Problem Of Dirty Hands Research Articles

Covert Moral Enhancement: Are Dirty Hands Needed to Save the Planet?

ABSTRACT Michael Walzer’s article ‘Political action: the problem of dirty hands’ initiated a new wave of discussion over a persistent problem in moral philosophy: are there situations in which ethical rules must be relaxed so as to bring about a greater good? In this article, we consider whether this ‘dirty hands’ approach may be applied to our current climate crisis. One proposed solution to the problem of global warming is the administration of moral enhancements to the population. Assuming that the administration of moral enhancements is a necessary condition in the prevention of a climate crisis, Parker Crutchfield argues that this procedure ought to be covert. This implies lying to the public, and such dishonesty amounts to immoral behavior. We conclude that despite the severity of global warming, there is no justification for a dirty hands approach. Lying to the public in order to save the planet would probably create bigger problems, and it would ultimately be very counterproductive in trying to save the planet.

50 Years of Dirty Hands: An Overview

AbstractThis 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’.

Political Violence: The Problem of Dirty Hands

AbstractThis paper argues that the reason why political leadership often involves dirty hands is because of its relationship with violence. To make the case, it maintains that violent means create and assert a form of dominating power that is in tension with the proper ends of political action. This power casts a wide shadow, frequently dominating large numbers of non-targets and empowering unscrupulous agents. On the other side of the balance, characteristically political justifications for violence are ‘supra-moral,’ meaning that they are motivated by the value of a conception of morality taken as a whole (or, indeed, morality as such) rather than by any particular moral value. The weight that ought to be given to such ends is indeterminate in a way that makes uncancelled remainders arising from the evil of violence likely in many cases.

Targeted Killing, Assassination, and the Problem of Dirty Hands

Targeted Killing, Assassination, and the Problem of Dirty Hands

The AI Ethicist's Dirty Hands Problem

Attempting to balance sometimes-conflicting interests.

Dirty Hands and Moral Conflict \u2013 Lessons from the Philosophy of Evil

According to one understanding of the problem of dirty hands, every case of dirty hands is an instance of moral conflict, but not every instance of moral conflict is a case of dirty hands. So, what sets the two apart? The dirty hands literature has offered widely different answers to this question but there has been relatively little discussion about their relative merits as well as challenges. In this paper I evaluate these different accounts by making clear which understanding of concept distinctness underlies them and which of them is, ultimately, the most plausible one in the case of dirty hands and ordinary moral conflict. In order to do so, I will borrow from the terminology employed in recent debates in the philosophy of evil which have tackled a similar problem to the one at hand, i.e. defining what sets evil apart from ordinary wrongdoing. Here it has been argued that concepts could be distinct in three ways: they can have a quantitative difference, a strong qualitative or a moderate qualitative difference. I conclude that the most convincing definition of dirty hands draws a moderate qualitative distinction between ordinary moral conflict according to which dirty hands are those moral conflicts that involve a serious violation or betrayal of a core moral value.

The problem of dirty hands and Christian participation in politics

Today, politics, in all its forms and kinds, has been negatively construed by many as a “dirty game,” so that anyone involved in it must at one point or the other soil his/her hands with evil deeds (immorality). Consequently, it is usual to find numerous individuals in the society especially Christians, refusing to participate or get involved in politics. Recognising the manifold fatal implications of Christians’ refusal to participate in politics, this paper, adopting the expository, analytic and critical methodologies of research, argues that the inescapable moral dilemmas in politics should not deter Christians from participating in politics. Besides, it is also argued in this paper that the task of political leadership is one that Christians should and must embrace as a way of fulfilling their vocation as “salt of the earth and light of the world.” Fundamentally, this paper, using the four approaches to Christian participation in politics identified by Lesie Griffin as basis, argues that it is possible for a Christian politician to refrain from immorality (doing evil). By so doing, this paper refutes the negative standpoints of Niccolo Machiavelli, Max Weber and Michael Walzer with regards to the possibility of a Christian politician keeping his/her hands clean.

Dirty Hands and Suffering

Contra the prevalent way of thinking about the dirty-hands problem, this article suggests that dirty hands need not necessarily entail suffering and that a politician who does not suffer for his dirty-handed acts should not be cast as a bad politician. In so doing, the article: (i) argues that the connection between DH and suffering is unsatisfactorily totalising and rests on a contentious conception of conflict as a dysfunction and (ii) develops an alternative account of the good dirty-handed politician, which is associated with what proponents of the prevalent view of the problem find impossible: calm acceptance of – even indulgence in – one’s dirt. This recognition has important implications for our contemporary culture of contrition and for the way we evaluate the characters of our politicians.

Questionable authorship and the problem of dirty hands: throwing missing authorship into the ring. In response to both Bulow and Helgesson, and Tang

The unethical practice of gift authorship and hostage authorship was portrayed in detail in previous issues of Research Ethics. The aim of this short article is to explore the impact of penalising junior researchers for partaking in gift authorship, and the occurrence and implications of missing authorship in publication. It concludes with reflections on current guidelines and suggestions put forth by Bulow and Helgesson, and Tang, and potential strategies for counteracting the frequency with which both occur.

Hostage authorship and dirty hands: A reply to Tang

In a recent paper published in this journal, we discussed a phenomenon that we referred to as ‘hostage authorship’. By this we meant a practice where an undeserving person X is included as author on a research paper as the result of a hostage-like situation, where the researchers of the article cannot proceed with their work unless conditions raised by X are fulfilled, including providing an authorship position on the paper. We proposed that this sort of situation occasionally resembles the ‘problem of dirty hands’ discussed in political science and political philosophy, and that researchers may sometimes be required to ‘get their hands dirty’ by accepting the request of X. Bor Luen Tang has raised a number of critical remarks to our account. In this paper we address his criticism and defend our original account.

