About

Mark Schroeder is a philosopher working on understanding persons, belief, and morality. His work is recognized for its clarity, incisiveness, originality, creativity, and depth. Schroeder's research is often divided into four broad strands, characterized by a richly imaginative and argumentative approach. He has supervised many talented PhD students and is actively engaged in developing philosophy that is visible and accessible to a broader audience. In 2025, he is a Sanders Media Fellow in the category for trade books, aiming to reach more people with his work, especially related to conflict and interpersonal relationships. Schroeder teaches at USC, offering graduate seminars and undergraduate courses, and has developed courses on teaching philosophy and the philosophy of interpersonal conflict, which is part of his larger project to establish the philosophy of conflict as a significant field. He also creates educational resources, including lecture videos and slides, to support his teaching and outreach efforts.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Theology
• Epistemology
• Law
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• Tipping Points: Abuse and Transformative Discovery

  Free & Equal A Journal of Ethics and Public Affairs · 2025-01-06 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper explores how philosophical accounts of the nature of persons and attributive responsibility can help us to make sense of the kinds of characteristic errors that people make in interpreting what is attributable to one another. I show how this gives us an important tool for understanding some important kinds of interpersonal conflict, with particular attention to understanding why Maya Angelou's advice that "when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" can seem easier to have followed from the privileged perspective of retrospection than it really was in prospect.

  PublisherDOI

• Hierarchy and CIS-Regulation in Drosophila Segmentation: Rules for Pattern Formation and Clues to Evolution

  Digital Commons - RU (Rockefeller University) · 2025-09-08

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  In few systems is it possible to analyze the global cis-regulatory structure of developmental transcription networks. One system where this is in principle possible is segmentation in Drosophila melanogaster, although to date such an undertaking has not been attempted. Here using computational algorithms to analyze the transcriptional regulatory regions of genes of the gap and pair rule classes such an analysis is carried out. Computational analysis, transgenic reporter element assays, site directed mutagenesis, genetics, and time courses of in situ hybridizations of central genes in carefully staged embryos are combined to understand how the cis-elements function together to achieve patterning of the anterior posterior axis. The transition from the non-periodic gap patterns to the seven striped periodic patterns of the pair rule genes is analyzed in detail. This step in the genetic hierarchy is of particular interest as it generates the segmental pattern that underlies the Drosophila body plan. The analysis clarifies the primary and secondary pair rule classification system and suggests certain organizational principles in pair rule cis-regulation.

  PublisherDOI

• What Are Reasons?

  2024-05-02

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract This chapter begins the task of exploring reasons from the inside out. We begin with the question of what kind of thing reasons can be—what sort of thing can be said to be a reason for something else. Reason diagrams are introduced as a way of thinking about the internal structure of the reason relation that is neutral between different theories and different senses of ‘reason’. Evidence that bears on the answer to our question is marshaled from the language of ‘reason’ ascriptions and from each of the explanatory and deliberative roles for reasons. Some of the philosophical consequences of different answers to our question are explored.

  PublisherDOI

• Objective and Subjective Reasons

  2024-05-02

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract This chapter opens Part 2: Province of the book, which moves outward from the internal workings of reasons and explores the relationships between reasons and other closely related concepts. In this chapter we explore the relationship between objective and subjective reasons. The idea that objective and subjective reasons correspond to two distinct dimensions of normative assessment is introduced, as well as the framework of thinking of subjective reasons as imposing some perspective. Two components of the perspective behind subjective reasons are distinguished—the mind-to-world, and the world-to-mind. And the relative priority of objective and subjective reasons is explored, focusing on obstacles both to the view that subjective reasons are analyzable in terms of objective reasons, and the contrary view that objective reasons are analyzable in terms of subjective reasons. Both of these views are contrasted with the much-less-appreciated common core account, on which both objective and subjective reasons are analyzable in terms of a common core.

  PublisherDOI

• Arguments

  2024-05-02

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract This chapter continues our task of discovering the structure of the reason relation from the inside out, focusing on what the principal arguments are of the ‘reason’ relation that are picked out in typical ‘reason’ ascriptions. All reasons count in favor of something, and so we begin with the question of what kind of thing reasons count in favor of. The view that reasons count in favor of propositions is introduced and compared to the view that reasons count in favor of actions or properties, as well as the different answers each of these views requires as to whether agents are one of the relata of the ‘reason’ relation. The view that reasons are relative to agents is compared to the view that reasons are relative to circumstances. Philosophical consequences of each of these answers for the debate between consequentialism and deontology and the debate between particularism and generalism are introduced and explored.

