Nagel Reading.

Nagel makes the argument that there are differences between public and private morality and I feel like they make a lot of sense. As he says, public officials have certain obligations because of their job and so they cannot consider as many factors as perhaps the public would like. Which could almost seem like the dirty hands as was talked about in the Calhoon reading of how a public official must choose between the people they represent verses the greater mass of humanity.

Perhaps I should be making a more definitive statement but I cannot decide if this constitutes dirty hands or not. Because the public official also exists to serve the institution in which they are employed and have an obligation to them as we all do to our employers. And with that institution means they should not consider things that do not concern them, which makes sense in a world where things need to get done to be successful. Obviously, there will be times when the official is forced to choose between the people he and his instiution represent and some greater group and the nature of his job chooses where his loyalties lie. I feel as though that this is not something that constitutes dirty hands on the part of the official but on the very nature of the institution and how it fuctions. It's not really a personal choice.

But what is a personal choice, as Nagel says, is to take the office of a public official. Therefore it could be assumed that one should be aware of what it entails to hold public office and so be prepared to make those decisions which are an issue of public morality. Even if a person goes in with the best intentions, they know what the instiution's goals and methods are. So in that case it could be argued that is IS dirty hands because of the choice made to step into the role of a public official.

So I am still on the fence about dirty hands, Nagel to me seems to be saying that morality is subjective which I would agree with and that there are differences between public and private morality which I also agree with. But in some cases does that make for dirty hands? I can't make a definite choice yet.