Abstract
This article analyzes the moral and political implications of strong moral character for political action. The treatment provides reason to hold that strong moral character should play a role in a robust normative account of political leadership. The case is supported by empirical findings on character dispositions and the political viability of the account’s normative prescriptions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Some of the points in this article may also apply to leadership positions in nonpolitical structures and institutions, or to those holding high office in nondemocratic polities; for the purposes of clarity, my case focuses on elected leaders in liberal democracies.
Kupperman notes that acting ‘out of character’ is a possibility (Kupperman 1991, pp. 52–53).
Kupperman contends that a person with weak character will have at best a ‘qualified loyalty to anything’ (Kupperman 1991, pp. 7, 137).
When I refer to ‘good’ or ‘bad’ character, I mean to describe character that is morally good or morally bad, respectively. It is sensible not to conflate virtue and character, or to propose that virtues are the only constitutive components of good character. Cf. Galston (1988, p. 1279).
I mean here to discuss what Darwall calls ‘appraisal respect,’ as opposed to mere ‘recognition respect,’ following his distinction; see Darwall (1977, pp. 38–39 ff., passim).
Cruelty violates all three principles with the suffering and diminution that it entails; lying does as well, by erecting barriers to another’s ability to accept the good, to reject false doctrines, and to distinguish between them. Violating commitments and betraying trust are similar: both kinds of action undermine another individual’s plans and pursuits, which are important parts of what it means to accept the good (see Swaine 2006).
The points I make here are meant to apply at least within liberal-democratic societies; other societies may emphasize different elements or virtues of citizenship. Shklar proposes that moral courage and self-reliance are required elements of citizens’ moral character (Shklar 1989, p. 33); it is sensible to assume that there may be reasonable disagreement about the central elements of moral character for citizens, as with the basic components of moral character itself.
Benforado and Hanson submit that there ‘really is no such thing as a pure dispositionist or a pure situationist’ (Benforado and Hanson 2011b, p. 487); cf. the authors’ suggestion that ‘dispositionism, by itself, is almost certainly going to lead us astray’ (Benforado and Hanson 2011a, p. 300). Hanson and Yosifon, similarly, propose that dispositionist assumptions are ‘often [vs. always] wrong’ (Hanson and Yosifon 2004, p. 7).
Williams appears to be referring more narrowly to ‘outrageous or insane’ domestic political questions, such as whether to kill one’s local political opponents for advantage (Williams 1981, p. 58).
Thompson submits that the relevance of officials’ private lives to their duties and roles as public officials is ‘a matter of degree,’ and suggests that in some cases private and public virtues ‘may not be correlated at all’ (Thompson 2005, pp. 234, 237). If democratic citizenries were to avoid picking leaders based on character traits immaterial to the respective charge of the office in question, that would mitigate concerns about constraints on types of personalities suitable for leadership.
Cf. Hare’s remark that ‘[w]e shall be most likely to do what is right if we stick to the principles, not indeed … on absolutely all occasions, but unless we have a pretty cast-iron reason, based on firm knowledge that the case is an unusual one, for breaking them’ (Hare 1989, p. 41). Cf. also Kamtekar (2004, pp. 482, 487–488).
Eisenhower’s remarks were addressed to the narrower issue of the amount of spending to be put toward development of new weapons to fight the Cold War. See Ambrose (1990, p. 536).
The fact that political candidates’ sincerity may be difficult to gauge does not mean that citizens should not try to determine whether the individuals in question are deceitful, nor does it indicate that it is not possible to draw justified inferences about their earnestness or their character more generally.
Thompson notes the difficulties inherent in efforts accurately to identify character, given that ‘some people are able to conceal even their most objectionable flaws’ (Thompson 2005, p. 302).
Kennan suggests that it is ‘frequently’ the case that American government brings forth demands of this kind based on ‘pressures generated by politically influential minority elements’ (Kennan 1985, p. 210). Cf. Galston’s apt suggestion that liberal citizens need to be self-disciplined and ‘moderate in their demands’ regarding domestic issues (Galston 1988, p. 1283).
The data do not show that citizens accurately identify or assess the components of moral character appropriate for political leadership, but that people are already motivated even modestly to key on politicians’ character traits is encouraging. Cf. Croco (2011), discussing citizens’ tendencies to remove political leaders believed to be culpable for wartime losses.
Cf. also Robert Jervis’s reflection on the international behavior of the United States, in comparison to that of historical great powers, when facing situations ‘[combining] both danger and opportunity’: ‘The U.S. is not particularly good or particularly bad, international politics just is ugly’; see Jervis (2010, p. 8).
The objection at issue here is unavailable to those who insist that a leader’s character has no effect on state behavior, interestingly.
Mearsheimer discusses the prospects of what he calls ‘blowback’ from lying in international politics.
