properly to other contexts such as, for example, the responsibility and accountability of politicians. I argue that we have good reason to favour a symmetrical understanding because it gives a more convincing account of what makes an action dirty and because it more accurately captures our complex moral decision-making when faced with dirty hands situations. The paper concludes by outlining possible implications that the distinction between the symmetry view and the asymmetry view has on wider debates surrounding the problem of dirty hands. (shrink)