Katrina Sifferd
Katrina Sifferd, Ph.D., J.D.
Professor, Philosophy; Genevieve Staudt Endowed Chair
Katrina Sifferd holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of London, King’s College. After finishing her Ph.D., Katrina held a post-doctoral position as Rockefeller Fellow in Law and Public Policy and Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College.
Before becoming a philosopher, Katrina earned a Juris Doctorate and worked as a senior research analyst on criminal justice projects for the U.S. National Institute of Justice. Katrina is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on responsibility, criminal law, punishment, and neuroethics/neurolaw, including “Structural Injustice and Fair Opportunity,” and “Deserving Blame, and Sometimes Punishment,” (both in Criminal Law & Philosophy, 2023); “Responsible agency and the importance of moral audience,” with Anneli Jefferson (in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2023); “Responsibility for Reckless Rape,” with Anneli Jefferson (in Humana Mente – Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2022); “Do Rape Cases sit in a Moral Blindspot?“ (in Advances in Experimental Philosophy of Action, Routledge Press, 2022); “Neuroethics” with Joshua VanArsdall (in Mind, Cognition, and Neuroscience: A Philosophical Introduction, Routledge Press, 2022); “How is Criminal Punishment Forward-looking?” (The Monist, 2021); “Are Psychopaths Legally Insane?” with Anneli Jefferson, (European Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 2018); “Non-Eliminative Reductionism: Not the theory of the mind/body relationship some criminal law theorists want, but the one they need,” (in Neurolaw and Responsibility for Action: Concepts, Crimes and Courts, Cambridge University Press, 2018); “Unconscious Mens Rea: Responsibility for Lapses and Minimally Conscious States” (in Law and Neuroscience: Philosophical Foundations, Oxford University Press, 2016); and “Virtue Ethics and Criminal Punishment” (in From Personality to Virtue, Oxford University Press, 2016).
In 2018, Katrina published a book with her Elmhurst College colleagues Bill Hirstein and Tyler Fagan titled Responsible Brains: Neuroscience, Law, and Human Culpability (MIT Press). You can find the book on the MIT website or on Amazon.
Katrina has been a guest on several podcasts, including:
