Description
Book SynopsisPublic disenchantment with politics has become a key feature of the world in which we live. In this book, Susan Mendus asks if politicians can be morally good or whether politics is destined to involve dirty hands or the loss of integrity, as many modern philosophers claim.
Trade Review"A very good introductory text and ought to be compulsory reading for undergraduates working in political philosophy and ethics."
Res Publica"An elegant, insightful and incisive essay."
Journal of Applied Philosophy "Sue Mendus's examination of integrity in public life deftly combines rigourous philosophical arguments and astute empirical examples. This book is characteristically lively and very interesting: a must-read for anyone interested in the relationship between politics and morality in general, and the problem of dirty hands in particular."
Cecile Fabre, University of Edinburgh
"It is all too easy to view politics as a dirty business that so corrupts the men and women who engage in it that those who are not lacking in moral integrity when they start out soon become so. In her careful study, Mendus explores the very real tensions that exist between personal morality and the public moral duties of politics. In the process, she shows how the conventional cynicism about political life is often misplaced - an attitude corrosive of the morality internal to politics itself."
Richard Bellamy, University College, London
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 Integrity 14
2 Political Integrity 37
3 Integrity and Utilitarianism 57
4 Integrity and Pluralism 78
5 Integrity and Social Roles 96
Notes 123
References 125
Index 128
