The False Justification of the Lesser Evil in Governing a Leviathan
Whoever takes hold of the reins of a State or any immense structure of power immediately places themselves in a position of infinite ethical vulnerability. Yet a recurring moral justification among those who govern or aspire to govern is that of the “lesser evil.” It is heard in many forms: “I steal, yes, but I do not kill,” “I may kill, but I do not massacre,” “I may massacre, but at least my people eat.” At first glance this logic seems irrefutable. It reassures the one who accepts power: their fault would be attenuated by comparison with something worse. But this is precisely where the supreme moral trap lies, the deepest lie the ruler tells himself. And this lie does not lessen his fault, it makes it heavier.
The mirage of the lesser evil
Imagine a tyrant ruling through terror, beheading, persecuting the innocent. Another pretender to power thinks he will do better, that he will stop the bloodshed, that he will restore justice. The noble intention seems to absolve him morally, it even appears to confer a form of ethical immunity. Yet it is an illusion. The truth, clear but painful, is that the very decision to take power is already a voluntary acceptance of the full weight of all future consequences. Not only those foreseen or intended, but also the unforeseen, the ones the conscience does not anticipate.
Whoever believes that by removing a tyrant he is performing a just act is mistaken. Objectively the act may seem necessary, but ethically speaking it is different. The lesser evil does nothing to reduce the total moral weight of the fault. Ethics is not calculated in points, it does not proceed by subtraction relative to an alternative scenario. Each act is complete in itself, judged on what it contains, not by comparison with what it might have been. Stealing or massacring does not differ by degree but by essence. Ethics does not allow us to evaluate a fault according to the worse one it avoids. It obliges us to consider the absolute of each action.
The lesser evil as a comfortable illusion
This justification is the favorite moral weapon of rulers. It allows them to create a relative scale of ethics: everything becomes tolerable as long as something worse exists. But such reasoning has no authentic validity in morality. The existence of a greater evil never makes a lesser one acceptable. This is the stark and uncompromising truth of real ethics.
The “lesser evil” thus rests on an implicit claim to the infinite relativization of acts. Everyone compares themselves to someone worse in order to absolve their own responsibilities. It is a never-ending chain in which someone always finds a more monstrous figure, and this cascade of justifications sustains a psychological illusion. Yet moral reality is not relative. Evil is not graded. It is absolute. Each act is judged for its own existence, independent of what might have worsened or softened it.
The absolute moral responsibility of power
It is precisely because power multiplies potential consequences exponentially that the logic of the lesser evil becomes completely inoperative there. Whoever takes the helm of a Leviathan, that is, a State or an immense structure, becomes responsible not only for what he prevents or corrects, but for all the ramifications of what he commands. This includes even the consequences his conscience does not grasp and that exceed his understanding. Each decision propagates like a wave that crosses thousands of lives, often invisible to the one who gave the order.
Even in dethroning a bloodthirsty tyrant, every act undertaken afterwards irreversibly engages absolute moral responsibility. The ethical burden of a ruler is never diminished by initial intentions, nor even by the positive results that history might retain. It remains total, intangible, and absolute. The lesser evil cannot serve as a shield. To govern is to accept being judged not by comparison with the worst, but by the full essence of what one has made possible and real.
The function itself as fault
Some defend themselves by claiming that someone must do the job. It is the favorite argument of all the greedy who still retain a shred of conscience. They say that the task, so heavy, must inevitably be assumed, and that if they did not do it, someone worse would. This argument does not withstand analysis. The function itself is practically inseparable from grave ethical faults from the very first moment. For who can one imagine being to think oneself worthy of such capacities and such responsibility? To believe that the power of a Leviathan can be wielded like a neutral tool is an unbearable presumption. Governing is not a mere technical task but an act that engages the entire soul. The mere fact of considering oneself fit to govern already betrays a moral illusion and blindness to the true nature of power.
There is no justification in the idea that the position must be filled by someone. This logic assumes that the very existence of the function of domination is legitimate, when in fact its nature is corrupted from the start. To say it is better to have a ruler than no ruler amounts to considering that a structural fault can be made tolerable by comparison. But the evil of a disproportionate function cannot be justified by its necessity. It condemns itself by its very existence.
The conscious madness of power
All of this leads to a disturbing but unavoidable truth: to want to govern a Leviathan almost always stems from moral madness, from a total unconsciousness of the real ethical stakes, or from a conscious and desperate acceptance of the immeasurable scale of the task. Whoever accepts the command of an entity capable of unleashing immense consequences condemns themselves morally to carry the full weight of every breath of this creature. Even with the purest intentions, everything will be weighed not by what was prevented but by what was made real. To desire such a burden without trembling inwardly is the sign of either tragic unconsciousness or insane pride.
Humanity persists in believing that the grandeur of power elevates the one who holds it. In truth, it crushes and condemns him. Power does not liberate, it imprisons. It does not magnify, it corrupts radically, not by accident but by its very nature. To govern is to accept a responsibility no human mind was designed to bear. The lesser evil cannot serve as an excuse, for it does not change the essence of the acts and only increases the weight of the fault by the illusion of innocence it provides.
Conclusion: no one rules a Leviathan without being condemned
In the end, there is no moral escape, no valid relativization, no “lesser evil” that can stand against the implacable logic of absolute ethics. To rule a Leviathan is to be bound to infinite and indivisible responsibility. It is to be condemned from the very first instant, not only by visible faults but by the presumption of having believed that such a function could be assumed by a human being. The only coherent stance would be to be radically aware of it and to recognize the tragic scale of this condition. But few are. Most prefer to take refuge in the convenient fiction of a calculation of the lesser evil.
The ultimate philosophical lesson is clear: if morality has any meaning, then governing a Leviathan can never be a justifiable act. No one rules a Leviathan without being morally condemned by their own choice. In a truly sensible world filled with ethical beings, command would not be sought through ambition but imposed by necessity, perhaps on the wisest, or chosen by lot, or assumed reluctantly by one who does not want it. That would be an elementary truth, but one human greed refuses to accept. Power, conceived in this way, would no longer be a conquest but a curse. A task no one would desire, and which yet, by its very existence, would continue to involve an original fault that nothing could erase.