ID :
104603
Thu, 02/04/2010 - 15:31
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/104603
The shortlink copeid
Politicians should not use their positions for their own betterment: expert
TEHRAN, Feb. 4 (MNA) -- Old Dominion University professor Dale E.Miller says politicians have an ethical obligation not to use their positions for their own betterment.
Miller made the remarks during an e-mail interview with the Mehr News Agency conducted by Hossein Kaji and Javad Heiran-Nia.
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: What are the most important questions about the relationship between ethics and politics?
A: There are many points of intersection between politics and ethics. One of the most important has to do with individual rights. If you believe that ndividuals have rights then you must believe that a government is illegitimate to the extent that it violates the rights of its citizens (or of anyone else). What rights people have, if any, is a moral or ethical question. Of course, it might be impossible in the real world for any government to be perfectly legitimate by this standard. Another point of intersection has to do with the moral obligations of ordinary citizens and politicians. Politicians have an ethical obligation not to use their positions for their own betterment. Usually we might say that they have an obligation to use their positions to promote the public good of their own society. For politicians whose actions have international implications, though, this may be more complicated. How should a politician choose between doing what is best for her own society and what is best for the world? For individual citizens, too, at least in democratic countries, there may be an ethical obligation to support the politicians whose elections would be best for the society as a whole (or the world) rather than best for them individually, although I think that many people feel entitled to vote based on their personal interests.
There are other ethical problems that political leaders face. One, faced by democratically elected leaders, is how to decide what to do when they believe that the most popular course of action is not the best one. Should they do what the voters want, or should they follow their own consciences even if this means defeat at the next election? (Obviously they have the obligation to accept the results of the election if they are defeated.) Another is what is sometimes called the dirty hands problem. We commonly think that leaders are obligated to make the decisions that will have the best results. We also think that there are constraints on what it is morally acceptable for them to do, such as not violating people’s rights. But what if the decisions that have the best results would involve violating these constraints?
Q: Some thinkers have focused on the point that the Kantian ethics is for personal spheres and the utilitarian ethics is for public spheres such as political environment. Do you agree with this view?
A: I’m not a person who believes in deontological or Kantian ethics for personal morality and utilitarianism for public morality. I can’t imagine a good argument for Kantian ethics that would not apply to the official actions of the individuals who make up the government as much as to what they do in their private lives. Likewise utilitarianism: if the arguments for utilitarianism are good at all, they are good arguments for utilitarianism as both a public and private morality. I’m inclined to think that a sophisticated utilitarianism, one that can recognize individual rights and so looks a little more like Kantianism than the simpler types of utilitarianism do, is the best account of morality in all parts of our lives. That doesn’t mean that the state cannot justifiably do some things that private citizens can’t. But it means that at bottom there is one abstract standard for morality that applies universally.
Q: Is the 20th century considered the best century in the history of philosophy? Why?
A: Much time will have to pass before we can really judge the importance of twentieth-century philosophy. However, since the fourth century BCE gave us both Plato and Aristotle, it seems nearly impossible that the twentieth century could be the most philosophically significant. And this comes from someone who thinks that Plato’s and Aristotle’s greatness is sometimes overstated.
(Dale E. Miller, Assistant Professor of the philosophy department of Old Dominion University. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and an M.A. in economics from the University of Pittsburgh; his B.A. is from Wichita State University.)
Miller made the remarks during an e-mail interview with the Mehr News Agency conducted by Hossein Kaji and Javad Heiran-Nia.
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: What are the most important questions about the relationship between ethics and politics?
A: There are many points of intersection between politics and ethics. One of the most important has to do with individual rights. If you believe that ndividuals have rights then you must believe that a government is illegitimate to the extent that it violates the rights of its citizens (or of anyone else). What rights people have, if any, is a moral or ethical question. Of course, it might be impossible in the real world for any government to be perfectly legitimate by this standard. Another point of intersection has to do with the moral obligations of ordinary citizens and politicians. Politicians have an ethical obligation not to use their positions for their own betterment. Usually we might say that they have an obligation to use their positions to promote the public good of their own society. For politicians whose actions have international implications, though, this may be more complicated. How should a politician choose between doing what is best for her own society and what is best for the world? For individual citizens, too, at least in democratic countries, there may be an ethical obligation to support the politicians whose elections would be best for the society as a whole (or the world) rather than best for them individually, although I think that many people feel entitled to vote based on their personal interests.
There are other ethical problems that political leaders face. One, faced by democratically elected leaders, is how to decide what to do when they believe that the most popular course of action is not the best one. Should they do what the voters want, or should they follow their own consciences even if this means defeat at the next election? (Obviously they have the obligation to accept the results of the election if they are defeated.) Another is what is sometimes called the dirty hands problem. We commonly think that leaders are obligated to make the decisions that will have the best results. We also think that there are constraints on what it is morally acceptable for them to do, such as not violating people’s rights. But what if the decisions that have the best results would involve violating these constraints?
Q: Some thinkers have focused on the point that the Kantian ethics is for personal spheres and the utilitarian ethics is for public spheres such as political environment. Do you agree with this view?
A: I’m not a person who believes in deontological or Kantian ethics for personal morality and utilitarianism for public morality. I can’t imagine a good argument for Kantian ethics that would not apply to the official actions of the individuals who make up the government as much as to what they do in their private lives. Likewise utilitarianism: if the arguments for utilitarianism are good at all, they are good arguments for utilitarianism as both a public and private morality. I’m inclined to think that a sophisticated utilitarianism, one that can recognize individual rights and so looks a little more like Kantianism than the simpler types of utilitarianism do, is the best account of morality in all parts of our lives. That doesn’t mean that the state cannot justifiably do some things that private citizens can’t. But it means that at bottom there is one abstract standard for morality that applies universally.
Q: Is the 20th century considered the best century in the history of philosophy? Why?
A: Much time will have to pass before we can really judge the importance of twentieth-century philosophy. However, since the fourth century BCE gave us both Plato and Aristotle, it seems nearly impossible that the twentieth century could be the most philosophically significant. And this comes from someone who thinks that Plato’s and Aristotle’s greatness is sometimes overstated.
(Dale E. Miller, Assistant Professor of the philosophy department of Old Dominion University. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and an M.A. in economics from the University of Pittsburgh; his B.A. is from Wichita State University.)
