At the moment, I'm working on a bigger project. I'm examining how we can keep the market's virtues as an allocation mechanism while getting rid of some of its vices. The central idea is to examine non-ideal-type-but-non-failed markets, as for example the market for kidneys in the US, from a moral perspective. In this market, kidneys are exchanged, but not following the logic of the ideal-type market (impersonal forces of supply and demand coordinated via the price of the good). Still, what we see is anything but a case of market failure. In fact, the market is explicitly designed to operate in this way, i.e. not to rely on money as a means of facilitating exchange. How are we to evaluate the market for kidneys and similar non-ideal-type markets from an ethical perspective?


Monographs

  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2020). Commutative Justice. London and New York, Routledge.
Abstract: We all exchange things on the market day in, day out. Food, housing, labor, transportation, you name it. Market exchanges have become the predominant form of economic transaction in contemporary Western societies. But how can we know whether these everyday exchanges are just? Here is a troubling thought. Maybe it is not enough that nobody is deceived or exploited in such exchanges, or that the parties to the exchange act freely and voluntarily. Maybe we also need to take into account the combined effects of millions of individual exchanges. For is it not true that our seemingly harmless exchanges, if taken together, collectively cause things like global warming or global inequalities, further market imperialism and the overexploitation of our planet? In this book I develop a theory of justice in exchange which engages with this challenge head-on. I argue that, even if we accept this challenge, this does not lead to a wealth of new regulatory policies. The exchanges are alright. Contrary to the intuitive idea, it is not the market which is to blame.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2013). Economics and Social Conflict. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. [Link]
Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to provide empirical evidence on the existence of economically evil actions and evil social institutions. Firstly, providing evidence that evil actions and evil institutions exist and matter complements the already existing body of literature on human behavior in economics. Secondly, going beyond this, it is shown that established economic theories are incapable of accounting for some kind of evil actions motivated by what is seemingly a human “taste for harming”; and that the commonly held belief that social institutions that foster conflict will be overcome eventually might be too optimistic: Evil rules persist. Evil actions and evil institutions are phenomena to be considered in their own right. In order to prove these claims, research was conducted in the virtual world of “EVE Online”, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). The advantages and limitations of establishing MMORPGs as a new research environment for the social sciences are presented both theoretically and empirically. Overall, what is found in this thesis is as important as how it was found.


Articles & chapters

Abstract: Judging on the basis of standard accounts of commodification, one might reasonably suggest that liberalism intrinsically lacks an adequate theory of commodification. Liberalism, with its commitment to individual choice and to neutrality as regards competing evaluation practices, seems conceptually incapable of identifying or abolishing many significant forms of commodification. This essay aims to refute this claim. It employs a strategy of appealing to the harm principle as grounds for a liberal anti-commodification theory. I claim that we are harmed when we are denied ways to meaningfully engage in certain evaluative practices, ways that depend on evaluations shared with others with whom we stand in meaningful social relationships. Markets can crowd out these shared evaluations, and to this extent cause us psychological harm; this in turn supplies grounds for restrictions on certain markets within a liberal state.

Abstract: This essay argues that prediction markets, as one approach for aggregating dispersed private infor-mation, may not only be praised for their epistemic accuracy. They also feature characteristics that are morally desirable from the point of view of epistemic justice. Notably, they are a promising approach when we are trying to address testimonial injustice. The impersonality of market transactions effec-tively tackles the issue of identity prejudice, which underlies many forms of testimonial injustice. This is not to say that prediction markets do not pose challenges for epistemic justice of their own like the risk of excluding knowers based on ability to pay. Or, in light of identity prejudice’s systematicity, the risk of discouraging some knowers because of differences in education or social background that lead to a certain unease when faced with prediction markets. The essay discusses these challenges, con-cedes limitations but also offers countermeasures to certain worries – e.g. hosting prediction markets on a play-money basis. Throughout, the essay addresses the question of the potential scope of using prediction markets for epistemic purposes, notably by means of the practical example of a prediction market for monetary policy.

