Political Morality and the Politicians Personal Lives - Essay Example

The politicians’ personal lives Introduction Many things dominate the political domain. There is the dirty hands problem. Thisis where people argue that politics is one of the dirty games on earth. In what sense is politics dirty? Perhaps the most convenient answer to this question is that for a politician, people expose all the things they know about you, whether they are, rumors or they have substantial truth. The reason why this exposure is called for is that people expect politicians to be morally clean so that they can entrust them to manage public resources. With this the big question is that of knowing whether the public require to know about politician’s private lives only during the time when this information is important for assessing their capability to be elected into office. Consequently, I do not agree with this claim. In fact, the public require knowing the private lives of politicians all the times. Even such things as the politician’s sexual relationships and private finances have to be known to the public especially when they have a connection with the management of public resources. Dimensions of privacy and publicity Social practices and activities of public life versus private life have a wide range of domain. There are however, three broad dimensions of these forms of life. These are access, agency, and interest. Access refers to visibility of resources and information. Agency refers to the control and capacities, which political agents enjoy while interest refers to the relevance of resource utilization (Benn and Gaus, 1983). Access, also known as visibility involves many things. First, it involves the people physically accessing such spaces as beaches, theatres. If the access is public, then it means that anyone has the right to space. On the other hand, if access is private, it means that group, or someone has access right. In this case, such a person can allow or deny others access. Access to space does not come in as far as the need to know more about a politician is concerned. In any case, the politician does not wait until the public is aware so that he or she can get into such spaces as theatres or beaches. These are recreational places and politicians have the right to get entertained. This right does not affect the management of public resources in any way. In fact, it is considered in remuneration. This is why every employee has entertainment allowance (Benn & Gaus, 1983). Secondly, it involves people accessing social activities like public meeting. For public meeting, anyone has the right of attending or taking part. On the other hand, private meeting restricts people and only allow those having specific rights like invited guests. Referring to our case, it means that politicians have both public and private meeting. During public meetings, the public get the right of going to know more about the politician because; often he or she would address the audience. On the other hand, during private meetings, politicians meet with a few of their friends, relatives, and confidants to engage in some interaction. Consequently, meetings are important, whether private or public. It is also wise to keep private discussions instead of exposing them. Therefore, the public in this case should not think of going to get access to everything that a politician is discussing especially in private meetings. If the access of politician’s life is public therefore, it implies that anyone has the right to know about the activities of the politician (Nussbaum, 1986). Thirdly, there is also access to resources and information, for instance access to m15 FILES. When information is public, it means that any member of the public or the public at large can access the information. At the same time, people have general access to resources. Private access to information on the other hand, controls the spread of personal information. At the same time, the owner is the only person with the right of accessing resources. This kind of access is the basis for our argument in this paper. This is because there is very important information that the public need to know about politician. Consequently, the politician’s private life like his or her finances or sexual relationships is one of the vital information for the public to access. This information is not only meant for the politician’s their close confidants, relatives, and friends but for the public. This is because such information has a bearing on the management of public resources. The bearing in this case arises from the fact that the private issues like finances and sexual relationships may be very demanding of a politician, to an extend where the politician decides to use public resources to handle these issues (Benn and Gaus, 1983). Apart from the dimension of access, the next dimension of agency also supports the fact that the private lives of politicians like their finances and sexual relationships should be known by the public. First, agency is about the right status of both the public agents and private agents. Public agents in this case are the politicians, who have the mandate of managing resources on behalf of the public. Private agents on the other hand, are persons, individuals, or are standing on their own and managing their own resources. Private agents have the right of using resources in a manner that the person’s office sees as legitimate. In other words, these agents have autonomy over the management and use of their resources or over their actions. On the other hand, public agents also have the freedom of doing things justified by the fact of being public agents. This means that these agents can be required to make public justification of their decisions. This justifies our first point where we said politicians needed to justify that their sexual relationships and personal finances do not mix with public resources. The only way of justifying themselves is by letting the public know about their sexual relationships and private finances (Nussbaum, 1986). Lastly, the dimension of interest, which also refers to relevance, is about the individual’s status, which is of good concern to others. In this case, public interest affects or concerns all. A good example of this is the public health implication that an industrial pollution poses. For the case of private life of a politician, some areas of his or her private life are of public interest. These areas are relevant to the public and they should know especially because these areas affect the management of