Introduction
The polarization of American politics in recent times certainly seems to have increased. There is a growing chorus of voices warning that this optimism is just pure fantasy. Politics can no longer be held back by morals when brutality is becoming the focal point. People’s sense of good and evil is instead appropriated for political purposes. A more radical, divided political scene quickly gives way to a more reprehensible moral reality when the political viewpoint is in charge (Landsberg, 2018). Even though it is gloomy, this negative admonition has some validity since it is based on the idea that politics may always triumph over morals.
Background Information
Making moral determinations regarding political activity and agents is known as political morality. The first topic covered in the ethics of procedure is concerned with public authorities and their practices. The second topic is political ethics, which is concerned with assessments of laws and regulations. When the phrase’s origins and steady growth are considered, the idea of moral virtue may be clearly comprehended. Historically, the fundamental ideals and standards of constitutional democracy have been formed from the concepts of fairness (Landsberg, 2018). People also consider their misconceived notion of morality when making moral assessments of political matters. There are various moral pillars from which the idea of morality itself comes. People’s perceptions of government activities and political agents are influenced by morality when seen through the prism of these tenets.
Theory and Literature Review
Politics may be viewed as a regulated competition between opposing views of what is ethically correct. Public disillusionment with politics has evolved into a crucial aspect of the society that people now inhabit. Voter turnout is declining in many contemporary democracies as political figures are seen with more suspicion and mistrust. Voter impression and political ideologies are the multiple regression analysis of morals and politics, respectively. Voter impression is greatly influenced by political ideas. When making a decision, a person’s impression of their desire for political reforms is heavily influenced by the standards set by the recipient. Politics and morality are shown to be related to one another in terms of how one’s characteristics stand (Landsberg, 2018). Depending on the requirements of the followers, people frequently accept and refuse the politician’s program, regardless of how moral or fantastic it may be. Additionally, this explains why corruption, for instance, spreads while being morally repugnant.
While nationalism and patriotism were initially seen as synonyms, they now have diverse meanings. The ideals on which both sentiments are built are considerably different, despite the fact that both represent people’s emotions of affection for their nation (Landsberg, 2018). Patriotism is a sentiment that is similar to love in that it is a sense of pride, fidelity, and loyalty to one’s country, as well as a sense of commitment to other patriotic individuals. Additional ties to the connection sensations may exist due to things like ethnicity or race, culture, religious convictions, or history. The basis of nationalism, on the other hand, is the conviction that one’s nation is preferable to all others. It also conveys a message of suspicion or contempt toward other nations, causing one to believe that they are competitors.
According to the definition of conspiracy theories used in American politics, an occurrence or circumstance is the product of a covert plot by influential individuals seeking to hurt a rival organization or weaken society at large. These ideas are based on genuine conspiracies, where members work together covertly to dismantle a larger structure. A core conspiracy theory fight with a mistake about one frequently results in conflict, fragmentation in elections, mistrust of the administration, and racial and political differences (Landsberg, 2018). Numerous political conspiracies start and grow out of politically sensitive situations, people’s partisanships, and internet platforms that create comment boards with like-minded people.
Analysis
The common understanding of how morality and law are related is that, in some manner, the law is in place to encourage morality, protect the circumstances that make living a moral life feasible, and allow men to lead sober and productive lives. The average man views justice as a somewhat disorganized collection of moral ideals, while the law is justice systematized. According to the same perspective, the positive law is seen as a set of regulations that corresponds to the set of moral laws, derives its jurisdiction from the moral laws’ obligation to be followed, and is either fair or unjust depending on how closely it adheres to or departs from the moral laws (Landsberg, 2018). Because it is unsuitable for scientific purposes, like all other popular notions, the lawyer must give it up—at least because he is also a scientist. Advantageous laws are not based on moral norms, and there is no court of appeal from state rulings provided by common concepts of justice. The ordinary person conflates morality and the law, and they both refer to the ideas of abstract justice.
