  This confident answer to the question is not however supported by argument or even survey, and seems to assume unanimity amongst the “we” of a pluralistic, democratic community that is unlikely to obtain. Dennis Thompson relies upon the legitimacy of the democratic process and citizens’ assent to its outcomes, but, aside from any general problems with consent theory, the ruler’s dirty hands acts are often enough illegal or unconstitutional, as in the case of torture, or in violation of declared policies that got the ruler elected. Moreover, what we want of our political leaders will presumably depend upon who “we” are and what moral and political principles “we” hold. Suppose a dirty hands decision has been made by the leaders to torture an innocent child in order to extract information from the child’s radical parent about a “ticking bomb” (and suppose that this is a genuine dirty hands decision and not one flawed by lack of knowledge or ignoring of preferable alternatives) then it is plausible to hold that those citizens who think that the moral politician should violate his (and their) deep moral objections to torture in such circumstances must share in the guilt or shame that should attach to the politician. But there will surely be many citizens who either think that the moral violation should not have occurred, even in these circumstances, or who think that the prohibition is not as deep as commonly supposed and hence that the politician’s decision is right but not immoral. It is implausible to hold that both these groups are implicated in dirty hands in the way Archard and others suggest that all democratic citizens, merely by being citizens, are.  