•  543
    Anne Schwenkenbecher’s Getting Our Act Together offers an in-depth and timely account of how our ability to act jointly can create so-called joint moral duties. Getting Our Act Together not only co...
  •  362
    Principle-Based Moral Judgement
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (2): 339-354. 2013.
    It is widely acknowledged that moral principles are not sufficient to guide moral thought and action: they need to be supplemented by a capacity for judgement. However, why can we not rely on this capacity for moral judgement alone? Why do moral principles need to be supplemented, but are not supplanted, by judgement? So-called moral particularists argue that we can, and should, make moral decisions on a case-by-case basis without any principles. According to particularists, the person of moral …Read more
  •  141
    A Kantian solution to the problem of imperceptible differences
    European Journal of Philosophy 27 (4): 837-851. 2019.
    There are cases such as climate change where the cumulative effects of the actions of several agents lead to grave harm but where no individual agent can make a perceptible difference for the better or worse. According to Derek Parfit, dealing with such imperceptible difference cases requires substantial changes to the way we think about morality. InOn What Matters, Parfit builds on Kantian Ethics to address the problem of imperceptible differences, but the transformation that Kant's theory unde…Read more
  •  57
    Der Vorrang des Pflichtbegriffs in kollektiven Kontexten
    Zeitschrift für Praktische Philosophie 2 (2): 87-120. 2015.
    Obgleich die Ausdrücke ‚moralische Pflicht’ und ‚moralische Verantwortung’ auf den ersten Blick nahezu austauschbar scheinen, ist in einigen Debatten dennoch fast ausschließlich von moralischer Verantwortung die Rede. Dies gilt insbesondere für die moralische Beurteilung von individuellen Handlungen in kollektiven Kontexten. Hier scheint die Rede von einer ‚kollektiven Verantwortung‘ besonders attraktiv zu sein. In diesem Aufsatz setze ich mich diesem Trend entgegen und argumentiere dafür, dem P…Read more
  •  40
    Moralisch urteilen ohne Prinzipien? Überlegungen zu Jan Gertkens Prinzipien in der Ethik
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 69 (1): 78-83. 2015.
  •  21
    Moralischer Partikularismus
    In Ralf Stoecker, Christian Neuhäuser & Marie-Luise Raters (eds.), Handbuch Angewandte Ethik, Verlag J.b. Metzler. pp. 95-102. 2011.
    Die Geschichte der normativen Ethik ist in weiten Teilen eine Geschichte von Versuchen, Prinzipien zu identifizieren und verteidigen, die uns erklären, warum bestimmte Handlungen, Institutionen und Charaktereigenschaften moralisch richtig oder falsch, gerecht oder ungerecht, tugendhaft oder untugendhaft sind. Moralische Partikularisten stellen diese Hegemonie moralischer Prinzipien in Frage. Der Begriff des Partikularismus beschreibt eine Reihe von Positionen, die moralischen Prinzipien und prin…Read more
  •  20
    Joint Abilities: A Relational Approach
    Erkenntnis 1-19. forthcoming.
    Moral and political philosophy as well as public discourse is rife with talk about joint abilities: we are able to mitigate climate change, alleviate world poverty, or end a pandemic through social distancing and high vaccination rates. However, despite its common usage, the concept of joint ability has received surprisingly little attention in the philosophical literature. What exactly does it mean to say that we can or cannot do something _together_? According to the dominant conception of joi…Read more
  •  19
    Ist Lügen wie Schachspielen?
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 72 (5): 753-759. 2024.
  •  15
    Moral principles
    Bloomsbury Academic. 2014.
    The history of moral philosophy has been dominated by attempts to find and defend the correct moral principle or set of principles. However, over the last two decades the assumption that morality can and should be understood in terms of principles has come under attack from several quarters. The most radical attack has come from so-called moral particularists according to whom principles are at best useless and at worst a hindrance to successful moral reasoning and action.Why should - and how ca…Read more