ABSTRACT
Moral decision-making is not always straightforward, and sometimes we confront situations that appear to have no completely acceptable resolution. Our decisions, it may be said, leave us with “dirty hands.” Here we explore what are referred to as “dirty hands” situations, especially as they may impact police work, but then shift focus to a phenomenon that has been especially (though not exclusively) associated with policing: noble cause corruption. How closely does it track dirty hands, and how does it differ? I offer one possible way of normatively distinguishing the two that accounts for their differential treatment in the literature.
