Table Of Content

Political Vices Political Vices Mark E. Button 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Button, Mark E. Title: Political vices / Mark E. Button. Description: Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015021432 | ISBN 9780190274962 (hardcover : acid-free paper) Subjects: LCSH: Political ethics. | Politicians--Conduct of life. | Public officers—Conduct of life. | Democracy--Moral and ethical aspects. | Government accountability. Classification: LCC JA79 .B87 2016 | DDC 172—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015021432 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper In loving memory of my brother, Matthew Charles Button, a man of many virtues CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix 1. States of Character: Toward a Theory of Political Vice 1 2. The Anti-Politics of Hubris: Vice of Sovereignty 33 3. Accounting for Moral Blindness: Vice of Wholeness 60 4. Political Recalcitrance: Vice of Exceptionalism 87 5. After Vice: The Call of Accountability 125 Afterword 157 Notes 161 References 201 Index 221 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is a pleasure to thank the many people who have helped me bring this book to completion, most especially my generous and talented colleagues at the University of Utah. For their critical insights and warm encourage- ment at various stages in the long development of this book I am grateful to Ella Myers, Steven Johnston, Jim Gosling, Peri Schwartz-Shea, Brent Steele, Dan Levin, Edmund Fong, Luke Garrott, and Marjorie Castle. I am blessed to have such great colleagues who treasure the diverse pursuits of political theory as much as I do. I am also thankful for the valuable research assistance and distinct intellectual contributions of Monika Benova, Jake Garrett, and Daniel Patterson. Bob Goldberg and the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah provided a wonderful interdisciplinary setting in which to explore some of the central themes of this work and for that I remain immensely grateful. Early versions of most sections of this book were presented at meetings of the Western Political Science Association, the American Political Science Association, the Manchester Center for Political Theory, and the Grace A. Tanner Symposium on Democracy, Language, and Rhetoric at Southern Utah University. I am thankful to everyone who par- ticipated in these discussions, especially Simon Stow, Elisabeth Ellis, Sara Rushing, Joel Schwartz, Jeffrey Becker, Derek Barker, Jennet Kirkpatrick, Matthew Sherer, Lee Trepanier, James Rhodes, Richard Avramenko, and Derek Edyvane. I owe a special debt of thanks to Angela Chnapko of Oxford University Press. Angela has been a wonderfully supportive editor and a trusted guide over the last year. I doubt that this book would have made an appearance in the world without her unflagging commitment to this project. Angela also commissioned some incredibly insightful external readers for this manu- script and I would like to thank these anonymous reviewers for their prob- ing questions and valuable advice.