Abstract
AbstractBy what standards ought we to judge politicians? The article addresses the question in the light of the treatment of two controversial issues in contemporary world politics: the implementation of the 1984 UN Convention against Torture; and the post 9/11 rendition of terrorist suspects to US authorities by European governments. Their treatment brings out the way in which the role of political leaders is popularly conceived and understood. This conventional understanding is contrasted with the role recommended by Kant's political philosophy. An answer to the question depends on how we conceive politics in the first place. If politics is seen as a ‘free for all’ where all strategies can be canvassed then the response will be entirely different from a situation where we consider ourselves bound by rules of legitimacy and its attendant problems of morality and law. The article represents a rejection of certain received accounts of politics and approval of a Kantian view. The account of politics which in one respect or another tries to drive a wedge between politics and ordinary morality is seen as inferior to a Kantian concept of politics which is always conditioned by morality.
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