Abstract: This essay examines three potential arguments against high-frequency trading and offers a qual-ified critique of the practice. In concrete terms, it examines a variant of high-frequency trading that is all about speed – low-latency trading – in light of moral issues surrounding arbitrage, in-formation asymmetries, and systemic risk. The essay focuses on low-latency trading and the role of speed because it also aims to show that the commonly made assumption that speed in financial markets is morally neutral is wrong. For instance, speed is a necessary condition for low-latency trading’s potential to cause harm in “flash crashes”. On the other hand, it also plays a crucial role in a Lockean defense against low-latency trading being wasteful developed in this essay. Finally, this essay discusses the implications of these findings for related high-frequency trading techniques like futures arbitrage or latency arbitrage – as well as for an argu-ment as to why quote stuffing is wrong. Overall, the qualifications offered in this essay act as a counterbalance to overblown claims about trading at high speeds being wrong.

Abstract: If money is used in a market setting, and if it fulfils its three traditional functions well, this creates normative problems. Arguably, the two most pressing problems linked to markets – inequality and corruption – are partly caused by the prevailing monetary design. Given the history of suggested monetary reforms, one might reasonably hope that, by consciously re-designing the functions of a currency, one might overcome these issues. This essay argues that there are clear moral limits to this. Because of the way inequality and corruption are intertwined via money’s functions, we cannot simultaneously overcome both problems. This also means that even though these problems have monetary causes, they do not have purely monetary solutions, but need to be addressed relying on fiscal or market reform as well.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2020). “Währung, Kultur, Markt – Bedingungen und normativer Status von Nicht-Bargeld-Märkten.” In: Wirtschaft ist Kultur. Wirtschaftsphilosophische und -ethische Perspektiven. Beschorner, T. and D. Sindermann (eds.). Marburg: Metropolis.
Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to examine the conditions and normative status of non-cash markets. Whereas economic theory sees no problem with commodities other than legal tender assuming the role of money in markets, one might wonder how the moral status of markets changes when people are "paying", for example, with their personal data in order to get access to services like Facebook. Notably, I'm examining how non-cash markets do with respect to the normative issues of inequality and commodification.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2020). Agent-democratic markets. Kriterion. 34(2), 1-32. [Open access link]
Abstract: This essay examines a new way to exercise democratic control over the market. Instead of a democratic government interfering with a market’s outcomes (e.g. via taxes or minimum wages), we may also “democratize” the market by requiring that all relevant group agents who participate in that market (notably: corporations) be democratically governed. This is what I call an agent-democratic mar-ket. The purpose of this essay is to argue for the claim that agent-democratic markets are a normatively viable way to democratize the market – and potentially constitute a genuine alternative to the standard approach of subjecting market outcomes to democratic control.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2019). Employing robots. Disputatio. 11(53), 89-110. [Open access link]
Abstract: In this paper, I am concerned with what automation – widely considered to be the “future of work” – holds for the artificially intelligent agents we aim to employ. My guiding question is whether it is normatively problematic to employ artificially intelligent agents like, for example, autonomous robots as workers. The answer I propose is the following. There is nothing inherently normatively problemat-ic about employing autonomous robots as workers. Still, we must not put them to perform just any work, if we want to avoid blame. This might not sound like much of a limitation. Interestingly, how-ever, we can argue for this claim based on metaphysically and normatively parsimonious grounds. Namely, all I rely on when arguing for my claim is that the robots we aim to employ exhibit a kind of autonomy.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2019). Investing and intentions in financial markets. European Journal of Analytic Philosophy. 15(1), 71-94. [Open access link]
Abstract: Ethical investors are widely thought of two have two main goals. The negative goal of avoid-ing their investments to be morally tainted. The positive goal to further a certain ethical value they embrace or some normatively laden idea they hold by investing their money in a certain company. In light of these goals, the purpose of this essay is to provide an account of how we can explicitly include investors’ intentions when conceiving of ethical investment. The cen-tral idea is that an investor’s intentions may act as both a negative and a positive qualifier for making investing ethical. If we subscribe to this account, there are interesting upshots with re-spect to how ethical investing compares to ethical giving as effective altruists construe it.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2018). Corporate Responsibilization. Journal of Applied Philosophy. [Link]
