 If we allow that non-moral “oughts” can sometimes trump moral ones then the dirty hands position may be restated as holding that, in circumstances of extremity, reasons of “necessity” (or whatever) defeat important moral reasons. This seems to be one plausible construal of Machiavelli when he talks of the necessity that rulers must learn how not to be good. Of course, he has the model of Christian morality in mind when he calls for its overriding and so may be understood as opposing one form of morality to another, but a good deal of his discussion can be treated as elevating “reasons of state” above morality. This is a rejection of the idea that moral reasons dominate all other reasons.