Sinja Hofmann

Dissertation

Working Title: Judgmentalism—An Unrecognized Way of Morally Wrong Behavior

Judging others is often seen as a bad thing because it can be flawed in many ways. A particularly flawed way of judging others is the phenomenon of judgmentalism, i.e., the rash, sometimes excessive, negative judging of others. Although it is generally agreed that judgmental people are doing something wrong, ethics has not really addressed judgmentalism. In my dissertation, I aim to fill this gap by outlining an ethics of judgment that answers the question of how we should actually judge others in order to answer the question of why judgmentalism is a wrong way of judging others. My working hypothesis is that judgmentalists violate a duty to suspend judgment. Judgmentalists disregard certain ethical reasons that obliged them to suspend their judgment in this case. The project is therefore located in applied ethics, but generally operates at the intersection of ethics and epistemology.

Curriculum Vitae

02/2023-08/2023 Research Associate at the Chair of Theoretical Philosophy (Prof. Dr. Anne Meylan), University of Zurich

10/2022-03/2023 Research Associate at the Chair V for Practical Philosophy and Ethics (Prof. Dr. Monika Betzler), LMU Munich

Since 04/2022 PhD in Philosophy at LMU Munich

10/2021-03/2022 Research Associate at the Chair V for Practical Philosophy and Ethics (Prof. Dr. Monika Betzler), LMU Munich

10/2019-09/2021 MA in Philosophy at LMU Munich

10/2014-03/2018 BA in Political Science and Philosophy at Goethe-University Frankfurt