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Marxism and Dirty Hands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Steven Lukes
Steven Lukes
Affiliation:
Politics, Oxford University
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Extract

Lenin asked the question: what is to be done? A second question, which Lenin did not ask is: What is not to be done? A third question arises when answering the first and second yields incompatible directives. How are we to understand and respond to such situations, in which, as Machiavelli put it, the Prince must learn, “among so many who are not good,” how “to enter evil when necessity commands” for the good of the Republic? This is the Classical Problem of dirty hands. What, if anything, does Marxism have to say about it?

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , Spring 1986 , pp. 204 - 223
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1986

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