My research focuses on moral and political philosophy and issues of public policy. I am particularly interested in debates about meritocracy and the (in)justice of inequality.
In my doctoral research, I examined whether the idea that inequalities are deserved—central to meritocracy—is problematic. I analyzed the normative features of the philosophical principle of ‘desert’ or ‘merit’ and assessed whether it reinforces the notion that some people are more morally worthy than others. My analysis focused on three key aspects: first, whether effort and contribution are valuable and should be rewarded; second, how we hold each other responsible when claiming that we (do not) deserve success or failure, including an examination of the philosophical accounts of moral responsibility underlying such judgments; and finally, how the idea of ‘being deserving’ relates to the normative notion of fittingness—particularly whether meritocracy ultimately rests on the idea that people are evaluated as more or less praiseworthy, and thus deserve outcomes that conventionally reflect this level of praiseworthiness. My work challenges these assumptions and argues for the novel conclusion that meritocracy moralizes inequalities by portraying disparities between individuals as evaluations of their relative worth. This legitimizes harmful social hierarchies and should be rejected.
In Preparation [working titles]
PhD manuscript "On the Foundations of What We Deserve: Distributive Justice and Moral Inequality"
Book manuscript "Meritocracy and Deserved Inequality" [in German: "Die Leistungsgesellschaft und verdiente Ungleichheit"]
Journal Article "Realizing Egalitarianism: Risk, Open Counterfactuals, and Community"
Journal Article "The Problem with Deserved Inequalities"
Publications
Vitz, Yannic (2021): “Applaus, Applaus! Über eine Ethik des Lobes und moralisch unangemessenen Applaus,“ in Romy Jaster & Geert Keil (ed.), Nachdenken über Corona, Stuttgart: Reclam, p. 121-132. [in German]
Vitz, Yannic (2019): “'Having Too Much' and Libertarian Freedom” Rerum Causae, 11 (1), pp. 57–69. [https://rc.lse.ac.uk/articles/abstract/167/]
Talks
"Are Deserved Inequalities Moralizing?" presented at the Workshop On the Concept of Desert at the Center for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice (ZEPP) at LMU, Munich, January 22, 2025.
“What is Economic Desert?” presented at the Society for Analytic Philosophy’s (GAP) Workshop for First Generation Academics, Berlin, April 25, 2024.
“The Axiology of Desert,” presented at the 5th Workshop for Political Philosophy, Düsseldorf, May 26, 2023.
“Applaus, Applaus! Über eine Ethik des Lobes und moralisch unangemessenen Applaus,“ Presented at the Research Colloquium, Chair of Philosophical Anthropology Geert Keil, Humboldt-University Berlin, Berlin, November 19, 2020.
“Applaus und Covid 19,” Presented at the Research Colloquium, Chair of Practical Philosophy Kirsten Meyer, Humboldt-University Berlin, Berlin, July 13, 2020.
“Realising Luck Egalitarianism,” Presented at the Research Colloquium, Chair of Practical Philosophy Kirsten Meyer, Humboldt-University Berlin, Berlin, November 25, 2019.
“Realising Luck Egalitarianism: Risk, Open Counterfactuals, and Community,” Presented at the 6th Student Philosophy Conference [Bundesfachschaftentagung], Düsseldorf, September 20, 2019.
“'Having Too Much' and Libertarian Freedom,” Presented at the 7th LSE-Bayreuth Student Philosophy Conference, London, May 2, 2019.