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Hegel als Denker des MarktesIn Ludwig Siep (ed.), G. W. F. Hegel: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag. 2014.
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10Fieldwork in Political Theory: Five Arguments for an Ethnographic SensibilityBritish Journal of Political Science 49 (2). 2019.This article makes a positive case for an ethnographic sensibility in political theory. Drawing on published ethnographies and original fieldwork, it argues that an ethnographic sensibility can contribute to normative reflection in five distinct ways. It can help uncover the nature of situated normative demands (epistemic argument); diagnose obstacles encountered when responding to these demands (diagnostic argument); evaluate practices and institutions against a given set of values (evaluative …Read more
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13Big data and the risk of misguided responsibilizationEthics and Information Technology 26 (3): 1-10. 2024.The arrival of “big data” promises new degrees of precision in understanding human behavior. Could it also allow drawing a finer line between “choice” and “circumstances”? In a culture in which individual responsibility continues to be celebrated, this raises questions about new opportunities for institutional design with a stronger focus on individual responsibility. But what is it that can be learned from big data? In this paper I argue that we should not expect a “god’s eye view” on choice ve…Read more
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306How Institutions Decay: Towards an Endogenous TheoryEconomics and Philosophy 1-18. forthcoming.When organizations solve collective action problems or realize values, they do so by means of institutions. These are commonly regarded as self-stabilizing. Yet, they can also be subject to endogenous processes of decay, or so we argue. We explain this in terms of psychological and cultural processes, which can change even if the formal structures remain unchanged. One key implication is that the extent to which norms, values, and ideals motivate individuals to comply with institutions is limite…Read more
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8Two Ways of “Taming” the MarketIn Andrew Buchwalter (ed.), Hegel and Capitalism, State University of New York Press. pp. 147-162. 2015.
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290Cook Ding meets homo oeconomicus: Contrasting Daoist and economistic imaginaries of workCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. 2024.In this paper, we attempt to de-naturalize the prevailing economistic imaginary of work that Max Weber and later commentators described as ‘protestant work ethic,’ epitomized in the figure of homo economicus. We do so by contrasting it with the imaginary of skillful work that can be found in vignettes about artisans in the Zhuangzi. We argue that there are interesting contrasts between these views concerning 1) direct goal achievement vs. indirect goal achievement through the cultivation of skil…Read more
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58Education, Authority, and the Critical Citizen. Democratic Schooling and the Disestablishment of Education and StatePhilosophical Quarterly 74 (2): 698-701. 2024.
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52Bodies at WorkSocial Theory and Practice 50 (1): 57-79. 2024.“Home office” has become a reality for many employees. What is normatively at stake in this shift in the geography of work, given the various forms of structural injustice in our societies? Drawing on the normative criteria of employee well-being and protection from harm, autonomy, non-discrimination, environmental impact, and the role of workplaces as spaces of social encounters, I defend two claims: First, decisions about where individuals work need to be proceduralized on a fair basis, giving…Read more
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55III—Sympathy, Empathy, and Twitter: Reflections on Social Media Inspired by an Eighteenth-Century DebateProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 123 (1): 51-72. 2023.How can the harm caused by waves of fake news or derogatory speech on social media be minimized without unduly limiting freedom of expression? I draw on an eighteenth-century debate for thinking about this problem: Hume and Smith present two different models of the transmission of emotions and ideas. Empathetic processes are causal, almost automatic processes; sympathy, in contrast, means putting oneself into the other person’s position and critically evaluating how one should react. I use this …Read more
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72Urban–rural justiceJournal of Political Philosophy 31 (2): 233-253. 2023.Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.
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6Grenzen und Pseudogrenzen – und wie man versuchen kann, sie zu unterscheidenPhilosophisches Jahrbuch 127 (1): 76-82. 2020.
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17Virtues, interests and institutions, or: ordinary and heroic virtuesPhilosophisches Jahrbuch 120 (2): 238-256. 2013.