Abstract: This essay examines the conditions for responsibilizing corporations. When we responsibilize an agent, we hold him responsible for his choices – although we are aware that he is not yet fully fit to be held responsible – in order to induce in him the relevant characteristics for being fit to be held responsible at a later time. I find that the conditions of responsibilizability are not identical to the conditions for responsibilization we usually and reasonably apply. Typically, we only responsibilize agents who do not only meet the comparably weak conditions of responsibilizability, but who also fulfill additional criteria, as for example having demonstrated first signs of normative reasoning. I argue that corporations do not only meet the minimum threshold of responsibilizability, but also a comparably higher threshold, which allows us to engage in particularly effective forms of responsibilization. Basically, we may permissibly responsibilize the overwhelming majority of corporations in the same way parents responsibilize their growing children.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. & A. Pietri (2018). How does size matter for military success? Evidence from virtual worlds. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. 154, 137-155. [Link]
Abstract: This paper investigates how differences in military spending translate into probability of victory in a conflict. To do so the paper empirically estimates and compares the four main forms of contest success functions – the Tullock, the logit, the difference, and the relative difference form. In order to circumvent measurement issues and endogeneity biases associated with historical battle-related data, we advocate the use of virtual worlds. Data from virtual worlds is an innovative and promising tool in conflict research. It allows conflict analyses based on rich and objective empirical evidence on economic behavior in a warfare context; something which is difficult to achieve in real world settings. Thanks to collaboration with the developer of a virtual world, we are able to construct an original database of 19,229 battles that occurred during January 2011. The results show that the relative difference contest success function as proposed by Beviá and Corchón (2015) outperforms other existing forms of contest success functions. Thus, the decisive factor to predict the outcome of a battle is the relative difference in forces devoted by rivals. Relative size matters.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2018). A Liberal Theory of Externalities? Philosophical Studies. 175(9), 2105-2123. [Link]
Abstract: Unlike exploitative exchanges, exchanges featuring externalities have never seemed to pose particular problems to liberal theories of justice. State interference with exchanges featuring externalities seems permissible, like it is for coercive or deceptive exchanges. This is because exchanges featuring negative externalities seem to be clear cases of the two exchanging parties harming a third one via the exchange – and thus of conduct violating the harm principle. This essay aims to put this idea into question. I will argue that exchanges featuring negative externalities are not unjust in this straightforward way, i.e. because they would constitute an instance of wrongfully causing or risking a bodily or material harm. In fact, unless we are subscribing to particularly demanding variants of liberalism – e.g. perfectionist liberalism – or unless we are exclusively focusing on borderline cases of externalities – i.e. of effects of exchanges hardly to be called externalities – there is no liberal theory of how exchanges featuring externalities are unjust.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2018). A reason to be rational. Inquiry. [Link]
Abstract: This essay argues that in spite of the powerful arguments by Kolodny and Broome there is a reason to be rational. The suggested reason to be rational is that if an agent complies with rational requirements the people around him, as well as he himself, will be able to explain and predict his attitudes. Rationality allows us to make sense of an agent’s attitudes in terms of his other attitudes. This form of explainability is valuable, because it provides us with greater comprehension as regards an agent’s attitudes. Thus, I argue that there is an instrumental reason to be rational.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2017). Economic Evil and the Other. Revue de philosophie économique. 18, 141-160. [Penultimate] [Link]
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it proposes an idiosyncratically economic definition of evil. An agent performs an economically evil action if he intentionally harms (or causes others to harm) another agent materially, if he likewise materially loses from this action, and if there would have been a materially more rewarding course of action open to him. Second, it argues how we can classify different theories of economic evil and different economically evil actions based on an analysis of the relationship between the harming agent and the harmed Other. Doing so, the essay highlights how one particular kind of economic evil has yet to receive proper attention. This kind of economic evil is characterized by a special relationship of agent and Other. Namely, the agent only cares about the Other as far as the Other’s material payoff is concerned – and only to the extent that he makes sure that it is negative. The paper also cites evidence of such behavior.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2017). Spontaneous Disorder. Journal of Institutional Economics. DOI 10.1017/S1744137417000492. [Penultimate] [Link]
Abstract: This paper analyses the emergence and persistence of disorder due to bellicose (i.e. ‘conflict-kindling’) institutions. It does so relying on a novel empirical approach, examining the predatory and productive interactions of 400,000 users of a virtual world as well as its institutions. The paper finds that while there are many cases of spontaneous order in that virtual world, and while the users are not more conflict-loving as such, bellicose institutions sanctioning suicidal attacks in a supposedly safe region spontaneously emerged and rigidly persist, thus upholding disorder (i.e. a particularly violent kind of ordered anarchy).


