SNSF Starting Grant: Praise
Prof. Dr. Pascale Willemsen
Pascale Willemsen’s research investigates the cognitive architecture of moral judgment, with a particular focus on the attribution of praise and blame in interpersonal contexts. She examines how normative expectations influence moral cognition and are expressed through evaluative language. In her ongoing SNSF Ambizione project, “Empirically Investigating Thick Ethical Concepts,” she studies how thick and thin concepts convey evaluative content. Her SNSF Starting Grant project, “Shining Light on Praise,” develops an empirically grounded theory of moral praise. In addition, she has worked on various folk concepts—such as responsibility, causation, discrimination, lying, and pain—using methods from experimental philosophy.