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So we have seen in this chapter a variety of responses to the question ‘what is the nature of politics?’

For Socrates, it was the perusal of justice and living an examined life. Likewise, Kant placed morality at the centre of politics, arguing that politics should always bend the knee to morality. For Kant, we should always live as if our actions should become a universal law. So for both Socrates and Kant, politics, morality and the way we live our life are intrinsically linked. Passion for causes is a necessary but insufficient quality in a politician for Weber; passion must always be measured with responsibility and sense of purpose. If it isn’t (if, say, a sense of justice is all a politician has), then little might actually get done.

For Machiavelli, politics is about glory – concentrating too much on morality would cause you to lose your position if you were a prince; concentrating on it too little would make you remembered as a tyrant. For Machiavelli, the real skill of politics was judging when to act, and in what manner. For Bentham (and to a certain extent Mill), politics was about bringing happiness to as many as possible, meaning the rightness or wrongness of an act was not determined by its moral justifications, but rather its consequences. Walzer notes that a politician cannot remain morally innocent; there is something about the position that means one has to get one’s hands dirty, but this is not to deny that there is a moral dilemma involved.

Throughout this book there will be more discussions that pertain to the nature of politics. For Hobbes it is security, for Burke preserving the best of the past for the future, for Paine the protection of rights, for Rawls the ability to make impartial laws about justice, and so on. So whereas this chapter concludes here, this does not mean to say that these are the last words on the nature of politics in this book.