Provisional Politics: Kantian Arguments in Policy Context

by Elisabeth Ellis

If we are to vindicate moral reasoning in politics, Elisabeth Ellis argues in this original and provocative work, we must focus on the conditions of political discourse rather than the contents of any particular ethical system. Written in an engaging, direct style, Provisional Politics builds on Ellis's prize-winning interpretation of Kant's theory of provisional right to construct a new theory of justice under conditions of agency and plurality. She develops this new perspective through a series of cases ranging from the treatment of AIDS widows in Kenya to the rights of non-citizens everywhere, as well as the clash between democratic decision-making and the politics of species conservation. The book concludes with a sobering discussion of the probable limits of political agency.

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 12, 2008

About the author

Elisabeth Ellis is Associate Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University. She is affiliated with the Applied Biodiversity Sciences NSF-IGERT program and the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, both at Texas A&M. Ellis holds a B.A. in Germanic Languages and Literature from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley. She is currently serving as associate editor for a new eight-volume edition of the Encyclopedia of Political Thought, to be published under the auspices of the Foundations of Political Theory section of the APSA. Ellis is a member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Political Science, the advisory board of the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, and governing committee of the Association for Political Theory.