Ethics of Improvisation

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An Ethics of Improvisation takes up the puzzles and lessons of improvised music in order to theorize the building blocks of a politically just society. The investigation of what politics can learn from the people who perform and listen to musical improvisation begins with an examination of current social discourses about “the political” and an account of what social justice could look like. From there, the book considers what a politically just society’s obligations are to people who do not want to be part of the political community, establishing respect for difference as a fundamental principle of social interaction. What this respect for difference entails when applied to questions of the aesthetic value of music is aesthetic pluralism, the book argues. Improvised jazz, in particular, embodies different values than those of the Western classical tradition, and must be judged on its own terms if it is to be respected. Having established the need for aesthetic pluralism in order to respect the diversity of musical traditions, the argument turns back to political theory, and considers what distinct resources improvisation theory—the theorizing of the social context in which musical

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