Contra the prevalent way of thinking about the dirty-hands problem, this article suggests that dirty hands need not necessarily entail suffering and that a politician who does not suffer for his dirty-handed acts should not be cast as a bad politician. In so doing, the article: (i) argues that the connection between DH and suffering is unsatisfactorily totalising and rests on a contentious conception of conflict as a dysfunction and (ii) develops an alternative account of the good dirty-handed politician, which is associated with what proponents of the prevalent view of the problem find impossible: calm acceptance of – even indulgence in – one’s dirt. This recognition has important implications for our contemporary culture of contrition and for the way we evaluate the characters of our politicians.

中文翻译：

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脏手与苦难

与普遍的关于脏手问题的思考方式相反，本文认为脏手不一定会带来痛苦，一个不会因脏手行为而受苦的政治家不应该被视为坏政客。在这样做时，文章：(i) 认为 DH 与苦难之间的联系并不令人满意，并且基于将冲突视为功能障碍的有争议的概念，并且 (ii) 对善良的肮脏政治家提出了另一种描述，即与普遍观点的支持者认为不可能的事情相关联：冷静地接受——甚至沉溺于——一个人的污垢。这种认识对我们当代的忏悔文化以及我们评估政治家品格的方式具有重要意义。