Cambridge–LMU Strategic Partnership for Christian List and Rae Langton

Christian List (MCMP) and Rae Langton (Cambridge) have received a grant from the Cambridge–LMU Strategic Partnership for the project "New Directions on the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Normativity". The project includes four subprojects: (i) the origin of normative stance in childhood (led by Richard Holton, Cambridge, and Markus Paulus, LMU), (ii) social norms and normative powers (led by Rae Langton, Cambridge, and Laura Valentini, LMU), (iii) historical responsibility in a deterministic world (led by Christian List, LMU, and Richard Holton, Cambridge), and (iv) empathy (led by Monika Betzler, LMU, and Rae Langton, Cambridge). The MCMP-based subproject, on historical responsibility and (in)determinism, in particular, considers how historical events and actions can be understood as determined at one level, whilst free at another; and how this approach offers a better account of historical explanation. This sub-project will shed new light on how we should think about historical counterfactuals, whether history is deterministic or indeterministic, and whether free will can play an explanatory role in history.