their resources by politicians in one way or the other. On the other hand, private interest concerns the status of few or one specified individuals. An example of a private interest is a private joke that the closest friend appreciates. Another good example is the relationships between wife, husband, and children within the family (Thompson, 1987). For the private interest, a politician has the right of not revealing or showing the public since it does not concern them in anyway. Besides, if a private interest is made public, it cause more harm than good. The following is a good example (Benn & Gaus, 1983). Kundera, in his book titled The Unbearable Lightness of Being describes the manner in which Czech police invaded privacy. The author talks about an incident that occurred in 1970 and 1971. In this case, police purposed and planned to discredit Prochazka. Therefore, they devised a plan and broadcast the private conversations that Prochazka was having with Professor Vaclav Cerny. The two people liked drinking and talking. The police broadcast the information as a radio serial. Police considered this as an unprecedented, audacious act. To the surprise of many, the strategy was almost successful. This is because Prochazka was discredited instantly. This happened because a person, in private, utters all kinds of things, acts silly, uses coarse language, slurs friends, repeats himself, float heretical points that he or she would never confess in public, tells dirty jokes and makes an interesting companion laugh because of the shock of an outrageous talk (Nussbaum, 1986). All people act like Prochazka. In their private life, people use coarse language and bad-mouth their friends. People act different in public from in private. This experience is in fact most conspicuous to everyone. It is an experience that marks the very ground of one’s individual life. It is however, an obvious fact that remains unacknowledged, unconscious. Lyrical dreams and imaginations of the transparent glass house obscure it forever. Private life is least understood as the value that needs one to defend it beyond all others (Benn and Gaus, 1983). With time, people came to realize that the real issue was not the daring talk given by Prochazka. Instead, they realized that the real scandal was the rape of his private life. They made this realization despite the fact that they had a lot of rage. Their surprising realization is that public and private lives are two essentially distinct worlds (Okin, 1989). Besides, respect for the existing difference cannot be done away with. It is a condition, which is indispensable. It is the sine qua non, with which a man can live free. At the same time, the curtain that separates these two worlds should be tamperproof. In the same note, the curtain-rippers qualify as criminals. Therefore, since the curtain rippers were being oppressed by a hated regime, their act caused them trouble. They were held unanimously to specifically contemptible criminals (Thompson, 1987). Apart from looking how exposure of politician’s private life wrongly affects the politician in a negative manner, we can also look at another case of liberals involving the importance of privacy. Liberals in UK value privacy for a number of reasons. First, private life gives them the chance of forming intimate relations, both platonic and sexual. Second, privacy makes them run away from the burdens and demands of social interaction. Third, privacy offers a good condition to form relationships based on trust and friendship. Lastly, privacy enhances individual’s opportunities for individuation and self-determination. These things are important for human worth and dignity. However, if the private life of a politician is attached to or is at the expense of public resources, the public should demand a clear revelation of why the politician could be using the public resources to pursue his or her financial or sexual affairs. In any case, the public would use this as a good criterion for electing their representative (Weber, 1955). On the other hand, republicans view privacy in a different perspective. According to the republicans, the public sphere of a politician takes the central stage. The focus in this case is on the dimension of relevance or interest. Politicians are public figures and are therefore interests of all. The public in this case need to know the area of self-expression and of self-development as far as the politician is concerned (Galston, 1991). The second thing that the republicans expect the public to know from a politician is his or her locus of the sound and good life. As far as the things the public should not know about the politician are concerned, they believe that there is existence of rights to privacy. These rights are entitled to everyone, including the politician. However, Republicans believe that these rights are grounded in public discussion and in the common life. This means that politicians should have no opportunity to misuse public resources. The Republicans also consider family life, individual autonomy, and intimate relations to be important but only as the fundamental for public life. This means that they expect these aspects of private lives to have a good reflection or picture of the public since the politicians are the public’s representatives (Benn & Gaus, 1983). According to Gavison, interests in availability of information and publicity of the same information should be given effective protection. The meaning of this is that information is meant for different people. There is information meant for private consumption and there is one meant for public hearing. These two kinds of information require effective protection so that private information is excluded from public information and public information be excluded from private information (Nussbaum, 1986). The two kinds of information should not be mixed. A good example regards such professional workers as medical practitioners. The medical practitioners have a general obligation of disclosing information to people that a decision affects all the necessary and relevant information so that these people can analyze it independently. The information disclosed in this case is exclusive only to the affected people (Benn and Gaus, 1983). As far as politicians are concerned, the effective protection of interests in availability and publicity of information does not occur in the same way as professional workers like doctors. While doctors have to protect the interests of the patient effectively as far as availability of and publicity of information