  Both dirty hands and moral dilemmas challenge the idea that some moral prohibitions or negative duties are “absolute” though they do so in different ways. If we deny that there are moral rules or prohibitions that stand whatever the context, then it will not be surprising that deep moral prohibitions may be legitimately overridden in some circumstances. Indeed, many contemporary moral theories, other than utilitarianism, insist that such overruling remains a permanent possibility. The intuitionism of W.D. Ross and his followers, for instance, insists that all duties and obligations are prima facie. It is always possible that the prima facie duty not to kill the innocent will clash with some other prima facie duty, such as the duty to promote wellbeing or the ruler’s duty to preserve the state or protect the community, and then one’s actual duty will be the outcome of weighing the respective force of the clashing prima facie duties. One might thus see the dirty hands story as merely a version of this outlook, a version that insists that only a very great weighting on the other side of the balance can tip the scales against some very significant prima facie obligations. Using terminology of Thomas Nagel’s, dirty hands would instantiate “threshold deontology” with a very high threshold for certain action types. To make this assimilation would be to take much of the sting out of the dirty hands story, both because dirty hands would be part of a more commonplace moral perspective rather than a quite special ethic for emergencies, and because there seems to be no room in threshold deontology, or what has been called “balanced exceptionism” (Coady 2004, 778–9; Coady 2008, 285–7, 299). for the idea that one has done wrong in doing what is nonetheless right. There may be a sense of regret that one cannot avoid doing something that was prima facie wrong—it would be more comfortable if one’s prima facie duties did not conflict and therefore need resolution—but no wrong can be attributed to you if you have done the balancing  conscientiously.[6] The balanced exceptionist can of course acknowledge that some prima facie duties are stronger than others, and hence some presumptive wrongs carry more heft than others. Indeed, the balancing story commits its supporters to this acknowledgement since there would be no point to the talk of balancing as a procedure for decision unless there were such differences of weight. But the fact remains that the granting of exemption from the prohibition on intentionally killing the innocent is part of a normal, even routine, business of balancing presumptive obligations in order to find what is finally obligatory or prohibited. If the scales tell you that it is morally permitted or even morally obligatory intentionally to kill the innocent, then in these circumstances it cannot be wrong to do  so.[7]