Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Practical Philosophy/Ethics

Rufus Busse

E-Mail: rufus.busse@student.hu-berlin.de

Research Interests

Metaethics, Normative Ethics, Political Philosophy

Doctoral student at Humboldt-Universität since April 2025, supported by the Elsa-Neumann-Stipendium from the state of Berlin. Prior to that, studies in Philosophy, Political Science, and History in Berlin and Maastricht.

“Bringing About Reasons”, ANU-Humboldt-Princeton Summer Institute on Practical Normativity 2024, Princeton University (16.08.2024).

“Quietism and Normative Authoritativeness”, ANU-Princeton Summer Institute on Practical Normativity 2025, Humboldt University (18.08.2025).

Accounting for Morality’s Normative Authority

Moral claims are paradigmatically normative since they concern, for example, what we ought to (not) do. Claims about, say, chess rules also concern what we ought to (not) do, for example that one ought to refrain from making the first move with the black pieces. Despite appearing to be about normative matters, claims about chess rules do not seem to come with the same normative authority as moral claims do. My PhD project is concerned with the asymmetry between moral claims and so-called formally normative claims, such as claims about chess rules. More precisely, I examine the theoretical resources of Quietism in accounting for this asymmetry. Quietists hold that they can be realists about normativity while remaining silent on certain controversial metaphysical questions. Critics have argued that this stance prevents Quietists from explaining the asymmetry between moral claims and formally normative claims. My overarching goal is to argue that Quietism is in fact better equipped to account for this asymmetry than has typically been assumed.