Relationship Between Politics and Ethics

The subject matter of politics is to describe the structure and function of the government. Politics prescribes laws for the citizens in order to regulate their conducts so that public good can be realized.

Man is not only a social being but also political beings. The individual and the state are inter dependent.

Political science determines the duty of the individual to the state and also duty for the state with regard to the individual. Rights and duties are maintained by the state and as such moral life is intimately connected with the political life.

Ethics and politics are intimately related. Both are normative sciences. Ethics aims at the supreme good of the individual whereas Politics aims at public good. Public good can be attained through individual good; therefore politics aims at the establishment of an ideal welfare state where more perfection of the citizens can be realized.

Similarly individual good can be achieved through public good. Politics is a practical science but ethics is not. However, the influence of ethics on the practical life can not be ignored.

Again when we look back to the history of politics and ethics, we joined that in Plato’s time ethics and politics, were intimately related.

Aristotle, however, wrote two separate treaties on politics and ethics and thereby differentiated the scope of the subjects. There is of course a difference of opinion among the thinkers regarding the relation between ethics and politics.

Gandhi for example, advocates that a happy marriage should be instituted between politics and morality. High politics must have a moral base.

On the other hand, Machiavelli and Lather hold that politics has no connection with ethics. The will of the sovereign is law. The power must be exercised on the people at any cost of their own protection.

Hence, it need not have any connection with morality. Hobbes and his followers claim that good conduct is imposed by the state and therefore ethics is only a branch of politics.

Opinion differs regarding the relation between ethics and politics. In spite of these differences of opinion one thing is certain that there is a mutual dependence of ethics and politics Moral philosophers have tried to influence state politics.

Politicians in their turn have played an important role in changing the moral out look of the state. Grayeff points out that politicious have often influence moral views mainly through medium of opinion.

Infact, political leaders and thinkers like Karl Marx or Mao Tze Tung have been responsible for changing the moral religious and cultural out look of the state through their official philosophies.

The above point is strengthened by the fact that there are some concepts which are equally important both for the political thinker and the moralist. The concepts like justice, liberty, right duties etc. are located in the border areas of ethics and politics.

Of course the approaches to these concepts differ. While the politician says right implies duties, what he says is that it is purely out of the civic Sense that one must do something for others if he expects others to do something for him.

The moralist on the other hand, cannot impose any penalty nor does he recommend any penalty for the violation of norms. Hemerely defines what is right and does not approve of the act of taking away everything without doing anything for the society.

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