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An Inquiry Into The Possibility Of An Ethical Politics, Louis E. Wolcher

Louis E Wolcher

Politics is about struggle against others, and it results in the use of law (and hence the threat of coercion) as its primary means for accomplishing its ends. Ethics is about care for others beyond all calculations of individual or collective self-interest. Can politics and ethics be reconciled? In particular, is an ethical politics possible for the twenty-first century? This essay traces the history of grounds and grounding in Western thought with respect to the problem of providing a foundation for any imaginable regime of "ethical" politics in something that would be more solid than mere individual preferences. The investigation …