  Earlier writers concerned with the need for politicians to dirty their hands with immoral behaviour show some of this vacillation, sometimes stressing the extreme stakes that are involved, but more often appearing to view the political process generally as above morality, or at least operating with a different morality. (“One cannot measure such men by the ordinary rule”). John M. Parrish in an interesting and far-ranging book (Parrish, 2007) shows that there are elements of the concern about the generally challenging nature of politics for morality as early as Plato’s Republic. Parrish’s understanding, however, of what constitutes dirty hands is often so broad as to obscure some of the distinctions, ambiguities and problems arising from current philosophical discussions. to be fair, he is interested in charting a sort of pre-history to the contemporary debate, and admits that “the problem may have changed over time” so that there is “a succession of dirty hands problems” (Parrish, p. 18). Even so, some of the apparently morally troubling examples he discusses from ancient intellectual sources have none of the marks of the contemporary problem. Augustine’s insistence, for example, that even a justly waged war is morally regrettable is accompanied by the untroubled argument that the warrior whose cause and intention is just does not sin at all (i.e., violate any moral obligation) in killing his enemy. Parrish’ emphasis on the idea that political life is pervasively morally problematic, however, does find echoes in early modern treatments that foreshadow the contemporary dirty hands discussion. One such influential treatment is that of Machiavelli. So Machiavelli thinks that the ordinary processes of politics require that the Prince “must learn how not to be good”, though he should maintain the appearance of virtue and indeed behave virtuously when the cost is low (Machiavelli 1513, 52). Max Weber stresses the way that regard for consequences must dominate the thinking of the politician as contrasted with ordinary or religiously inspired ethics. This contrast lies behind the opposition Weber discerns in “Politics as Vocation” between “an ethic of responsibility” and “an ethic of ultimate ends”. Although the terms in which Weber frames the contrast tend to confuse rather than clarify the issues, it is probable that one thing he has in mind for the “ultimate ends” side of the conflict is an ethic involving absolute prohibitions; he sees these as being in tension with an outlook geared to counting consequences. As Weber puts it: “there is an abysmal contrast between conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of ultimate ends-that is, in religious terms, ‘the Christian does rightly and leaves the results with the Lord’-and conduct that follows the maxim of an ethic of responsibility, in which case one has to give an account of the foreseeable results of one’s action” (Weber 1919, 120). The starkness of this contrast is one source of confusion since, as we shall see later, absolutists are not totally indifferent to consequences — not all their ethic consists of absolute prohibitions-and non-absolutists need not be obsessed only with consequences. But Weber is adamant that it is impossible in politics to adhere generally to any absolutist ethic of ultimate ends, largely because of what he sees as the central role of violence in politics. In spite of Walzer citing him approvingly (up to a point) in his original article, Weber does not seem to hold anything like Walzer’s mature view. He does not think that an ethic of ultimate ends suffices most of the time, but gives way in conditions of supreme emergency; rather his view appears to be that the ultimate ends ethic is quite generally inadequate to politics. In fact, Weber’s belief that violence is central to the operation of politics is exaggerated, though understandable in the circumstances in which he wrote, but if it were true it might give his position more affinity with Walzer’s idea of supreme emergency. The difference would remain that, although violence may well be a factor in establishing supreme emergency, Walzer’s mature understanding of supreme emergency requires more than simply incursions of violence.