Authorities questionable morality

Moralist Carlos Santiago Nino drew the following conclusion in his 1991 book The Ethics of Human Rights…

“If a man is a moral man then laws are not needed by him. Yet it is seen that because there are a lot of immoral men then there needs to be laws and governments to make sure the laws are employed. Governing bodies have the right to govern, but man is always striving for his freedom, his independence. Governments are seen as a way of coercing immoral people to become moral by law and force and terror.”

Yet does this approach actually work? Can you be moral and coercive at the same time? Can you force morality onto someone? If so, and if it worked, then surely rape and murder would cease to exist, alongside all other societal ills?

Thomas Hobbes, writing his book Leviathan in 1651, saw human nature as essentially evil and selfish, which is why people needed to be governed by a greater being than themselves. But who might these greater beings be? And what do you make of this part of a letter written by a lord to a bishop in 1887…?

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.”
Lord Dalberg-Acton

Are governments comprised of the finest high priests of righteousness and morality? Or, lord forbid, might they themselves indulge in the occasional spot of skulduggery and corruption?

The department of political science at the University of Hawaii estimates that in the 20th century 262 million people were killed by their own governments.

What exactly is the point of authority if it cannot and does not stem the flow of immorality within its own ranks, never mind the population? Answers on a postcard.