When I began writing on the problems of political morality, in Politics, Innocence and the Limits of Goodness, my main interest was in how certain moral dispositions such as moral innocence might disqualify themselves from political engagement. The relation between morality and politics I saw not as a framework of principles providing a necessary constraint on politics, but as a case of moral character engaging with political demands often in circumstances of great urgency and strain. My view of those who might be described as unreflectively good, that is, those unaware of potential betrayal and hence the need for caution and prudence, was that they were capable only of a sort of hopeful trust, both in others and in the way things turn out. If moral innocents experience trust in this half-seen way I wanted to go on to ask about those who are not moral innocents how in fact they learn to exercise trust, particularly in situations where other people's intentions are often opaque. My attention turned, therefore, to the relation between trust and dirty hands. I wanted to see how it is possible for trust actually to be given to those who are likely to be called on to act badly for the sake of some political good when the chances are that those who are doing the trusting will be the victims of those actions. And to ask whether trusters base their trust in the moral character of officeholders, in rules intended to govern the behavior of officeholders qua officeholders or in the specific checks designed to control their conduct in advance.