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This chapter aims to begin our reflections on politics by examining what politics is about? What type of aims should we have from politics? How has politics been conceptualized? This chapter will commence in ancient Athens, then move from Renaissance Florence to nineteenth-century England, then hop over to Germany, before travelling across the Atlantic to the United States in the 1970s, before returning to Germany. As you might expect from such a journey, the ranges of responses to the question ‘what is politics about?’ are varied.

Our first discussion will be a brief examination of the life of Socrates and to see how he placed a search for justice at the heart of politics, and thought that we should all regard this quest as being central to our lives. Indeed, he became a martyr for this quest. We will then examine Machiavelli’s advice to politicians outlined in his work The Prince. We will see here that it is not morality that should be at the heart of politics, as it is pointless always being moral as a prince because if you do you will lose your position to someone who is not as good as you. This does not mean to say that the prince can do anything to keep his power though, as, for Machiavelli, glory is the purpose in politics, and glory places restraints on what a ruler can do.

We will then begin a comparison among utilitarian philosophers such as Bentham and Mill, who will argue that politics should be about bringing the greatest amount of happiness possible in politics. This will be contrasted with Kant, who argues that morality is the most important thing in politics. We will see that there exists between Kant and the utilitarian theorists a significant difference in how we formulate the nature of a moral act, with Kant focusing purely on the motivations behind an act, and the utilitarians examining the consequences of an act. Walzer will provide us with a potential halfway house between these competing perspectives on morality with his notion of dirty hands.

The chapter will conclude with an overview of Max Weber’s cautionary note against pure passion in politics, noting as he does that, with a centralized state with a monopoly of the use of legitimate force, this should be balanced with responsibility and a sense of purpose.