Gloria Mähringer

I am working at the intersection of moral psychology, philosophy of mind and metaethics. The focus of my phd thesis is the ontology of practical reasons.

In specific, I examine the thesis that acting for reasons turns us into self-determining agents. The idea of a self-determining agent is, I believe, still underdeveloped in the research field of reasons and normativity. To fill this gap, I draw from research about mind and cognition, in particular social cognition. I argue for the thesis that self-determination is a phenomenon of social cognition - only possible for creatures sharing reasons with others of the same kind. I suggest a social ontology of reasons - describing reasons as abstract items of a collective archive.

Related interests range from political theories of freedom and equality to legal theory and - having a background in human medicine - also psychiatry and psychopathology.

In spring 2019, I am a visitor at LOGOS (Barcelona), funded by Vitterhetsakademien.