Leonhard Menges

I am Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Salzburg where I teach ethics, social, and political philosophy. In my research I focus on questions surrounding blame and responsibility and on questions surrounding the right to privacy. I’m currently PI of three FWF-funded research projects: The Sense of Responsibility Worth Worrying About (2021-2025, project P 34851-G), The Source View on The Right to Privacy (2023-2027, project P 36226-G), and Skepticism about Praiseworthiness (2025-2029, project PAT 1933724). More information about the projects can be found on the webiste of the Salzburg Ethics Group.

After studying Philosophy, Psychology, and German Language and Literature at the University of Freiburg and at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, I wrote my PhD thesis on moral blame at the Department of Philosophy at Humboldt-University of Berlin. I spent a term at the University of Oxford in 2014. From February 2016 till September 2017, I was Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter (lecturer) at the University of Lübeck where I set up a philosophy program for non-philosophy students. Since October 2017 I work at the University of Salzburg where I received the Excellence in Teaching Award 2019 and 2024 and the International Main Award for Science & Research 2021 (here is a short film about my work).

See my CV for further information.

You can contact me via email: leonhard.menges[at]plus.ac.at

Book

Moralische Vorwürfe [Moral Blame], 2017, Berlin: De Gruyter (contents and introduction — in German).

Articles and Book Chapters

The Right to Privacy and the Deep Self (open access), Philosophical Quarterly, online first.

The Value of Climate Despair (open access), Political Philosophy, 2 (2), 473–495, with Hannah Altehenger, 2025.

Digital Emotion Detection, Privacy, and the Law (open access), Philosophy & Technology, 38 (2), 1-21, with Eva Weber-Guskar, 2025.

Climate Change and State Interference: The Case of Privacy (open access), Philosophical Studies, 182 (2), 425-443.

How AI Systems Can Be Blameworthy (open access), Philosophia, 52, 1083-1106, with Hannah Altehenger and Peter Schulte, 2024.

The Point of Blaming AI-Systems (open access), Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 27 (2), 287-314, with Hannah Altehenger, 2024.

On the Top-Down Argument for the Ability to Do Otherwise (open access), Erkenntnis, 89 (6), 2459-2472, 2024.

Responsibility, Free Will, and the Concept of Basic Desert (open access), Philosophical Studies, 180 (2), 615-636, 2023.

Blaming, The Routledge Handbook of Responsibility, edited by Maximilian Kiener, New York: Routledge, p. 315-325, 2023.

Three Control Views on Privacy, Social Theory and Practice, 48 (4), 591-711, 2022.

Free Will, Determinism, and the Right Levels of Description (open access), Philosophical Explorations, 25 (1), 1-18, 2022.

The Kind of Blame Skeptics Should Be Skeptical About (open access), Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 51 (6), 401-415, 2021.

A Defense of Privacy as Control (open access), Journal of Ethics, 25 (3), 385-402. 2021.

Responsibility and Appropriate Blame: The No Difference View (open access), European Journal of Philosophy, 29 (2), 393-409. 2021

Blame it on Disappointment: A Problem for Skepticism about Angry Blame (preprint), Public Affairs Quarterly, 34 (2), 169-184, 2020.

Did the NSA and GCHQ Diminish Our Privacy? – What the Control Account Should Say (open access), Moral Philosophy and Politics (S.I. The Ethics of Mass State Surveillance), 7 (1), 29-48, 2020.

Grounding Responsibility in Appropriate Blame (preprint), American Philosophical Quarterly 54 (1), 15-24, 2017.

The Emotion Account of Blame (preprint), Philosophical Studies 147 (1), 257-273, 2017.

Being Realistic About Reflective Equilibrium (preprint Critical Notice), Analysis  75 (3), 514-522, with Hannah Altehenger und Simon Gaus, 2015.

How Not to Defend Moral Blame (open access Discussion Note), Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 4, 1-7, 2014.