References
Adams, Robert. 2006. A theory of virtue: Excellence in being for the good. New York: Oxford University Press.
Ajzen, Icek, and Martin Fishbein. 2005. The influence of attitudes on behavior. In The handbook of attitudes, ed. Dolores Albarracín, Blair T. Johnson, and Mark P. Zanna, 173–221. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Ambrose, Stephen E. 1990. Eisenhower: Soldier and president. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Annas, Julia. 2011. Intelligent virtue. New York: Oxford University Press.
Aristotle. 1986. Nicomachean ethics, trans. William D. Ross. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
Aristotle. 1962. Politics, ed. and trans. Ernest Barker. New York: Oxford University Press.
Audi, Robert. 1997. Moral knowledge and ethical character. New York: Oxford University Press.
Badhwar, Neera. 1996. The limited unity of virtue. Noûs 30: 306–329.
Bartels, Larry M. 2002. The impact of candidate traits in American presidential elections. In Leaders’ personalities and the outcomes of democratic elections, ed. Anthony King, 44–70. New York: Oxford University Press.
Benforado, Adam, and Jon Hanson. 2011a. Attributions and ideologies: Two divergent visions of human behavior behind our laws, policies, and theories. In Ideology, psychology, and law, ed. Jon Hanson, 298–337. New York: Oxford University Press.
Benforado, Adam, and Jon Hanson. 2011b. Seeing bias: Discrediting and dismissing accurate attributions. In Ideology, psychology, and law, ed. Jon Hanson, 453–498. New York: Oxford University Press.
Blasi, Augusto. 2009. The moral functioning of mature adults and the possibility of fair moral reasoning. In Personality, identity, and character: Explorations in moral psychology, ed. Darcia Narvaez, and Daniel K. Lapsley, 396–440. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Burns, James MacGregor. 1978. Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.
Caprara, Gian Vittorio, Claudio Barbaranelli, and Philip G. Zimbardo. 2002. When parsimony subdues distinctiveness: Simplified public perceptions of politicians’ personality. Political Psychology 23: 77–95.
Caprara, Gian Vittorio, and Philip G. Zimbardo. 2004. Personalizing politics: A congruency model of political preference. American Psychologist 59: 581–594.
Croco, Sarah E. 2011. The decider’s dilemma: Leader culpability, domestic politics and war termination. American Political Science Review 105: 457–477.
Darwall, Stephen. 1977. Two kinds of respect. Ethics 88: 36–49.
Docherty, Bonnie. 2000. Defamation law: Positive jurisprudence. Harvard Human Rights Journal 13: 263–287.
Doris, John M. 2002. Lack of character: Personality and moral character. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Fazio, Russell H. 1986. How do attitudes guide behavior? In Handbook of motivation & cognition: Foundations of social behavior, ed. Richard M. Sorrentino, and E. Tory Higgins, 204–243. New York: Guildford Press.
Foot, Philippa. 2002. Virtues and vices: And other essays in moral philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Galston, William A. 1988. Liberal virtues. American Political Science Review 82: 1277–1290.
Galston, William A. 1991. Liberal purposes: Goods, virtues, and diversity in the liberal state. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Galston, William A. 2007. Civic knowledge, civic education, and civic engagement: A summary of recent research. International Journal of Public Administration 30: 623–642.
Gaskarth, Jamie. 2011. Where would we be without rules? A virtue ethics approach to foreign policy analysis. Review of International Studies 37: 393–415.
Gaus, Gerald. 2010. The order of public reason: A theory of freedom and morality in a diverse and bounded world. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Geach, Peter. 1977. The Virtues. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
Glasman, Laura R., and Dolores Albarracín. 2006. Forming attitudes that predict future behavior: A meta-analysis of the attitude-behavior relation. Psychological Bulletin 132: 778–822.
Hanson, Jon, and David Yosifon. 2003. The situation: An introduction to the situational character, critical realism, power economics, and deep capture. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 152: 129–346.
Hanson, Jon, and David Yosifon. 2004. The situational character: A critical realist perspective on the human animal. Georgetown Law Journal 93: 1–179.
Hare, Richard M. 1989. Essays on political morality. New York: Oxford University Press.
Harman, Gilbert. 1998–1999. Moral philosophy meets social psychology: Virtue ethics and the fundamental attribution error. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 99: 315–31.
Harman, Gilbert. 2003. No character or personality. Business Ethics Quarterly 13: 87–94.
Hofmann, Wilhelm, Roy F. Baumeister, Georg Förster, and Kathleen D. Vohs. 2012. Everyday temptations: An experience sampling study of desire, conflict, and self-control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102: 1318–1335.
Huoranszki, Ferenc. 2011. Freedom of the will: A conditional analysis. New York: Routledge.
Jervis, Robert. 2010. International politics and diplomatic history: Fruitful differences. H-Diplo ISSF Essays 1: 2–11.
