In other words, perhaps, cold-blooded pragmatism versus warm and cuddly emotion.

As I see it there are also other sources of ethics.

There are those that come from the stomach (as opposed to the gut) which are neither emotional nor pragmatic. They are grounded in naked greed.

Further south in human anatomy, another kind of ethics comes from the nether regions and have a sexual bias.

Then there are business ethics. Volumes have been written on this subject but they invariably come down to platitudes thinly couched in feel good justifications for what is essentially ruthlessness.

And I am not forgetting religious ethics, a hybridisation of high minded ideals tainted by a sense of superiority and hypocrisy.

Personal ethics stem from nature, nurture and experience: who we are; how we were brought up; and what we have learned along the way.

Ethics are supposed to be standards and practices that guide our actions in various situations.

The problem with political ethics is that, no matter how well-intentioned politicians may be, they operate in an adversarial environment where power is the ultimate goal.

Survival in power is the pre-requisite for putting intentions, whether good or bad, into practise.

As private individuals, most of us want to cultivate harmony and peace in our lives.

On the other hand, politicians faced with the need to achieve power, are constantly always tempted to abandon any semblance of harmony and they may find it necessary to adopt any means possible to attain political power.

In Australia an example of this type of politician is the current leader of the federal Liberal Party and former policeman, Peter Dutton, a divisive personality.

In the USA, we see the aggressively unethical Donald Trump emerge as a national leader, breaching his own nation’s constitution to gain power if he has to.

In his renowned 1919 essay, ‘Politics as a Vocation’, the German sociologist Max Weber who wrote extensively on authority and power pointed out that force, violence, envy, conflict and the exercise of power are inherent in politics.

Weber termed these “diabolic forces”.

Opposing the diabolic forces was his ideal polity and bureaucracy that upheld rules and regulations and which strictly adhered to protocol.

Curiously, Weber didn’t specifically mention corruption among politicians, except to say that most people regarded politicians as naturally corrupt and most likely liars and thieves.

That’s an attitude that remains pervasive still. We expect public servants to be ethical but not politicians.

An adept politician, therefore, is one who can get away with many misdeeds and misdemeanours without getting caught.

A thought worth dwelling upon is whether it is better to have politicians who act largely unethically and get things done, or those who are ethical and fail to achieve.

Unfortunately, it seems that finding politicians who are both ethical and who achieve a great deal for their countries are very hard to find.