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dr. Jan Willem Wieland

Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Moral and Political Philosophy

Research

Since joining the VU in 2013, my work has centered on responsibility.

Starting with a Veni postdoc on strategic ignorance, I’ve explored why we sometimes look away from the harm we cause, and whether that excuses us. See e.g. "Responsibility for Strategic Ignorance" (Synthese, 2017) and Responsibility: The Epistemic Condition (OUP, 2017).

Over the past few years, I’ve been working on collective harms, such as climate change. Why take responsibility even if it makes no difference? See e.g. "Participation and Superfluity" (JMP, 2020), Julia Nefsky’s reply, "Kantian Free Riding" (JESP, 2024), and The Ethics of Inefficacy (Routledge, 2026).

One of my claims is that we should not fly because we should not make an unfair exception for ourselves. See "Vliegen binnen je budget?"

Upcoming project on social cohesion.

Teaching

I teach on all sorts of responsibility questions. Do companies like Shell have a responsibility to help fight climate change? To what extent can the food industry be held responsible for our health? Should the government take more responsibility? Should we take responsibility for historical injustices (e.g. Dutch colonialism)? Who’s responsible for what AI does?

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