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14Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch, „Anerkennung“ als Prinzip der kritischen Theorie (= Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie 104)Philosophisches Jahrbuch 119 (2): 478-480. 2012.
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34The epistemic division of labour in markets: knowledge, global trade and the preconditions of morally responsible agencyEconomics and Philosophy 36 (2): 266-286. 2020.Markets allow for the processing of decentralized information through the price mechanism. But in addition, many markets rely on other mechanisms in markets, or non-market institutions, that provide and manage other forms of knowledge. Within national economies, these institutions form an ‘epistemic infrastructure’ for markets. In global markets, in contrast, this epistemic infrastructure is very patchy, undermining the preconditions for morally responsible agency. New technologies might help to…Read more
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51Corporate knowledge and corporate power. Reining in the power of corporations as epistemic agentsCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 27 (3): 363-382. 2024.In this paper I discuss the power of corporations as epistemic agents. Corporations need to hold certain forms of knowledge in order to develop and produce goods and services. Intellectual property is meant to incentivize them to do so, in ways that orient their activities towards the public good. However, corporations often use their knowledge strategically, not only within markets, but also in the processes that set the rules for markets. I discuss various historical examples, including the so…Read more
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68‘But it’s your job!’ the moral status of jobs and the dilemma of occupational dutiesCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. forthcoming.
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13Markt und WettbewerbIn Ludger Heidbrink, Alexander Lorch & Verena Rauen (eds.), Handbuch Wirtschaftsphilosophie Iii: Praktische Wirtschaftsphilosophie, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 201-213. 2021.Nach einer allgemeinen Hinführung zu den Themen „Markt“ und „Wettbewerb“ und deren normativen Dimension wird eine Reihe von wirtschaftsethischen Fragestellungen diskutiert: die deutschsprachige Debatte über den „Ort“ der Moral im Markt sowie verschiedene angelsächsische Debatten, die eine differenzierte Sicht auf die Problematik von Moral unter Bedingungen des Wettbewerbs erlauben. Abschließend wird argumentiert, dass sich in Situationen, in denen Wettbewerb die Erfüllung moralischer Pflichten e…Read more
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14Anerkennung in der ÖkonomieIn Ludwig Siep, Heikki Ikaheimo & Michael Quante (eds.), Handbuch Anerkennung, Springer. pp. 391-396. 2018.Der Beitrag diskutiert den Zusammenhang von Anerkennung und Ökonomie, indem zunächst auf Adam Smiths anerkennungstheoretische Deutung menschlichen Eigeninteresses eingegangen wird, die in der späteren ökonomischen Theoriebildung jedoch verlorengegangen ist. Anschließend werden Stränge der aktuelleren Wirtschaftstheorie, die Anklänge an Anerkennungsthemen haben, sowie Axel Honneths Diskussion von Märkten aus der Perspektive sozialer Freiheit dargestellt.
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54A realist epistemic utopia? Epistemic practices in a climate campJournal of Social Philosophy 53 (1): 38-58. 2021.Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 53, Issue 1, Page 38-58, Spring 2022.
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435Obligations in a global health emergency - Authors’ replyLancet 398 (10316): 2072. 2021.In response to commentators, we argue that whether waiving patent rights will meaningfully improve access to COVID-19 vaccines for low income and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in the short term, is an empirical matter. We also reject preferentially allocating vaccines to countries that hosted trials because doing so unethically favours those with research infrastructure, rather than those facing the worst burdens from COVID-19.
