Politics and Ethics: a marriage

For many years, politics is always incorporated with the words “dirty”, “corruption”, “hatred”, and many more wicked words. When someone is elected to a public office, he is expected to do “politicking”’; he will abuse his power and corrupt fund and people’s right. 

Not to restrict politics to public alone, people also see politics in private interaction as the act of deception and trickery; when a head of an institution uses politics as a power to oppress and trick another for his benefit. However, these are supposed to be not the definitions of politics. When someone gets involved in it, he is accepting a servant’s office, whether it is public or private. He is bound to make, implement and amend the rules for the good of his people. This person must act as a genuine servant leader since he is accountable to his general mass; or else, he must be ousted. Therefore, he must be guided by ethics so that his governance won’t be marred by selfish desires and the likes. This ethics can never be separated from politics. 

Some notable philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and St. Thomas of Aquinas pointed out that ethics should be married to politics. It is a requirement for the society to achieve the common good.

Plato, in his work The Republic, emphasized that a ruler must always possess certain virtues that would lead him to what is true and consequently, his people towards the common end. In fact, he discouraged private ownership, family bonding, and other forms of self-happiness to the rulers so that they would be deviated from abuse of power. Furthermore, Plato even suggested that a ruler must be a philosopher-king inasmuch as it’s the philosopher-king who sees the invisible truth. According to him, a philosopher-king passed through all kinds of knowledge that there is no more room for mistakes. This kind of ruler has the unblemished ethics that the goal to achieve the common good (which is for him is unity) is never impossible. 

The idea of merging ethics and politics can also be seen in the work of Aristotle entitled Politics. In his idea of slavery, Aristotle pointed out that the master must rule his slave with goodness. The master, apart from giving order, needs to be a moral guardian to his slave for both of them to attain the common good. Moreover, there should be an established friendship between them in a way that the master should not rule the slave because of his superior power but because of his superior goodness. Aristotle also highlighted the importance of ethics in the way he ranked the best type of constitution; he placed tyranny as the worst since the ruler of such was bound to self-interests and unethical acts.

St. Thomas of Aquinas also clarified the significance of ethics in the life of the ruler. For him, the king should rule after the common good. He even suggested some ways to resist tyranny or an act of ruling by strength and not by goodness (as he defined). Besides, St. Thomas believed that one cannot be just unless he practices what is good.

From these philosophical views, the idea of ethics can be seen in whatever is done through and not just towards goodness. These philosophers believed that the government must possess the right ethics in order to run the society towards the common good. One can never be a good and effective ruler if he is not a good example. It will be hard for a bad ruler to unite his people when they see him as unworthy of the obedience. That’s why, as Plato said, the king must possess the right virtues for his society to attain unity. 

To conclude, politics is not supposed to be a “dirty game” but something that is to be revered given that it shall promote discipline to the society. When you do politics, you should work on rules for you and your people to do what is right and just, or what is ethical; or else, you are not a politician but a total “tricker”.

Thus, ethics should be married to politics.