> In any society, you're going to have diverse views of "the right thing."

Not only that, but you're also going to have people disguising their personal, selfish ambitions for power or money (or both, those two ambitions are usually found together) by pretending to other people that they want "the right thing". Most politicians operate this way. (I can't say "all" because there are some examples in history of politicians who truly wanted "the right thing" and actually gave up personal power when it was necessary, for the sake of having "the right thing" happen. Cincinnatus is the often-cited example, for very good reasons.)

Which is another reason why legal structures such as the American Constitution, which constrains (or would constrain if actually followed, which is a whole other rant) the power of government to certain specific channels, are important to have. They limit what the power-seekers can actually do with that power once they obtain it, and provide ways for turfing said power-seekers out of office if enough people agree to remove them. (Then you probably end up electing another power-seeker, because those end up being the vast majority of the candidate pool... but sometimes you get really, really lucky and get someone like George Washington).