Political Science

Max Foley-Keene is a fifth year doctoral candidate in Political Science at Brown University. He has a primary field certificate in political theory and a secondary field certificate in American politics. His dissertation — engaging thinkers including Rosa Luxemburg, W.E.B. DuBois, Melissa Lane, and Pope Francis — aims to develop a virtue ethic that could enable socialist transformation in the face of catastrophic climate change. In this project, he argues that left environmentalists who are interested in the radical transformation of political economic structures ought to have an accompanying account of individual characterological transformation. Conversely, he criticizes the extant literature on environmental virtue for neglecting the structural-institutional determinants of virtue. His dissertation, while occasioned by contemporary environmental challenges, speaks to broader themes in political theory around democracy, ethical formation, racial oppression, and the dilemmas of radical politics.

A devoted teacher, Max is a recipient of the P. Terrence Hopmann Award for Excellence in Teaching. He holds an M.A. in Political Science from Brown University, as well as a B.A. (summa cum laude) in Political Science from the University of Maryland. Max is committed to public scholarship, and has essayed on religion, politics, and the philosophy of competitive sports for Commonweal magazine.

Job Market Paper: "A Green Rosa?: Melissa Lane, Rosa Luxemburg, and the dilemmas of eco-production"

Job Market Paper Abstract: How should climate change and ecological degradation make us feel? What habits, dispositions, or capacities might characterize individuals prepared to initiate radical political-ecological transformation in the face of immense opposition? Numerous theorists have engaged questions around the sensibilities and skills required for political life using the language of virtue. However, some contemporary democratic theorists have argued that virtue offers a poor foundation for a politics that respects plurality. In this paper, I aim to reclaim the language of virtue for a radically democratic environmental politics through engagements with two figures: the political theorist Melissa Lane and the socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg. I argue that Lane's account of ecological virtue — which aims to equip citizens with capacities of self-moderation in service of the good of sustainability — contains democratic deficits. I suggest Luxemburg's account of the "socialist civic virtues" offers answers to dilemmas occasioned by Lane's account that will be more satisfying to democrats, including those who are deeply suspicious of the language of virtue.

I then turn to Luxemburg's writings on animals and botany, arguing that these writings reveal a sensibility that is not just democratic but eco-democratic. Luxemburg is sensitive to the virtues necessary for securing the democratization of production, and to the interpenetration of the exploitation of nature and the exploitation of human beings. Taken together, her account can contribute to a radical politics aiming at the democratic stewardship of the relationship between human beings and nature.