Daniel R. Sabia

Weber’s political ethics and the problem of dirty hands

Discussions of political ethics, and of the problem of dirty hands, often cite Max Weber’s comments on these subjects, especially as presented in “Politics as a vocation”. Offers an interpretation of Weber’s views by explaining why he focused on the political leader as the proper subject of political morality, why he deemed certain personal qualities essential to responsible leadership, how he conceived the relationship between ethics and politics, and why he believed the problem of dirty hands to be both inescapable and unresolvable. Advances the central claims that Weber conceived political ethics as the attempt to reconcile ethical with political duties, and dirty hands as the inevitable accompaniment of political action because of its unavoidable association with violence and the partiality of its ends.

Political Education and the History of Political Thought

Texts designed to introduce political science students to the history of political thought or to past political theories have been commonplace in the discipline, as have disputes about their pedagogical utility or justifiability, and methodological debates concerning their adequacy or legitimacy. In an effort to address these disputes and some of these debates, I construct three models of historiographical inquiry. Each model represents a particular approach, and each is defined in terms of three common features. The methodological debates are joined both indirectly and directly: indirectly by identifying clearly the major features and purposes of these approaches, and directly by consideration of such issues as the nature of a historical tradition, the legitimacy of certain interpretive strategies and presuppositions, and the viability of certain conceptions of past political theory. I conclude that each approach can make significant contributions to the education of political science students.