Beyond right and wrong
On the conditionality of dirty hands
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9537442 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anthoula Malkopoulou (0000-0002-7881-9329, Uppsala University, corresponding author), Siddhartha Kumar Dhar (Uppsala University) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 216-234 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Acta Politica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0001-6810 • E-ISSN: 1741-1416 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1057/s41269-023-00320-8 |
| OpenAlex | W4390547193 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 22 |
Dirty Hands theorists disagree about how agents should resolve a high-cost moral dilemma, but their disagreement is partly because they tend to discuss widely different cases of a broad and heterogeneous phenomenon. Moralists are typically concerned with problems that often involve an agent who is under coercion and is asked to engage in an activity that will cause severe and certain harm to individuals. Realists, on the other hand, base their observations on cases where political parties negotiate to form coalitions or policy platforms; these compromises may affect the political integrity and representative credibility of the agent, but less so their moral integrity as measured by universal moral standards. Yet, both types of Dirty Hand scenarios concern the same phenomenon: an urgency to make a morally costly compromise. As a result, we propose to evaluate Dirty Hands problems by placing them on a dual continuum based on two conditions: their projected outcomes, and their external circumstances. We propose that the position of a moral problem on this continuum affects the extent to which a compromise is or is not excusable. Finally, we consider the implications of our findings for the Dirty Hands debate and for the study of political ethics more broadly
Coercion (linguistics · Compromise · Credibility · Dilemma · Epistemology · Harm · Law and economics · Negotiation · Phenomenon · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Free Will and Agency · Law · Philosophy · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · War, Ethics, and Justification
Dirty Hands and the Complicity of the Democratic Public
Compromise and Disagreement in Contemporary Political Theory
Official apologies as reparations for dirty hands
Torture, Power, and Law
Political Integrity and Dirty Hands
Education for Moral Integrity
In Defence of Democratic Dirty Hands
Plural and Conflicting Values
Political Compromise and Dirty Hands
Democracy, Compromise and the Representation Paradox
Dirty hands and clean gloves
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |