This document discusses the relationship between ethics and politics in three paragraphs or less: Ethics and politics often conflict as the use of power to accumulate and wield authority can violate ethical norms. While ethics constrains politicians, they have options like ethical behavior, cynicism, or hypocrisy. Traditions from India provide examples like the Buddha emphasizing detachment from power and Kautilya justifying anything to gain power without ethics. The document recommends a conceptual framework for political ethics based on limiting power, effectiveness, and accountability, with justice as the guiding principle across the political, social, and personal spheres.

1. Ethics and politics are poor bedfellows
(Qutab Din Aibak)

2. Institute of Administrative Sciences
Muhammad Waseem Sajjad…31
Farhan Zafar…59
Farhan Yousaf….17
Mian Ammar….11
BS (HONS) Public Management, PU

3. Ethics in
(Pakistan’s)Politics

4. Outlines
• Is Ethics Relevant in Politics?
• Mapping Positions on Ethics in Politics
• Traditions and Ethics in Politics
Indian traditions
Muslim traditions
• A common mistake;

5. • Political Ethics: Vision and Process
• Ethics of Conviction and Responsibility
• Political Ethics Extends from Rulers to
Citizens
• Recommendation
A conceptual Framework

6. Politics and Ethics
• Politics is the process of making and implementing decisions
binding upon society
• Politics is about accumulating and using power
• Ethics is a set of beliefs and customs shared by members of
society with regard to:
– what is right and what is wrong
– how things ought to be

7. Is Ethics Relevant in Politics?
• Some Examples
A few examples may illustrate why ethics in politics
matters.
• Citizen rights.
• Information,
• freedom and respect

8. Mapping Positions on Ethics in Politics
The main positions on political ethics may be
simplified as follows:
• Skepticism: a strong hesitancy to apply ethics
to politics, although it would be nice. Amoral.
• Cynicism: declares as a principle that ethics is
not only irrelevant but damaging in politics.
Immoral.

9. • Moralism: projects ideal ethical values as
goals for any politics and considers them as
normative, or at least inspiring.
• Pragmatism: considers ethics as a possible
added value for politics and checks case by
case whether or not this is true.

11. Relations between ethics and politics
Relations between ethics and politics
THE CONFLICT IS OBVIOUS:
• Use of power often violates ethical norms (rulers feel compelled
or tempted to act in ways which cannot be morally justified).
– Ethics constrains rulers.
– What options do they have?
• Ethical behavior (power is legitimate only when it is just)
• Open cynicism (power does not need moral justification: it justifies
itself)
• Hypocrisy
• Ethics poses challenges to power, works like an engine of social
change (reform or revolution)
• JUSTICE! Is a great battle cry

12. Traditions:-
I. Indian traditions
Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha (484-404 BCE) highlights personal
detachment from illusions such as lust for power and asserts as
well a kind of mirror effect: the ruler who kills is bound to be
murdered.
Kautilya
Kautilya (350-283) justifies everything that is needed to
take, keep and extend political power, without any moral
hindrance.

13. • According to Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen,
Indian tradition still avails today of two
concepts of justice – niti for organizational
patterns and behavioral correctness, and
nyaya for their actual outcomes for a given
society – and moves between those two
poles.

14. Political Ethics: Vision and Process
• Politics is not philosophy but practice. It is not
enough to specify political goals that satisfy an
ethical political vision.
• This needs to be explored, tested and
reconfirmed in processes. Consistency
between vision and process is an essential
ingredient of political success.

15. Ethics of Conviction and
Responsibility
• Ethics in politics has to do with vision.
Statesmen and women prove themselves by
lifting the eyes of their people from petty or
parochial interests to the far horizon of global
and future interests. They are able to coalesce
around shared values and principles a
common political will and project.

16. • After extensively studying charismatic political
leaders in cultures and societies all over the
world, Max Weber, German sociologist and
himself a leader of political opinion,
concluded that conviction and mo-tivation
were not enough. Particularly in modern
times, political leaders have to take
responsibility not only for their decisions but
also for the consequences, even if these
contradict or defeat the initial purpose.

17. Political Ethics Extends from Rulers to
Citizens
• Political ethics is not limited to top political rulers
– presidents, min-isters, or state secretaries. It
extends to parliamentarians, the judiciary and
civil servants, businesses, civil society
organisations, the media, and last but not least,
citizens.
• Most sound political choices are based on large
consultative proc-esses that take on board
diverging interests, make compromises and bring
together individual commitments.

18. Recommendation
A Conceptual Framework
1. A threefold Foundation
Limitation of Power
Effectiveness
Accountability
2. Justice as a trunk of ethical tree

20. The three ethical spheres
• political ethics: laws, judiciary, institutions,
political will
• social ethics: citizen associations, professional
self rule, media, faith communities
• personal ethics: political leadership, citizens as
individuals or mem-bers of associations

21. The three ethical spheres