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2017). Expressives, Majoratives, and Ineffability. Kriterion. 31(2), 1-15. [Open access link]
Abstract: The purpose of this essay is to argue that not all instances of expressive language suffer alike from the problem of descriptive ineffability. Descriptive ineffability refers to the problem that speakers are never fully satisfied when they are asked to paraphrase sentences containing expressive terms such as ‘damn’ using only descriptive terms. It is commonly assumed that descriptive ineffability is an important feature of all kinds of expressive language – derogatory language just as commendatory or valorizing language. However, I find that majoratives, i.e. the positive counterpart to negative expressives (pejoratives), do not exhibit the characteristic of descriptive ineffability. This finding is important both to clarify what kind of data competing theories of expressives have to explain and to shed further light on the wider phenomenon of ineffability.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2017). Virtual Killing. Philosophical Studies. 174(1), 185-203. [Penultimate] [Link]
Abstract: Debates that revolve around the topic of morality and fiction rarely explicitly treat virtual worlds like, for example, Second Life. The reason for this disregard cannot be that all users of virtual worlds only do the right thing while online – for they sometimes even virtually kill each other. Is it wrong to kill other people in a virtual world? It depends. This essay analyzes on what it depends, why it is that killing people in a virtual world sometimes is wrong, and how different virtual killings are wrong in different ways. I argue that killing people online is wrong if it is an instance of deliberately and non-consensually evoking disagreeable emotions in others. Establishing this conclusion requires substantial conceptual work, as virtual worlds feature new kinds of fictional agency, particular emotional responses to fiction, and unique ways in which the fiction of the virtual world relates to the wrongness of the killing.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2015). Virtual World Order – The Economics and Organization of Virtual Pirates. Public Choice, 164, 401-421. [Penultimate] [Link]
Abstract: This paper investigates the problem of how order may emerge in anarchy using a novel empirical approach. It analyzes the predatory and productive interactions of the 400,000 users of a virtual world. Virtual worlds are computer-created environments that visually mimic physical spaces, where people interact with each other and with virtual objects in manifold ways. Notably, the paper examines the behavior of users acting as virtual pirates. The paper finds that even in a largely anonymous and anarchic virtual world private rules of order mitigate the most destructive forms of conflict. This is true even though the virtual pirates are found to be conflict-loving rather than conflict-averse. Although the costs of conflict are dramatically reduced in virtual worlds, private rules that limit violence spontaneously emerge. An important part of the paper’s contribution is methodological. The analysis of the problem of order in anarchy serves to exemplify the power and usefulness of the new approach.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2015). “Games and Evil.” In: Philosophical Perspectives on Play. Ryall, E., Russell, W., & M. MacLean (eds). London: Routledge. [Penultimate] [Link]
Abstract: Many of the activities we engage in are morally undetermined. What I mean by this is that performing these activities might turn out to be either a good thing or a bad thing. Take giving advice as an example. Normally, it seems to be a good thing if we help somebody by giving her some (hopefully well grounded) advice. However, it is also possible to give advice to a mass murderer as to how to kill even more people. This is a very bad thing to do. Thus, giving advice is morally undetermined in the sense that performing this activity we might either be doing a good thing or a bad thing. In this essay, I will put forward the claim that playing a game is an activity which is not entirely morally undetermined. Notably, I shall argue that when we are playing a rule-bound game, we cannot commit evil. Playing a game is an activity that is partly morally determined, as it is impossible to adopt an evil course of action and still be playing the game. The most extreme form of negative behaviour in the moral sphere, namely evil behaviour, is excluded from rule-bound games. This conclusion follows from what it is to play a rule-bound game. It is because of the defining properties of such games that playing a rule-bound game is a special activity from a moral point of view.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2014). Das Böse aus Ökonomischer Sicht. Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik, 15(3), 435-444. [Penultimate] [Link]
Abstract: Wurden im Zuge des Aufstiegs der Verhaltensökonomie vor allem diejenigen menschlichen Eigenschaften beleuchtet, die den Menschen besser als den homo oeconomicus machen, so liefert diese Arbeit das aus normativer Sicht negative Pendant hierzu. Sie beschreibt, wie ökonomische Akteure manchmal zur negativen Seite hin vom Idealtyp des homo oeconomicus abweichen. Der Begriff des Bösen wird hierbei nicht eingeführt, um zu behaupten, dass es objektiv böse Handlungen oder Institutionen gebe. Die Arbeit will mit diesem Begriff auch keine Wertung vornehmen. Er ist als purer Gegenbegriff gedacht: Wenn es allgemein akzeptierte ökonomische Theorien der „Gerechtigkeit“ gibt, so sollte es auch eine Möglichkeit geben, den Begriff des „Bösen“ in der Ökonomie zu verwenden.


