I hold a PhD (fil.dr) in practical philosophy. I defended my doctoral thesis Democracy and the Common Good: A Study of the Weighted Majority Rule at Stockholm University in 2013. Since then I’ve held postdoctoral positions at Stockholm University and at the Institute for Futures Studies, where I have worked in different research projects on the boundary problem in democratic theory; climate ethics and future generations; the concept of harm; implicit bias; and discrimination. I have published in peer-reviewed journals on the topics of implicit bias, #metoo, the non-identity problem, harm and discrimination, and fairness.

My current research project seeks to improve our understanding of implicit bias (roughly, automatically activated prejudices) with the help of a game theoretical analysis of social norms. The general idea is that implicit biases can be modeled as systematic failures to follow egalitarian social norms, and that such a model can help us to find new ways to address the resulting problems of social inequality and structural discrimination. Another part of my research tries to assess whether democracy fails to take into account the interests of future generations and thereby to solve the climate crisis. Here I look into the normative principles that justify democracy and assess whether these principles imply that democracy is irrevocably biased toward the present, or whether they could guide us towards enabling democracy to deal with the climate crisis.

I value and enjoy doing “public outreach” activities, spreading philosophical tools and research results to a broader public through newspaper articles, public broadcast interviews, public seminars, and the like. I’m also an editor for Tidskrift för politisk filosofi, a Swedish academic publication in political philosophy.

My teaching experience covers undergraduate courses in critical thinking, ethical theory, applied ethics, political philosophy, feminist philosophy, as well as supervision of undergraduate student essays.

For more information, see my personal website: www.katharinaberndtrasmussen.com

“High profile publications”:

Berndt Rasmussen, Katharina (2020) “Implicit Bias and Discrimination”, Theoria, Early View, pp. 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1111/theo.12227

Berndt Rasmussen, Katharina & Nicolas Olsson Yaouzis (2019) “#MeToo, Social Norms, and Sanctions”, The Journal of Political Philosophy, Early View, pp.1–23. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12207

Algander, Per & Katharina Berndt Rasmussen (2019) “Asymmetry and Non-Identity”, Utilitas, 31:3, 213–230. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0953820818000341

Berndt Rasmussen, Katharina (2019) “Harm and Discrimination”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 22:4, 873-891. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-018-9908-4

Berndt Rasmussen, Katharina (2012) “Should the Probabilities Count?” Philosophical Studies, 159: 2, 205-218. https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs11098-011-9698-1