Punishing the Dirty

Abstract

In his famous paper on dirty hands, Michael Walzer makes a strange claim: when someone performs a dirty, but justified, action, ‘we must make sure he pays the price’.¹ Interpreting this claim is, as we shall see, somewhat difficult. One natural interpretation, for which other elements of Walzer’s paper provide support, is that the dirty ought to be punished.² If that is indeed the claim, it is false, as I will show. No one is blameworthy for genuine dirty-handed acts (unless they are blameworthy for bringing about the circumstances which necessitate such actions), and therefore no one deserves to be punished for performing them. Nor, I suggest, do they deserve even the milder form of punishment that consists in dishonouring them. Responsibility for dirty-handed acts — which is a necessary, but far from sufficient, condition of blameworthiness for them — is widely distributed. In a well-functioning democracy, citizens share responsibility for such acts; whatever blame or praise is deserved on their basis should also be shared, and punishing the dirty, however mild the form it takes, prevents us acknowledging the extent to which responsibility for dirty actions is widespread.