Speakers
Julia Nefsky (Keynote), Dmitry Ananiev, Henrik Andersson & Jakob Werkmäster, Zach Barnett, Gunnar Björnsson, Mark Budolfson, James Christensen, Annalisa Costella, Mattias Gunnemyr, Frank Hindriks, Säde Hormio, Holly Lawford-Smith & William Tuckwell, Joakim Sandberg, Carolina Sartorio, Tessa Supèr, and Jan Willem Wieland.
Please find abstracts below!
About the Conference
Many significant outcomes arise from the combined actions of multiple individuals, even though no single action is pivotal to the result. Examples include addressing climate change, preventing overfishing, tackling injustices in the global garment industry, and divesting from unethical companies. While most agree that individuals have moral reasons to act in such scenarios, this raises a normative challenge – the “Inefficacy Problem”: When and why do individuals have reasons to act, even when their actions seem to make no discernible difference?
Since Parfit’s influential Reasons and Persons (1984), this question has sparked extensive philosophical inquiry. Recently, interest in the Inefficacy Problem has surged, generating lively debate among philosophers and beyond. The aim of this conference is to explore and advance new solutions to this puzzle, fostering critical dialogue and collaboration among contributors.
Programme
June 1
Evening: social event
June 2
09.00 Welcome
09.30 Holly Lawford-Smith and William Tuckwell “Lifestyle Politics”
Commentators: Mark Budolfson and Joakim Sandberg
10:30 Mattias Gunnemyr “Collective Harms and The Strength of Reasons”
Commentators: Holly Lawford-Smith and Carolina Sartorio
11:30 ---Coffee break---
11:50 Carolina Sartorio “The Structure of Outcome Responsibility: Lessons for the Ethics of Inefficacy”
Commentators: Gunnar Björnsson and William Tuckwell
12:50 ---Lunch break---
14:00 Jan Willem Wieland “Wasted Effort and Double Universalization”
Commentators: Zach Barnett and James Christensen
15:00 Dmitry Ananiev “Kantian Imperfect Duties and Collective Harm Cases”
Commentators: Tessa Supèr and Annalisa Costella
16:00 ---Coffee break---
16:20 Henrik Andersson and Jakob Werkmäster “Why We Should Not Be Surprised That There Are No Non-Threshold Cases”
Commentators: Annalisa Costella and Säde Hormio
17:15 ---End of day---
June 3
10.30 Joakim Sandberg “Why Inefficacy Matters: In Defense of Comprehensive Consequentialism”
Commentators: William Tuckwell and Carolina Sartorio
11:30 ---Coffee break---
11:50 Tessa Supèr “Inefficacy Induced Temptation” (winner Young Scholar Award)
Commentators: Dmitry Ananiev and Julia Nefsky
12:50 ---Lunch break---
14:00 Annalisa Costella “The Problem of Self-defeat: The Emperor’s New Clothes?”
Commentators: Zach Barnett and Säde Hormio
15:00 Säde Hormio “Contributing Enough: Acting in the Absence of a Relevant Difference”
Commentators: Julia Nefsky and Mark Budolfson
16:00 ---Coffee break---
16:20 Keynote: Julia Nefsky “The Other Side of the Inefficacy Coin”
19:00 ---Dinner---
June 4
09.30 Mark Budolfson “Evaluating the new generation of replies to the inefficacy objection to consequentialism”
Commentators: Gunnar Björnsson and Joakim Sandberg
10:30 Frank Hindriks “Threshold Contractualism: A Solution to the Insignificance Problem”
Commentators: Dmitry Ananiev and James Christensen
11:30 ---Coffee break---
11:50 Zach Barnett “Is There an Inefficacy Problem?”
Commentators: Henrik Andersson and Frank Hindriks
12:50 ---Lunch break---
14:00 James Christensen “Trading with Tyrants”
Commentators: Tessa Supèr and Holly Lawford-Smith
15:00 Gunnar Björnsson “Instrumental Reasons Without Difference-Making”
Commentators: Henrik Andersson and Frank Hindriks
16:00 ---End of conference---
Post-Conference Seminar
We are excited to announce an online-only seminar to discuss the chapters of two of our esteemed contributors who are unable to attend the conference in person.
Contributors and Topics:
Chrisoula Andreou: "Benevolence, Free Riding, and Efficacy"
Nikhil Venkatesh: "Collective Impact and the Problem of Mixed Optimality"
Details: June 13, 2025. 15:00 to 17:00 (Amsterdam/Stockholm time)
This seminar will provide an opportunity for in-depth discussion and engagement with their work. We encourage all participants to join and contribute to the conversation.
Publication and Awards
Most conference contributions will be published in the volume The Ethics of Inefficacy at Routledge in 2026. Mattias Gunnemyr (University of Gothenburg), Rutger van Oeveren (Rutgers University), and Jan Willem Wieland (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) will edit the volume.
The conference also includes a Young Scholar Award for PhD students and recent graduates (within three years of their PhD defense by the conference date). The winner of the young scholar award is Tessa Supèr, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, for her excellent paper “Inefficacy Induced Temptation”, which argues that Michael Bratman’s model of self-governance cannot solve the temptation problem in cases where the temptation arises because giving in to it does not make a difference to the overall outcome.
Contact: Mattias Gunnemyr (University of Gothenburg), Rutger van Oeveren (Rutgers University), and Jan Willem Wieland (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
The conference is organised in collaboration with the Financial Ethics Research Group, the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science at the University of Gothenburg, and the Department of Philosophy at Stockholm University. We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg (KVVS), the International Social Ontology Society (ISOS), and the Erik and Gurli Hultengren Fund for Philosophy at Lund University.
Link to International Social Ontology Society
