The Continuity of Ethics and Political Theory

Abstract

What is the relationship between ethics and political theory? In particular, is the study of interpersonal and social morality continuous with inquiry into how we should lead our political lives? This article evaluates the call for firmer boundaries between moral and political thought that is central to recent realist critiques of analytical political theory. I identify, and reject, three versions of this position, which I term “discontinuity realism.” My critique draws attention to an important silence within discontinuity realism, concerning how its call to address politics from within relates to the feminist insight that politics is deeply intertwined with our personal choices and interpersonal relationships. The article goes on to defend an alternative “continuity” approach to the study of ethics and political theory. This approach better realizes the realist’s own aspiration for greater sensitivity to empirical detail in normative political theory.