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869What are the obligations of pharmaceutical companies in a global health emergency?Lancet 398 (10304): 1015. 2021.All parties involved in researching, developing, manufacturing, and distributing COVID-19 vaccines need guidance on their ethical obligations. We focus on pharmaceutical companies' obligations because their capacities to research, develop, manufacture, and distribute vaccines make them uniquely placed for stemming the pandemic. We argue that an ethical approach to COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution should satisfy four uncontroversial principles: optimising vaccine production, including…Read more
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108Global reserve currencies from the perspective of structural global justice: distribution and dominationCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 24 (7): 931-953. 2021.This paper discusses global reserve currencies from the perspective of structural global justice. Drawing on notions of structural justice and background justice, it suggests that the structures of global finance, by creating positions of privilege and disadvantage, can lead to injustices both with regard to distributive outcomes and with regard to domination. While the role of the dollar and Euro as global reserve currencies are not the only factors that contribute to these structural injustice…Read more
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68Is the privatization of state functions always, and only intrinsically, wrong? On Chiara Cordelli’s The Privatized StateEuropean Journal of Political Theory 22 (4): 657-665. 2023.The legitimacy of putting public activities – such as providing education and welfare, but also running prisons or providing military services – into the hands of private companies is hotly contested. In The Privatized State, Chiara Cordelli puts forward an original argument, from a Kantian perspective, for why it is problematic: it replaces the omnilateral will of all citizens, which is realized through public institutions, with the unilateral will of agents to whom these activities have been d…Read more
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37Algorithmisches Entscheiden, Ambiguitätstoleranz und die Frage nach dem SinnDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 69 (2): 197-213. 2021.In more and more contexts, human decision-making is replaced by algorithmic decision-making. While promising to deliver efficient and objective decisions, algorithmic decision systems have specific weaknesses, some of which are particularly dangerous if data are collected and processed by profit-oriented companies. In this paper, I focus on two problems that are at the root of the logic of algorithmic decision-making: (1) (in)tolerance for ambiguity, and (2) instantiations of Campbell’s law, i. …Read more
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75Making Power ExplicitSocial Theory and Practice 47 (2): 221-246. 2021.In this paper we argue that liberal-egalitarian theorists of justice should take power, especially economic power, seriously and make it explicit. We argue that many theories of justice have left power implicit, relying on what we call the “primacy of politics” model as a background assumption. However, this model does not suffice to capture the power relations of today’s globalized world, in which the power of nation states has been reduced and material inequality has sky-rocketed. We suggest r…Read more
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42Shared Standards versus Competitive Pressures in JournalismJournal of Applied Philosophy 39 (3): 393-406. 2022.Democratic societies need media that uphold journalistic standards of truthfulness and objectivity. But sensationalism has always been a temptation for journalists, and given the intense competition between news outlets, especially in the online world, there is pressure on them to ‘chase the clicks’. The article analyzes the incentive structures for journalists – focusing on the harmfulness of sensationalist framing as an example – and the challenges of establishing shared standards in a highly …Read more
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36Two challenges for participatory deliberative democracy: expertise and the workplaceKrisis 40 (1): 91-98. 2020.This essay is part of a dossier on Cristina Lafont's book Democracy without Shortcuts.
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26Reclaiming the System. Moral Responsibility, Divided Labour, and the Role of Organizations in Society. Oxford uOxford University Press. 2018.The world of wage labour seems to have become a soulless machine, an engine of social and environmental destruction. Employees seem to be nothing but 'cogs' in this system - but is this true? Located at the intersection of political theory, moral philosophy, and business ethics, this book questions the picture of the world of work as a 'system'. Hierarchical organizations, both in the public and in the private sphere, have specific features of their own. This does not mean, however, that they ca…Read more
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2138An ethical framework for global vaccine allocationScience 1. 2020.In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, s…Read more
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20Die strukturelle Perspektive auf globale Gerechtigkeit und die Verantwortung epistemischer GemeinschaftenIn Julian Nida-Rümelin, Detlef Daniels & Nicole Wloka (eds.), Internationale Gerechtigkeit Und Institutionelle Verantwortung, De Gruyter. pp. 369-382. 2019.
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University of GroningenAssociate Professor
University of Oxford
DPhil, 2011
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
19th Century Philosophy |