Some claim that while morality and law may be distinguished, morality still forms a significant component of law and the evolution of the judicial process. They claim that morality is hidden inside the legal system’s cracks and is thus, in some ways, indistinguishable from it. As a result, it has been claimed that law in practice is more than just a set of rules; it also makes use of a number of guiding concepts, including the equal and the beneficial. Although it is acknowledged that this does not allow the rules themselves to be condemned on the broad basis of their sinfulness, the court proceedings distill a moral element out of the court order by skillfully adhering to legal regulations.
Voter impression and political ideas are the multiple regression analysis of morality and politics, respectively; voter impression is greatly influenced by political ideas. When making a decision, a person’s impression of their preferences for political changes is heavily influenced by the standards set by the addressee. Politics and morality are shown to be related to one another in terms of how one’s characteristics stand. Depending on the requirements of the followers, people frequently support and refuse the politician’s program, regardless of how moral or fantastic it may be. Moreover, for this reason, corruption, for instance, spreads regardless of how evil it is.
Political and moral opinions are complex; how a person comes to hold them depends on a bizarre concoction of their upbringing, society, and intrinsic propensities. Additionally, political parties frequently make a strong moral case for their stances on a wide range of contentious issues, including abortion, migration, and gun regulation. Instead of behaving purely out of personality, both groups of individuals respond to fundamental ideas about what constitutes a decent society (Landsberg, 2018). While people who believe that civilization should be powerful feel that prioritizing ability is the most excellent way to achieve that objective, those who think that the purpose of society should be to promote well-being and pleasure place a greater emphasis on equality and need-based fair treatment.
Politics and ethics are a part of practical knowledge, which tries to make people happy and prosperous. The primary idea of Aristotelian ethics is happiness; he pursues the greatest good, which is identical to happiness because it is something that is wanted for its own sake and not for the purpose of anything else. Because achieving personal pleasure depends on achieving society’s pleasure, and conversely, a community should likewise strive for the highest good. Since people live in societies, ethics is primarily concerned with how people as individuals behave. Politics theory also considers how people interact with one another, behave, and perform in society.
Limitations
Politics is a field of social interaction that is frequently ethically ambiguous. Authorities must make choices between several evils rather than between desirable and undesirable solutions. Politicians will inevitably transgress a revered concept of value no matter how they choose to respond in such a circumstance. They are forced by circumstances to behave in a way that violates their word, entails dishonesty, and, occasionally, even calls for the use of force in order to accomplish a noble goal while committing a lesser evil. For instance, a political strategy to guarantee macroeconomic stability may call for a leader to declare partial or outright lies about her future objectives and motivations.
The second issue with judging politicians’ activities ethically is that winning in politics requires a different set of values than those that are often respected and commended in our daily lives. Influential leaders must be ruthless, resolute, brave, and solitary in their quest for power. Practical politicians must most significantly recognize that there will be many instances in which they must act despite the lack of any chance of a just conclusion and when all options are dishonorable and reproachable due to inevitable conflicts of obligations.
Conclusion
When making the case that it is occasionally essential to get dirty in politics, there are a few key qualifiers that need to be emphasized. Even if a powerful politician may feel that taking such steps is vital, doing so usually comes with a heavy price. Political activities that include moral transgressions should ideally be avoided. However, there are certain risks of which everyone, including politicians, should be aware and take precautions when they are unavoidable. It is sometimes far too simple to argue that action was the result of unclean hands rather than being clearly incorrect. Politicians are susceptible to the ingrained and covert prejudices in their own drives.
People may start to assess politicians and their activities more correctly and fairly once we realize that they occasionally need to dirty their hands on our behalf, having regard to the nature and needs of politics. This will aid in dispelling the misconception that all legislators are dishonest, self-serving people who disdain and disregard the needs and desires of the people they are elected to represent. Politicians must be held to a political code that allows them to sully their hands while pursuing valuable and honorable objectives lawfully. Accounting for dirty hands, however, does not entail asserting that politics is only about raw force or that pragmatic politicians are free to flout moral restraints against the use of force, fraud, and deception.
Reference
Landsberg, A. (2018). Prosthetic memory: the ethics and politics of memory in an age of mass culture. In Memory and popular film. Manchester University Press. 144-161.