  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2013). The Constitutional Political Economy of Virtual Worlds. Constitutional Political Economy, 24(3), 239–264. [Penultimate] [Link]
Abstract: In virtual worlds, a social order able to coordinate the actions of tens of thousands of people emerges in a non-predetermined but designed way. The central puzzle the developers of such worlds have to solve is the same political economists face: to establish a well-functioning set of rules allowing for the thriving of the regulated community. The purpose of this paper is to provide a discussion of the particularities of the constitutional political economy of virtual worlds: their institutions, the prevalent beliefs of the players, and their organizations. The main reason why we should care about doing research on virtual worlds is the huge potential for research in virtual worlds. Virtual worlds present a middle ground in the debate between the greater control of laboratory experiments and the higher external validity of the field. Besides being an important cultural phenomenon per se, they emerge as the researchers’ tool to conduct experiments on a truly social level with tens of thousands of subjects. To show the usefulness of such environments for research in political economy in an exemplary but concrete fashion, the paper also presents some findings difficult to be produced elsewhere: data on an astonishingly high percentage of altruistic behavior in a Hobbesian natural state drawn from a dictator game played online.


Short pieces
  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2021). "Contra: Ist Enteignung ethisch vertretbar?", weiter denken. Journal für Philosophie. 2/21
  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2019). "(Gesundheits-)Markt, Moral und Politik", Competence 9/19.
  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2018), "Der Roboter als Anderer", Philosophie.ch [Link]
  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2018), "Behavioral Risk Management", Competence 4/18.
  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2017), "Heimat: Die Erwählung durch Orte", Philosophie.ch [Link]
  • Mildenberger, C.D. (2008), “Wie Reflexion uns besser macht”, Index 1-2, 104-105. [Link]


Work in progress
  • "Hypothetical markets" (philosophy) - in progress
  • "Additionality versus intentionality in markets" (philosophy) - in progress


