Integrity, Self-Absorption, and Clean Hands

Abstract

Abstract Political realities often mean that familiar moral constraints—against lying, manipulating, coercing, and the like—cannot be upheld without serious consequences for a very large number of vulnerable people. It is commonly argued that, under these ubiquitous political circumstances, putting much weight on non-consequentialist integrity reasons amounts to a self-absorbed preoccupation with “clean hands.” This chapter presents an elaborate response to this self-absorption charge, pivoting on two key claims. First, the familiar equation of “integrity” with “clean hands” is misleading: there are important cases where integrity might be compatible with “dirty hands,” and may even actively push agents to dirty their hands. Second, setting up our policy dilemma as a binary choice between “dirtying our hands” and imposing grave costs on many vulnerable people is often problematic. More often than not, such a binary presentation of the policy situation is misleading and self-serving.