Problems of Dirty Hands As a Species of Moral Conflicts

Every problem of dirty hands is a moral conflict in which a highly unpalatable course of conduct is chosen for the sake of fulfilling a stringent moral duty, and in which either the chosen course of conduct is evil or else it would have been evil in the absence of the exigent circumstances to which it is a response. To support this conception of problems of dirty hands, this paper endeavors to elucidate the nature of moral conflicts and the nature of evil.

Problems of Dirty Hands as a Species of Moral Conflicts

Every problem of dirty hands is a moral conflict in which a highly unpalatable course of conduct is chosen for the sake of fulfilling a stringent moral duty, and in which either the chosen course of conduct is evil or else it would have been evil in the absence of the exigent circumstances to which it is a response. To support this conception of problems of dirty hands, this paper endeavors to elucidate the nature of moral conflicts and the nature of evil.

Hostage authorship and the problem of dirty hands

This article discusses gift authorship, the practice where co-authorship is awarded to a person who has not contributed significantly to the study. From an ethical point of view, gift authorship raises concerns about desert, fairness, honesty and transparency, and its prevalence in research is rightly considered a serious ethical concern. We argue that even though misuse of authorship is always bad, there are instances where accepting requests of gift authorship may nevertheless be the right thing to do. More specifically, we propose that researchers may find themselves in a situation much similar to the problem of dirty hands, which has been frequently discussed in political philosophy and applied ethics. The problem of dirty hands is relevant to what we call hostage authorship, where the researchers include undeserving authors unwillingly, and only because they find it unavoidable in order to accomplish a morally important research goal.

Guest Editors’ Introduction: Philosophical Contributions to Leadership Ethics

ABSTRACT:This article introduces the first of two special issues on philosophical approaches to leadership ethics. In it, we show some of the ways that philosophy contributes to the study of leadership and leadership ethics. We begin with an overview of how philosophers have treated some of the ethical aspects and challenges of leadership. These include discussions of self-interest, the problem of dirty hands, responsibility, moral luck, power, gender and diversity, and spirituality. The articles in this issue draw on philosophy to explore a variety of ethical questions related to leadership and the relationships that leaders have with followers and others.

Justifications and Judgments: Walzer, Bonhoeffer, and the Problem of Dirty Hands

Justifications and Judgments: Walzer, Bonhoeffer, and the Problem of Dirty Hands

Achieving the Way: Confucian Virtue Politics and the Problem of Dirty Hands

Confucian virtue politics is premised on two fundamental assumptions. First, a good government founded on the Way is predicated on the political actor’s personal moral virtue, and there is no qualitative difference between the ruler’s virtue and the virtue(s) that people are ultimately to embody. Second, since there is only one single and holistic Way and the political is extended from the ethical, there cannot be two separate political and moral standards, which implies the impossibility of what Michael Walzer calls “the problem of dirty hands.” After examining how early Confucians such as Mencius and Xunzi rationalized the ostensibly problematic actions taken by their ancient moral heroes in politically critical moments, this essay concludes that early Confucians’ absolutist commitment to the Way enabled them to deal with moral dilemmas in politics with great moral flexibilities without invoking dirty hands.

Judicial Discretion and the Problem of Dirty Hands

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.

Political Practice The Nexus Between Realisms and Just War Thinking

Abstract Some discussions of the efforts of the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2001 and 2010 used a distinction between wars of choice and wars of necessity. Wise policymakers know the difference; further, they restrict commitment of military and related resources only to the latter, in which fundamental interests are at stake. As well, wise policymakers understand that those engaged in conflicts of necessity cannot avoid the problem of dirty hands, since the means necessary for the defeat of an enemy may involve violations of established norms. For those who make such arguments, the just war idea seems too restrictive to serve as a guide to statecraft. In this, the choice/necessity distinction echoes themes common to realism, whether in its classic or contemporary forms. And yet just war thinkers through the ages sought to provide guidance for political practice. In particular, the criteria of ius ad bellum and ius in bello aim to guide policymakers in answering the question, In the situation before us, is military force an apt means by which to attain our goals? In this article, my goal is to demonstrate that a concern for wisdom in political practice provides a connection between various types of realism and just war thinking, and thus to develop an account in which these approaches are complementary rather than opposed to one another.

‘Learning How Not to Be Good’: Machiavelli and the Standard Dirty Hands Thesis

‘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 (DH) thesis. Despite its infamy, it features proudly in most conventional expositions of the dirty hands (DH) 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 not 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.

President Obama’s ‘Dirty Hands’

Targeted killings in the fight against terrorism are controversially discussed from a political and legal angle. In this article we assess the moral dimension of the targeted killing of Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in 2011. An analysis of the case concludes that the episode was based on a Dirty Hands judgement by President Obama. The ‘Problem of Dirty Hands’ entails that, for a political actor, sometimes it is right to do what is wrong. Established by Michael Walzer in 1973, the problem was applied to the policy of the targeted killing of terrorist associates by political philosopher Stephen de Wijze. It is believed to provide a viable agent-centric framework to assess intractable moral conflicts while neither allowing for ruthless amoralism nor ignoring the nature of the political office. The conditions outlined by de Wijze are holistically fulfilled and, thus, it is concluded that, from a Dirty Hands’ perspective, the targeted killing of al-Awlaki was a justified breach of important moral standards.