I am a philosopher who is interested in normativity. Currently, I write about reasons and responsibility as a postdoc at the University of Siena, Italy. I am Swedish, but I have worked in four different countries across Europe since 2015: before Siena, I had research stints in projects at Pavia and Vienna, teaching stints at Gothenburg and Durham, and did my PhD at Leeds.
My AOS:s are metaethics, philosophy of action, and normative ethics, and my AOC:s are social and political philosophy, epistemology, and the philosophy of the social sciences. But really I am interested in all kinds of issues that intersect with the content of my research, regardless of which philosophical or other scholarly fields they ordinarily are thought to belong to.
One overarching theme of my research is agency - both descriptively and prescriptively. On the side of individual agency, I develop and defend what I call Humean constitutivism, including its implications in various philosophical domains. I have paid particular attention to various norms for agents, including reasons, rationality, and morality. On the side of group agency, I explore tensions and interconnections between individual and group agents. Here, I have argued against the increasingly dominant so-called realist view of group agency.
My publications are listed below. You can find more information about me and my work on my personal website and on philpeople.
Editorship
- Leffler, Olof & Moen, Lars (2025). Group Agency (special issue), Inquiry, 68(3).
- Leffler, Olof (2025). “Desire, Disagreement, and Corporate Mental States”, in Inquiry (Leffler, Olof and Moen, Lars. eds. Group Agency special issue), 68(3), pp. 1000-1020. [Originally published Online First 2023.]
- Leffler, Olof (2024a). “Constitutivism’s Plight: Normativity, Inescapability, and Relativism”, in The Philosophical Quarterly. [Published Online First 2024, full details TBC.]
- Leffler, Olof (2024b). “Contingency, Sociality, and Moral Progress”, in Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 522-541. [Originally published Online First 2023.]
- Leffler, Olof (2024c). “Rationality, Shmationality: Even Newer Shmagency Worries”, in Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 371-404.
- Leffler, Olof (2024d). “Market Failures and Moral Failures: A Dilemma”, in Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 153-171.
- Leffler, Olof (2023a). “Agent-Switching, Plight Inescapability, and Corporate Agency”, in Analytic Philosophy. [Published Online First 2023, full details TBC.]
- Leffler, Olof (2023b). “Zombies Incorporated”, in Theoria, Vol. 89, No. 5, pp. 640-659.
- Leffler, Olof (2023c). “A Reason to Know”, in Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 57, No. 3, pp. 557-575. [Originally published Online First 2021.]
- Leffler, Olof (2022). “How Simple is the Humean Theory of Motivation?”, in Philosophical Explorations, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 125-140.
- Leffler, Olof (2019). “New Shmagency Worries”, in Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 121-145.
- Leffler, Olof (2016a). “The Foundations of Agency – and Ethics?”, in Philosophia, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 547-563.
Book Chapters
- Leffler, Olof (2020). “Reasons Internalism, Cooperation, and Law”, in Garcia-Godinez, Miguel; Mellin, Rachael & Tuomela, Raimo (eds.). Social Ontology, Normativity and Law, De Gruyter, GER: Berlin, pp. 115-132.
- Leffler, Olof (2014). “Om rättfärdigandereflektion”, in Alarcon, Meri; Amundsen Bergström, Matilda; Kaveh, Tanja & Pettersen, Andrea Vilde (eds.). Meningens motstånd, Göteborgs universitet: LIR, SWE: Gothenburg, pp. 35-39.
Book Reviews
- Leffler, Olof (2018). “Recension av Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World – Beyond Tolerance (Ryan Muldoon)”, in Tidskrift för Politisk Filosofi, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 46-51.
- Leffler, Olof (2016b). “Recension av From Morality to the End of Reason (Ingmar Persson)”, in Filosofisk Tidskrift, Vol. 2016, No. 1, pp. 60-65.