 Walzer’s tendency to run together the categories of excuse and justification needs some comment because it is symptomatic of the tensions inherent in the dirty hands scenario. He realises in the 1973 article that it is important to distinguish them. Citing J.L. Austin, Walzer remarks that “the two can seem to come very close together…but they are conceptually distinct…an excuse is typically an admission of fault; a justification is typically a denial of fault and an assertion of innocence” (Walzer 1973, 170; Walzer 1974, 72). Yet dirty hands acts involve both an admission of fault and a justification. This tends to collapse the distinction since what is justified needs no excuse and the unjustifiable is sometimes excusable. Walzer’s discussion for the most part clearly treats the dirty hands decisions as justified in some sense, whatever is said about its role as excuse. It is notable that at least one commentator, Tamar Meisels, explicitly rejects the account in terms of justification in her discussion of terrorism and torture but she accepts dirty hands as providing grounds for excuse (Meisels 2008a, 213–221). Yet not only is this an unlikely interpretation of the tradition, but it renders the category of dirty hands far less interesting philosophically and ethically. 