Research
My habilitation project is titled What is Morality? A Cultural Solution the Sociality Problem. The primary goal of the project is to develop a comprehensive theory of morality that (1) accounts for moral phenomenology and (2) explains morality as a naturalistic, cultural tool for balancing cooperation and competition to the end of community building. In this context, I work on moral semantics (in particular: “hybrid expressivism”), moral metaphysics, moral memes, moral anthropology, and the nature of deliberation.
Below, you find a short video about some of my underlying ideas.
Besides my habilitation project, I work on papers.
In 2019, I was an associated fellow at the Zukunftskolleg Konstanz for the second time, participating in the mentorship program. In this context, I worked on realist-expressivism with David Copp.
In 2018, a slightly overhauled version of my dissertation was published as a monograph with DeGruyter. In the book, I develop and defend a Humean theory of normativity that is somewhat inspired by, albeit different from, Mark Schroeder’s and Peter Stemmer’s Humean views.
Also in 2018, Jacob Rosenthal and I organized a colloquium titled Moral Philosophy and the Sciences at the GAP conference in Cologne. It focused on interdisciplinary and empirically informed approaches to moral philosophy. Our invited speakers were Valerie Tiberius, Guy Kahane, and Neil Roughley.
In 2017, I was an associated fellow at the Zukunftskolleg Konstanz. In the framework of the Zukunftskollegs mentorship program I worked on the challenges of conative conflict with Jimmy Lenman. Ever since then, I have become more and more impressed about expressivism.
In July 2017 we held a small workshop on Jimmy's new book in the making, The Possibility of Moral Community, at the University of Konstanz.