№ 4 - 2002
Bikbov A.T.
Morals in Politics: Coercion of Those Who Rule 81

The article provides a critique of the common sense logic and of the according concept construction which are traditionally present in discussions on politics and morals. Re-introduction of the social inequality figure (habitually eliminated from this type of discussions) allows to pass on from analyzing the merely logical contradiction of politics and morals as notions to considering practical incompatibility of political interests and moral imperatives. The author proposes to conceive them as products of basically different social games going on at different poles of social inequality. Which way can interest in a moral action be made part of the structure of political game? Examining a number of types of pedagogy designed to be applied to those ruling in order to form their moral consciousness, the author points to impossibility of their practical realization. What might prove an efficient means of inculcating morals in political game is the placing of a politician under the threat of being compelled to quit the game, which threat is provided by supervising the political game and its major positions and by coercion (including intellectual one).