About
I am Professor of Practical Philosophy at Bielefeld University and Principal Investigator of the ERC project "The Structure of
Normativity". My research focuses on foundational questions in moral philosophy, metaethics, and the theory of reasons and rationality. I also work on issues
in normative and applied ethics, political philosophy and epistemology.
Vita
I studied philosophy, early modern and modern German literature, and cultural studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin (M.A. 2007), where I also received my
doctorate in philosophy (2014). My dissertation examined the normativity of rationality (published 2017 by Oxford University Press, awarded with the Humboldt Prize 2014 and the Stegmüller Prize 2018). I was a visiting
student at the University of Nottingham (2003-2004), as well as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley (2009-2010) and the Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires
(2011). I worked as a lecturer and research assistant at the HU Berlin (2009-15), as a research associate at the Australian National University in Canberra
(2014), as a visiting professor at the University of Hamburg (2016-17), as a postdoctoral researcher at the Technical University Dresden (2020-21), and as a research fellow of the Centre
for Advanced Studies in the Humanities "Human Abilities" at the FU and the HU Berlin (2021-22). In 2022, I received an ERC Starting
Grant for my research project "The Structure of Normativity", which will run
for five years. I joined the philosophy
department at Bielefeld University in March 2023. In 2024, I received the German Award for
Philosophy.
You can download my CV here.
Contact
Prof. Dr. Benjamin Kiesewetter
Chair of Practical Philosophy
Universität Bielefeld
Abteilung Philosophie
Postfach: 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany
Email: [firstname] [dot] [lastname] [at] uni-bielefeld [dot] de
Book
Reviews and discussions in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, Ethics, Journal of Moral Philosophy, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Mind, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, PEA Soup, The Philosophical Review, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, Zeitschrift für philosophische Literatur.
Selected Articles
1. "What We May Expect of Each Other", forthcoming in Ethics, 2026. [PDF]
2. "Are Epistemic Reasons Normative?", Noûs 56 (3): 670–695, 2022. [PDF]
3. "Contrary-to-Duty Scenarios, Deontic Dilemmas, and Transmission Principles", Ethics 129 (1): 98–115, 2018. [PDF]
4. “You Ought to Φ Only If You May Believe that You Ought to Φ”, The Philosophical Quarterly 66 (265): 760-782, 2016.
[PDF]
5. “Instrumental Normativity: In Defense of the Transmission Principle”, Ethics 125 (4): 921-946, 2015. [PDF]
See Publications for full list.
See here for my PhilPapers and GoogleScholar profiles.
Work in Progress
1. "How To Be a Nonconsequentialist and Still Save the Greater Number".
2. "Exclusionary Reasons and the Balancing View of Ought".
4. "Epistemic Permissiveness and the Balancing view of Ought".