Symmetry and Other Kinds of Dirt Sample Clauses

Symmetry and Other Kinds of Dirt. Is asymmetry true in less xxxxx cases? With regards to choosing whether to follow a path that requires DC or engaging with DR, the choice seems to be more asymmetrical.17 In some cases, standing by and doing nothing, or acting with additional constraints that hamper one’s effectiveness, can generate moral dirt, in that this prioritisation of one’s own cleanliness morally speaks against the agent. Symmetry with regards to how deeply an already-committed politician embraces this dirt seems more plausible: if one’s political effectiveness is attached to morally important goals or others are counting on one’s success, to hold back appears to be a symmetrical choice. This is especially so if one was in a unique or privileged position to act. People will be entitled to ask why this agent holds such a position instead of a more effective actor. The reasons for disapprobation are political, but political criticisms can and usually do have some moral weight. However, at a prior level, the choice to enter politics and to adopt the unsavoury dispositions and counterintuitive virtues of politics is a choice that can be freely and 17 With regards to less severe episodic cases, my view is that symmetry holds if the agent has a duty to prevent the greater wrongdoing that they are faced with. permissibly made. We do not judge people for refusing to enter politics, any more than we judge people for refusing to enter other morally valuable careers such as medicine, education, or care. Now, this argument does presume that no dirt arises from abstention. In certain cases, this might be disputed. If there is gross injustice going on, to be neutral and prefer a solitary and apolitical existence might be wrong. Sometimes it might be wrong to just walk on by and continue one’s happy apolitical existence. When I talk about DC, then, I assume that the person making the decision has no special responsibility, such as one generated by confrontation or unique ability, to delve into the political arena. Non-political actors might still have a responsibility to avoid perpetuating harm (which might have implications for the dispositions that must be cultivated), but a wholesale commitment to pursue democratic politics as a career is usually a choice. Sometimes symmetrical language does arise within the context of what I would call DC, where a focus on the background dirt of politics is what is said to make dirt unavoidable. Hampshire (1989: 170) describes politicians as needing to foreve...