In a just and fair city, according to Plato, it’s the philosophers who rule. These philosopher kings combine politics with philosophy – leading from a more rarefied plane than those beholden to factions, favours and personal enrichment. These idealised rulers were less concerned with raw power than the application of wisdom, justice, temperance, courage and reason.
There has persisted throughout the history of liberal democracies a link between good character and leadership, even if the link has often been maintained tenuously or fraudulently (think of Bill Clinton saying, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”). Even amid such hypocrisy, there has at least been the appearance of a link, a common understanding, an unspoken agreement that character and the highest offices of leadership are intrinsically linked. Someone could not be a leader if they had a perceptibly defective character.
