caa a22 4500 606237747 CHVBK 20210128101254.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10677-014-9508-x doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10677-014-9508-x Tillyris Demetris The University of Leeds, Office 2.08, 30 - 32 Hyde Terrace, LS2 9LN, Leeds, UK aut ‘Learning How Not to Be Good': Machiavelli and the Standard Dirty Hands Thesis [Elektronische Daten] [Demetris Tillyris] ‘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 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. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2014 Machiavelli nationallicence Dirty hands nationallicence Moral conflict nationallicence Political virtue nationallicence Moral vice nationallicence Innocence nationallicence Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Springer Netherlands 18/1(2015-02-01), 61-74 1386-2820 18:1<61 2015 18 10677 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-014-9508-x text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-014-9508-x text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Tillyris Demetris The University of Leeds, Office 2.08, 30 - 32 Hyde Terrace, LS2 9LN, Leeds, UK aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Springer Netherlands 18/1(2015-02-01), 61-74 1386-2820 18:1<61 2015 18 10677