is concerned, this is not always the point for politicians. Since they are public servants, they are supposed to supply the citizens with information that they might want to know about him. However, this may be impossible. In any case, unlike professional workers, politicians have boundaries as far as the availing of information to the citizens is concerned. This is because politicians, like other citizens know the value of keeping private life as a secret (Nagel, 1978). Politicians have their private lives, which they use to do their own things. Some of these things may include jokes, and all sorts of stuff that is meant for the public. Therefore, it is to the interests of the politicians that this information is effectively protected so that it does not become available or public. The implications of the above-mentioned boundaries is that, because the politicians know that the public should not get all information regarding their private life, they may end up using this opportunity negatively. Here, it means that politicians can engage in several immoral acts without any worry since they know that their interests as far as availability and publicity of information is concerned are protected (Williams, 1981). Assessment of privacy Substantive criteria According to these criteria, private matters are disclosed if they are relevant to the official duties of the politician. In these criteria, consideration is given to a number of things before making the disclosure. These include basis of recruitment to political office. A person receives different assessment of his or her private life depending on whether he or she is a career civil servant, appointed or elected. The other thing is area of government or range of duties, while the last thing is the level of position (Thompson, 1987). Procedural criteria This involves the method of intruding into the private life of a politician. If the method of intrusion is wrong, then private activities of the politician will be protected. Wrong intrusion methods include fraud; use of force or some unlawful ways. The value of privacy also matters. This is because politician’s private lives should not be intruded into too much (Thompson, 1987). Wolgast’s argument Wolgast gives three reasons why citizens should be aware of the character of political representatives. First, the stage on which politicians act is wider than that of other representatives. Therefore, Wolgast suggest that political representatives need to share and reflect their people’s moral values. Politicians carry the credibility of their constituents with them (Wolgast, 1991). Secondly, Wolgast claim that the citizens must also check governments since they cover a broad spectrum of moral issues that are distinctive. The governments make judgments on issues regarding wrong and right. Among the issues that the governments regulate include laws that regulate foods, laws that govern parental responsibilities, among others. These laws have huge moral implications. The difference between politicians and professional officers is that while medical doctors act as advisers and lawyers act on behave of their clients as delegates, politicians’ work is to represent their constituents (Nagel, 1978). Lastly, Wolgast argue that citizens need to believe in their political representatives. Therefore, while the citizens are deciding on whom to trust, they have to start by assessing the person’s character (Wolgast, 1991). Conclusion In conclusion, it is whether the political or moral stance portrayed by the politicians is in order with their private activities. This is because almost all politicians are not only married but they have also made a lifetime and permanent commitment to their partners. If they violate this commitment by engaging in extramarital and irresponsible sexual relations, they violate the commitment that they have with their spouses. If people were to elect such a person, then they will have a clear indication that the politician may violate at any time, the commitment to serve his or her constituency. Therefore, it does matter for the public to know about the politician’s private life especially in the context of sexual relations. In fact, the public should obtain a long-term record of the same to make wise choice during election. There are however, some issues of politician’s private life, which the public should mind accessing or knowing. Therefore, it means that the public should only care is the particular private issues affect the public life of the politician. For instance, if the politician is using taxpayers’ money to pay a prostitute, the action may be seen as private but is also a good example of private issues that the public should know about politicians. The other private issues to expose in a politician’s life are contraction of a venereal disease, leaving of one’s office unmanaged. These actions put a lot of pressure on the politician. Instead of running the affairs of the public, these unnecessary commitments distract him or her. Lastly, politician’s private lives are very important to the public since their daily interests and struggles tell the public more about the identity of the politicians. What they like doing on daily basis reveals where their belief lies and help the family to decide on whether or not to elect them as their representative in the parliament. References: Benn and Gaus (eds.) (1983) Public and Private in Social Life Chs.1, 2, 5, 7, 11, 12. (See especially the article by Ruth Gavison from 124 onwards.) De Wijze (1994).Towards a Political Ethic: Exploring the Boundaries of a Moral Politics. In Philosophical Papers, Vol XXIII, No. 3. 194-201. DeCew: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/ (Especially section 3.) Galston (1991) .Toughness as a Political Virtue. Social Theory and Practice Vol. 17, 2 Summer. Machiavelli (1981). The Prince ed. George Bull, (London, Penguin Books). Nagel (1978). Ruthlessness in Public Life. Hampshire, S. in Public and Private Morality (CUP). Nussbaum (1986) The Fragility of Goodness Ch 3. Okin (1989) Justice, Gender, and the Family Ch 6. Thompson (1987) Political Ethics and Public Office Ch 5. Thompson (1987).The Private Lives of Public Officials’, Chapter 5 pp. 123-147. Weber (1955).Politics as a Vocation’ From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Trans. and eds. Gerth, H.H. and Wright Mills, C., (OUP, New York). Williams (1981). Politics and moral character. in Moral Luck (CUP). Wolgast (1991). The Virtue of a Representative. Social Theory and Practice Vol. 17, 2 Summer. (Nagel, 1978). Read More