The contract of fallibility

• Published in: Contemporary political theory Vol. 8; no. 4; pp. 394 - 414
• Main Author: Podoksik, Efraim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Springer London 01.11.2009; Palgrave Macmillan
• Subjects: Assassinations & assassination attempts; Citizen Participation; Contracts; Critical Theory; Debates; Ethics; Experts; Ignorance; Massacres; Moral Judgment; Original Article; Policy Implementation; Political Philosophy; Political Science; Political Science and International Relations; Political Science and International Studies; Political Theory; Politicians; Politics; Poststructuralism; Values; consequentialism; fallibility; political judgement; dirty hands; ethical politics; contract
• ISSN: 1470-8914; 1476-9336
• DOI: 10.1057/cpt.2009.5

The paper argues that modern political life faces a seemingly irresolvable contradiction. On the one hand, a moral judgement in politics can refer only to the consequences of any policy. On the other hand, in modern society no consequences can be reasonably predicted at the moment a decision is taken. This renders political life unbearable from the moral point of view, because almost any political decision is likely subject to failure in the future. The solution to this dilemma is to understand modern politics as a contract of fallibility, according to which citizens agree to withhold their moral judgements, as long as others do not act as if they assume their own infallibility. The adoption of such a theory might remove the sense of inescapable failure from ethically inclined political actors and emancipate our political discourse from irrational moralistic absolutism. In addition, the contract of fallibility can serve as the most economical justification of modern representative democracy.