THE VIRTUE OF COMPROMISE

Abstract

Compromise is the virtue of political agents. This picture of the politicalis as common and familiar: politics is a realm where the reasonable, thecompromising politicians get things done and the unreasonable anduncompromising are doomed to fringes. Thus, it is always right and reasonablemake good compromises. The paper argues that under certain conditions, it isbetter and more effective to have non-compromising politicians. For example, thinkof a political party that every election moves towards the political center tomaximize its chances of winning, but loses the elections at the cost of having thepolitical center move further away from its original positions. If the process repeatsitself, then a series of compromise would be disastrous, much as the considerationsof the self-torturer are disastrous. Thus, there are systematic ways in which thereasonable compromises of a virtuous politician are sometimes (ultimately)unreasonable. Political virtue is all too often self-defeating, and therefore a cursein disguise.