Are our political morals decaying?

Lionel Wijesiri

Addressing a Daham Hamuwa at Pelmadulla, President Mahinda Rajapaksa recently said that the moral renaissance of the nation is as important as its economic renaissance and in this regard the politicians should take the lead. He also noted that achieving one without the other is futile. This is a timely advice which should be taken seriously by all our politicians!

If you ask the question of the morals of present politicians decaying, most people will start laughing. They will say that the political morals of our country do not exist anymore. It has long been an assumption that the people in politics care about no one but themselves. They might even add that our politicians act and believe that they have a separate set of rules than us common people.

Are all of our politicians such 'bad people? I believe they are not but the ones lacking morals seem to get all the attention in the media. I believe that most politicians go to Parliament with good intentions for the people of their constituency and of the country. Unfortunately, as time goes by, power tends to wear them down. Along with power comes great responsibility. The politicians today just don't understand that concept.

Relationship

There are three general ways that we can conceive of the relation between morals and politics. On the idealist tradition, of which Kant is the exponent, morals underwrites politics. On the realist tradition, of which Machiavelli is an exemplar, politics overrides morals. On what some call the negotiator tradition, of which Max Weber is the advocate, neither morals nor politics are trumps, so a negotiated compromise must be worked out between the two normative regimes when they conflict.

Of all the three, I personally prefer the Kant theory. I believe it is the best for a country like ours. He defines the demands of the moral law as "categorical imperatives" which are intrinsically valid principles.

They are good in and of themselves; they must be obeyed in all, and by all, situations and circumstances if our behavior is to observe the moral law. Kant believed that if an action is not done with the motive of duty, then it is without moral value. He thought that every action should have pure intention behind it; otherwise it was meaningless. He did not necessarily believe that the final result was the most important aspect of an action, but that how the person felt while carrying out the action was the time at which value was set to the result.

A phrase quoted by Kant, which is used to summarize his moral philosophy, is Fiat justitia, pereat mundus, ("Let justice be done, though the world perish"), which he translates loosely as "Let justice reign even if all the rascals in the world should perish from it".

Lying

This leads us to question of lying in politics. For the idealist like Kant, lying is, supposedly, always immoral and therefore has no place in politics, no matter what. For the realist, lying is permissible whenever it is a necessary means to secure a political goal. For the negotiator, principles and prudence must be weighed up. If the costs of adhering to one's convictions about lying become too high, then it would be irresponsible to hold on to those convictions in that situation.

The conflict between morals and politics arises when an action seems both politically legitimate and yet not moral. This conflict has been portrayed as one between religious or cultural beliefs and state and between care for the country and care for the self. Of course, this conflict does not arise when political prudence and moral principle are in agreement, as they often are.

As Kant notes, even a nation of purely self-interested devils could agree to live by principles of justice. Nonetheless, as Machiavelli reminds us, it is often politically prudent to depart from morals. According to him, lying may be immoral, but it is the very grease that keeps the political wheels in motion. Given this, a politics completely submissive to morality would seem to be not only unrealistic but also undesirable.

Compromises

So much so for the theoretical aspect of the morals and politics! To return to our subject, let us see what really is meant by political morality in modern sense. Morality can be defined in concise words as complete forthrightness and candidness in dealings with others. However, in politics morality involves with the welfare of society, some sort of compromises may be legitimate. Or, should it be? Here, opinions differ.

Some people believe that politics and morality should be treated as though they are mutually exclusive. It is their contention that the moral behavior in politics cannot be equated with the simple notions of honesty and putting other fellow's needs ahead of one's own. For these people, public politics is the game played among few professional politicians and to succeed in the game one must use the tools that are part and parcel of it.

Part and parcel

Complete forthrightness is a significance of vulnerability and naiveté, neither of which earn a politician respect among his or her opponents, and that the opponents will use every advantage against honest politician. The politician who claims that his opponent is giving false assurance to voters, and will not going to do any welfare of society, is not necessarily immoral and this sort of rhetoric is part and parcel of public politics and will not going to harm society.

I along with the majority of the people of this country disagree with this line of thinking. Their theory fails to understand that in order to gain opportunity for moral leadership, politicians need not accept compromises along the way. Politics is a not a business but a service dedicated towards idealism and no amount of pandering is necessary to maintain that position.

I also believe that those who claim that effective politicians need not concern themselves with morality fail to appreciate that successful political leadership, if it is to endure, requires a certain measures of public morality, that is serving the society with its best interests. Consider leaders such as Hitler, whom most people were agree was violator of public morality.

Solutions

Ultimately, such leaders forfeit their leadership as a result of immoral means by which they obtain and retain their power. As per my opinion, amoral public behavior might serve a political leader's interest in preserving power but in long term such behavior invariably results in leader's downfall.

Politics and morality are not in separate realms. Admittedly, they will affect each other. However, they are two sides of a coin. They are not mutual exclusive and have to exist together. However, they are not totally the same thing. Sometimes, they will help each other. In some situation, they are harmful to each other. A good leader is the one who understands it and impose moral well into his politics.

Improving moral character

Morals exist for a reason. If a society is to function, it must agree on a certain code of conduct which all must follow. Immorality, or social deviance, leads to a country in which people care about themselves only and attempt to serve self rather than society. In the end, an immoral society will implode from within if it is not destroyed from without. So what can we do about it? First, we can look to improving our own moral character. Second, we can hold our politicians accountable for their actions by how we cast our vote and by making our voice heard on Parliament through phone calls, petitions, e-mails, letters or protests. When we as a society remain silent in the face of immoral or amoral politicians, we become complicit in their lack of morals. We must not give away our voice, for if we do, our every freedom will follow, and soon our lives will be in the hands of self-seeking politicians and our country, as we have known it, will no longer exist.