What do Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu have in common? Answer: a chronic inability to tell right from wrong. The three leaders currently causing the most harm in the world share a predilection for violence, a chilling lack of compassion, and extraordinary self-regard mixed with paranoia. Yet the characteristic linking them most closely is their rejection of – or failure to grasp – basic moral standards. Worse, these men typically behave, in their public lives at least, in ways that are fundamentally immoral. And that’s a problem for everyone. Their moral malaise is contagious.

Ideas about what, in absolute terms, constitutes right and wrong are always contentious, as moral philosophers from Aristotle to Kant have shown. Pope Leo, leader of the world’s Catholics, warned recently that “we are living in a time when it is becoming difficult even to recognise what is truly good for everyone”. Yet most people, most of the time, observe a personal moral code held in common with others. There is broad agreement, for example, that it’s wrong to kill, steal, cheat and lie. In an ostensibly secular age, 76% of people worldwide identified with a religion in 2020 – a potent expression of individual and collective morality.

Putin’s Russia deliberately fires missiles at Ukraine, randomly murdering civilians. In most people’s book, that’s immoral. Netanyahu’s Israel is still committing genocide by targeting Gaza’s children, the UN says. That’s immoral, too. And the defining immorality of the Trump regime knows no bounds. The US vice-president, JD Vance, claimed last week that the Watergate scandal that shattered Richard Nixon’s presidency would not be a big deal today. Nixon conspired to subvert the US constitution, acted criminally and lied to the American people. But as Vance’s remarks implied, such behaviour is par for the course these........

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