Jones, Benjamin F., and Benjamin A. Olken. 2005. Do leaders matter? National leadership and growth since World War II. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 2005: 835–864.
Kamtekar, Rachana. 2004. Situationism and virtue ethics on the content of our character. Ethics 114: 458–491.
Kennan, George F. 1951. American diplomacy: 1900–1950. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Kennan, George F. 1985. Morality and foreign policy. Foreign Affairs 64: 205–218.
Keohane, Nannerl O. 2005. On leadership. Perspectives on Politics 3: 705–722.
Keohane, Nannerl O. 2010. Thinking about leadership. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kupperman, Joel. 1991. Character. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lawler, Peter. 2005. The good state: In praise of ‘classical’ internationalism. Review of International Studies 31: 427–449.
Lazar, Seth. 2009. Responsibility, risk, and killing in self-defense. Ethics 119: 699–728.
Lazar, Seth. 2010. The responsibility dilemma for Killing in war: A review essay. Philosophy & Public Affairs 38: 180–213.
Machiavelli, Niccolò. 1994 [1513/1532]. The prince. In Machiavelli, Selected political writings, ed. and trans. David Wooton, 5–80. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Markovits, Elizabeth. 2006. The trouble with being earnest: Deliberative democracy and the sincerity norm. Journal of Political Philosophy 14: 249–269.
May, Larry. 2005. War crimes and just war. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Mearsheimer, John. 2010. Why leaders lie: The truth about lying in international politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Milgram, Stanley. 2009 [1974]. Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper and Row.
Moore, Michael S. 1987. The moral worth of retribution. In Responsibility, character, and the emotions: New essays in moral psychology, ed. Ferdinand Schoeman, 179–219. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Morgenthau, Hans. 1973 [1948]. Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace, 5th edn. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Nagel, Thomas. 1988. War and massacre. In Consequentialism and its critics, ed. Samuel Scheffler, 51–73. New York: Oxford University Press.
Philp, Mark. 2007. Political conduct. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, John. 1999a. The law of peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rawls, John. 1999b. Fifty years after Hiroshima. In Rawls, Collected papers, ed. Samuel Freeman, 565–572. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sabini, John, and Maury Silver. 1987. Emotions, responsibility, and character. In Responsibility, character, and the emotions: New essays in moral psychology, ed. Ferdinand Schoeman, 65–75. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sabl, Andrew. 2002. Ruling passions: Political offices and democratic ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Schwartzman, Micah. 2011. The sincerity of public reason. Journal of Political Philosophy 19: 375–398.
Shklar, Judith N. 1984. Ordinary vices. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shklar, Judith N. 1989. The liberalism of fear. In Liberalism and the moral life, ed. Nancy L. Rosenblum, 21–38. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shue, Henry. 1996 [1980]. Basic rights: Subsistence, affluence, and U.S. foreign policy, 2nd edn. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Swaine, Lucas. 2006. The liberal conscience: Politics and principle in a world of religious pluralism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Swaine, Lucas. 2009a. Demanding deliberation: Political liberalism and the inclusion of Islam. Journal of Islamic Law and Culture 11: 88–106.
Swaine, Lucas. 2009b. Deliberate and free: Heteronomy in the public sphere. Philosophy & Social Criticism 35: 183–213.
Swaine, Lucas. 2011. The ascendant liberal conscience: A reply to three critics. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 14: 521–529.
Talbott, William J. 2005. Which rights should be universal?. New York: Oxford University Press.
Taylor, Kathleen. 2009. Cruelty: Human evil and the human brain. New York: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, Dennis F. 2005. Restoring responsibility: Ethics in government, business, and healthcare. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tulis, Jeffrey K. 1987. The rhetorical presidency. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Walzer, Michael. 1973. Political action: The problem of dirty hands. Philosophy & Public Affairs 2: 160–180.
Walzer, Michael. 2006. Arguing about war. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Webber, Jonathan. 2006. Virtue, character, and situation. Journal of Moral Philosophy 3: 193–213.
Wielenberg, Erik J. 2006. Saving character. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9: 461–491.
Williams, Bernard. 1981. Moral luck: Philosophical papers 1973–1980. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Eric Beerbohm, Stephen Brooks, William Galston, Robert Goodin, Nannerl Keohane, Seth Lazar, Alice Liou, Stephen Macedo, Mara Marin, Michael Morrell, Russell Muirhead, James Bernard Murphy, Joseph Reisert, Nancy Rosenblum, Andrew Sabl, Dennis Thompson, Jeffrey Tulis, Benjamin Valentino, Daniel Viehoff, William Wohlforth, and the editors and referees of this journal for helpful commentary on earlier versions of this article. Research for this article was generously supported by Dartmouth's Institute for the Study of Applied and Professional Ethics.