I am a political philosopher working on the political theory of the economic sphere. I am particularly interested in what a commitment to democracy means for economic institutions. I also have research interests in business ethics and the political and social philosophy of resistance and social change. I pursue my research in the spirit of realism and with a special concern for empirical grounding. I strive to clarify abstract normative claims through their application to real examples and through spelling out their meaning in real life. I work on issues like workplace democracy, expropriation, and strikes.
I am currently a Teaching Fellow at Utrecht University where I previously did my PhD and was part of the Corporatocracy project.
Before coming to Utrecht I did my BA in Philosophy in Frankfurt and an interdisciplinary MA in “Ethics - Economics, Law and Politics” in Bochum. You can find my full CV here.
In case you are currently listening to me giving a talk, you can find my slides here.
You can get in touch with me via e-mail: philippstehr at posteo dot de
I wrote my dissertation on the democratization of business corporations. Business corporations hold an enormous amount of power towards employees, contractors, customers, and the general public without any democratic control. This runs contrary to basic democratic convictions, so the democratization of business corporations is called for. In my thesis I explore several questions related to this project of democratization. What exactly does it mean to democratize a business corporation? Who should be involved and what kinds of institutional changes are democratic? How can we develop feasible institutional proposals for democratic business corporations? What are feasible institutional proposals and what does ‘feasible’ even mean in the context of such a fundamental change to our economic infrastructure?
You can find a longer description of my PhD research project here.
Expropriation as a measure of corporate reform - learning from the Berlin initiative. European Journal of Political Theory, Online First. Link (Open Access)
The Boundary Problem in Workplace Democracy: Who Constitutes the Corporate Demos? Political Theory, 51(3), 507-529. Link (Open Access)
Dienstpflicht von unten, www.praefaktisch.de, 2023. Link
with Savriel Dillingh: Hoe lossen we de wooncrisis op? Drie lessen uit de bedrijfsethiek, Bij Nader Inzien, 2022. Link
A Match Made in Law? On Corporations and Their Uncomfortable Fit with Democracy, The American Philosophical Association, 2021. Link
Das Berliner Volksbegehren und die politische Theorie des Unternehmens, www.praefaktisch.de, 2021. Link
In the Academic Year 2024/25 I’ll be teaching a range of graduate and undergraduate courses in the Philosophy, PPE, and Applied Ethics programs at Utrecht.
In 2022 and 2023 I have co-taught an Introduction to Political Philosophy for undergraduate PPE students at Utrecht.
From 2018 to 2020 I was a research and teaching assistant for a range of courses at Ruhr-University Bochum, including an introductory lecture on Ethics and graduate seminars on legitimacy, Kant, a Univeral Basic Income, and other topics in political philosophy.
Students can find some basic tips for studying philosophy here.
Philipp Stehr
Utrecht University
Janskerkhof 13
Utrecht, 3512 BL
The Netherlands