Jochen Bojanowski is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy, who does research in moral and political philosophy, with a particular interest in Kant’s practical philosophy.

His first book, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, articulates and defends Kant’s incompatibilist account of free will as a capacity for moral autonomy—thus dealing with some of the most vexing problems in Kant’s moral philosophy and metaphysics. His second book, Fraternal Justice (Geschwisterliche Gerechtigkeit), contributes to contemporary debates in political philosophy by seeking to interpret the value of sorority or fraternity in light of the contingency of our human lives. To take a sororal or fraternal attitude towards other people—Bojanowski argues—means rejecting distributive advantages based on differences in brute luck. Currently, he is working on a third book project, which seeks to determine the role of interpretation in ethics and social philosophy. Many of his research articles are concerned with the core topics of these three monographs.

Professor Bojanowski teaches courses that touch on a range of issues in value theory: e.g. ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, aesthetics, and existentialism. He has historical interests in the Enlightenment period and the 19^th century. His recent introductory course in ethics deals with both foundational issues (e.g., fundamental divisions within normative ethical theory between utilitarians and deontologists) and applied issues (e.g.,  famine relief, abortion, and the ethical foundations of our economic systems). His recent graduate seminar in social philosophy deals with topics such as desert, political emotions, human rights, gender issues, exploitation, and critical disability studies.