Talks
Invited
  • "Public-private partnerships from an ethical perspective". (2021). Annual Congress of Swiss Hospital Directors Association. Fribourg, Switzerland.
  • "Never Events aus ethischer Sicht". (2021). International Patient Safety Congress. Zurich, Switzerland.
  • “Behavioral Risk Management”. (2018). Conference “MEDICA”. Düsseldorf, Germany.
  • “CIRS im Spannungsfeld von Recht und Ethik”. CIRRNET Annual Meeting. Bern, Switzerland.
  • “Improving money”. (2017). Colloquium for Political Philosophy of the University of Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf, Germany.
  • “Comparing Contest Success Functions in Virtual Worlds”. (2015). Workshop in Economics and Conflict. Paris, France.
  • “A social reason to be rational”. (2014). Postgraduate Session of the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society & the Mind Association. Cambridge, UK.
  • “Against systems”. (2009). Swiss Society for Quality Management in Health Care. Baden, Switzerland.
Refereed
  • "Intrinsically just procedures?". (2022). Joint Session of the Aristotelean Society and the Mind Association. St Andrews, UK.
  • “The buyer, the seller, and the third”. (2020). Forum Wirtschaftsphilosophie. Frankfurt, Germany.
  • “Automated markets”. (2020). Workshop Robot Ethics. St. Gallen, Switzerland.
  • “Unternehmen und dysfunktionale Normen”. (2019). Annual meeting of the Arbeitsgruppe für Wirtschaftsphilosophie und Ethik der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Philosophie. Düsseldorf, Germany.
  • “Against monetary utopias”. (2019). Conference “Money: What is it? How should it function?”. Groningen, Netherlands.
  • “Economic democracy and the agents of justice”. (2019). MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory. Manchester, UK.
  • “Lessons from effective altruism for ethical investment”. (2019). Forum Wirtschaftsphilosophie. Munich, Germany.
  • “Automation, autonomy, alienation, and alterity”. (2019). Colloquium for practical philosophy of the University of Zurich. Zurich, Switzerland.
  • “Democratic markets”. (2018). Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association. Oxford, UK.
  • “Automation, alienation, and the future of work”. (2018). MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory. Manchester, UK.
  • “Two ways to democratize the market”. (2018). Colloquium for political philosophy of the University of Zurich. Zurich, Switzerland.
  • “Better money”. (2018). Forum Wirtschaftsphilosohpie. Münster, Germany.
  • “Morals and non-ideal markets”. (2017). Forum Wirtschaftsphilosophie. Berlin, Germany.
  • “Good grey markets”. (2017). European Congress of Analytic Philosophy (ECAP 9). Munich, Germany.
  • “Currency, culture, markets - preconditions and moral status of non-cash markets”. (2017). Annual meeting of the Arbeitsgruppe für Wirtschaftsphilosophie und Ethik der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Philosophie. St. Gallen, Switzerland.
  • “Comparing Contest Success Functions in Virtual Worlds”. (2016). European Public Choice Society Annual Meeting. Freiburg, Germany.
  • “Comparing Contest Success Functions in Virtual Worlds”. (2015). Association for Public Economic Theory Annual Meeting. Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
  • “The ethics of externalities.” (2015). Workshop in Economic Justice and Political Action. Barcelona, Spain.
  • “A liberal theory of externalities”. (2015). Tri-Annual Meeting of the German Association for Analytic Philosophy (GAP.9). Osnabrück, Germany.
  • “A reason to be rational”. (2014). Conference “Deutscher Kongress für Philosophie”. Münster, Germany.
  • “Evil economic agents and the Other”. (2014). 2nd International Conference Economic Philosophy. Strasbourg, France.
  • “A reason to be rational”. (2013). World Congress of Philosophy. Athens, Greece.
  • “Virtual killing”. (2013). Conference “Philosophy at play”. Gloucester, UK.
  • “Evil in virtual worlds”. (2013). 9th International Conference Philosophy of Computer Games. Bergen, Norway.
  • “Virtual world order”. (2013). International Society for New Institutional Economics (ISNIE) Annual Conference. Florence, Italy.
  • “Evil actions and evil social institutions in virtual worlds.” (2013). International Workshop in Political Economy. Silvaplana, Switzerland.
  • “Evil in virtual worlds”. (2012). International Association for Computing and Philosophy World Congress. Birmingham, UK.
  • “Virtual world order”. (2012). European School of New Institutional Economics (ESNIE). Corsica, France.