PD Dr. Michael von Grundherr

Personal information

Michael von Grundherr is a lecturer at the Research Center for Neurophilosophy and Ethics of Neuroscience. In his philosophical training in Göttingen, Munich, and Cambridge (UK), he focused on theoretical questions of (analytical) ethics. His doctoral thesis (supervised by Karl Homann) dealt with the metaethical foundations of contractarianism. During his time as a postdoc, he completed an interdisciplinary project on moral psychology and taught at the Graduate School of Systemic Neuroscience (GSN). Among other things, he worked with a school psychology team to investigate how moral reasoning skills and behavior in bullying situations are related. He now concentrates primarily on applied questions of business ethics.

Research interests

Michael von Grundherr currently works and teaches primarily on topics of business ethics (e.g. digitalization, climate change, global governance). Other areas of research include moral psychology, metaethics and contractarianism.

Selected publications

1. von Grundherr, M.: Moral aus Interesse: Metaethik der Vertragstheorie. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2007.
2. von Grundherr, M., Jauernig, J. & Uhl, M.: To Condemn is not to Punish: An Experiment on Hypocrisy. Games 12(2): 38 (2021).
3. Friedrich, O. & von Grundherr, M.: Moralische Kompetenz und Medizinethikausbildung im Medizinstudium, in U. Müller, P. Richter & T. Potthast (eds.), Anwenden und Abwägen. Tübingen: Narr Franke Attempto, 2018, pp. 207-219.
4. Döhne, M., von Grundherr, M. & Schäfer, M.: Peer Influence in Bullying: The Autonomy-Enhancing Effect of Moral Competence. Aggressive Behavior 44(6): 591-600 (2018).
5. von Grundherr, M., Geisler, A., Stoiber, M. & Schäfer, M.: Moral reasoning competence and school bullying. Social Development 26(2): 278-294 (2017).
6. von Grundherr, M. Order ethics and psychological situationism, in C. Lütge, N. Mukerji (eds.), Order Ethics: An Ethical Framework for the Social Market Economy. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2016, pp. 79-92.
7. von Grundherr, M.: Moral argumentation skills and aggressive behavior: Implications for philosophical ethics, in C. Brand (ed.), Dual-process theories in moral psychology. Interdisciplinary approaches to theoretical, empirical and practical considerations. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2016, pp. 121-140.
8. von Grundherr, M.: Moralische Reflexion und aggressives Verhalten in der Schule. Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik 37(2): 14-26 (2015).
9. von Grundherr, M.: Kompetenz, Selbstwirksamkeitserwartung und die Rolle von Vorbildern in der Ordnungsethik. Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik 15(3): 319-334 (2014).
10. von Grundherr, M.: Moralische Gefühle als Sanktionen. Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 60(3): 412-420 (2006).