Abstract
That politics is ‘beyond good and evil’, or (less rhetorically) a sphere in which moral considerations are not applicable, is a notion with a long history. That politics may in fact be pursued amorally is not in question, but a stronger claim is sometimes made: that (sermonising apart) it is of the nature of politics that it should be so, or (if we do not want to talk about ‘nature’) that its distinctive purposes can only be so achieved.
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Notes
Cf. F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (Penguin Books, 1967), esp. p. 74. Sorel also talks like this in Réflexions sur la violence.
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© 1979 Dorothy Emmet
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Emmet, D. (1979). Political Morality. In: The Moral Prism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-81421-3_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-81421-3_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-81423-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-81421-3
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