Abstract
The prospect of an east–west conversation on good governance, facilitated by the device of assigning representative roles to those less familiar with the represented material, was an intriguing one to me. As a political theorist passionate about Kant’s cosmopolitanism and steeped in Rawlsian thought experiments, I loved the idea that we would have to draw a more-literal-than-usual veil of ignorance around ourselves in discussion. Preparing to introduce sessions on Confucian values brought an intensity to my study that reminded me of graduate school, in a good way. It was a pleasure to immerse myself in the work of Sungmoon Kim and other modern Confucian political theorists in the run up to our meeting. Following my other main scholarly interest, in environmental decision-making, I discovered the work of Confucian scholars of energy policy and other environmental questions. I was reading about Confucian thought in my study in Dunedin, known as the “wildlife capital” of Aotearoa New Zealand, and arguably the most remote center of learning anywhere. It seemed natural to me that an east–west conversation on good governance would focus on finding common ground and perhaps even sources of hope about the climate and sustainability crises already affecting daily life in Dunedin and everywhere else.