  PublisherDOI

• Reasons and Deliberation

  2024-05-02

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract This chapter concludes the task in Part 2 to explore the connections between reasons and closely related concepts by considering the relationship between reasons and reasoning or deliberation. The deliberative role of reasons establishes that reasons have some connection to deliberation but underspecifies what that connection is. But various forms of the Reasoning View develop this connection into a hypothesis about what it is for something to be a reason. Problems for simple formulations of the Reasoning View are introduced and developed that challenge each of its necessity, and its sufficiency, for something to be a reason for action, and parallels are drawn with problems for the thesis of Reasons as Evidence. But a solution to each of these problems is introduced as well that suggests what form the Reasoning View should take.

  PublisherDOI

• Reasons and Evidence

  2024-05-02

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract In this chapter we continue our exploration of the relationship between normative reasons and closely related concepts, focusing on the case of evidence. Close parallels between reasons and evidence are explored and used to motivate the idea that there must be some close relationship. The thesis of Reasons as Evidence, that reasons are just a special case of evidence, is introduced and motivated. Puzzle cases for this thesis are introduced and explored. The contrary thesis that evidence is a special case of reason is also introduced and explored, and objections are raised to this thesis as well.

  PublisherDOI

• Reasons and Explanation

  2024-05-02 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract This chapter continues our task in Part 2 to explore the connections between reasons and closely associated concepts by considering the relationship between reasons and explanation. The explanatory role of reasons establishes that reasons have some connection to explanation but underspecifies what that role is. This chapter begins with the idea that this connection comes from the nature of reasons, because what it is to be a reason is to be an explanation of something. Problems for the idea that reasons are explanations of what you ought to do are introduced and addressed. The fallback views that reasons are explanations of other things—value, desire-promotion, or mass noun reason—are introduced and compared. And the alternative idea that the explanatory role of reasons comes not from the nature of reasons, but from the nature of ought, is introduced and motivated.

  PublisherDOI

• Authorial Freedom

  2024-10-03

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Umbhali is writing a serial novel. Her first seven chapters have already gone to press, and have been widely read and generated a lot of interest. But now she must write chapter eight. She has a lot of freedom—authorial freedom—in what she writes in chapter eight. What she writes may conform to a prior plan, but it need not—she could discover a new plan for her novel as she goes along. She doesn’t get to decide which interpretation of her novel is correct, but she does get to write the text that is to be interpreted. She is stuck with the first seven chapters and can’t change their text, but what she writes next can give new meaning to what happened in those pages. Let’s see what we can learn about existentialist freedom by thinking through Umbhali’s case in more detail.

  PublisherDOI

• What Can Reasons Analyze?

  2024-05-02

  book-chapterSenior author

  Abstract This chapter launches Part 3: Place of the book, which is devoted to looking even further out from reasons, in order to consider their place in normative theorizing more broadly. In this chapter we take up the question of what other normative properties and relations might best be analyzable in terms of reasons. Beginning with the strongest candidates for other properties to be analyzable in terms of reasons and proceeding to the weakest candidates, the focus throughout the chapter is on special difficulties, rather than on the advantages of analyzing in terms of reasons. Challenges about exactly how to understand the competition between reasons in order to explain obligation and permission are introduced. Difficulties about perspective and information are introduced as challenges for analyzing ‘ought’ in terms of reasons. Fittingness is introduced and the wrong kind of reason problem is introduced and explored for analyses of fittingness in terms of reasons. And the connection between ‘good’ and fittingness is introduced as a final challenge for the explanatory and analytical breadth of reasons.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Nathan Robert Howard

  15 shared

• Jacob Ross

  10 shared

• David Botstein

  7 shared

• Kara Dolinski

  Princeton University

  6 shared

• Tzumin Lee

  Howard Hughes Medical Institute

  6 shared

• Daniel E. Weeks

  University of Pittsburgh

  6 shared

• Ulf Landmesser

  Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin

  5 shared

• Niklas Beyhoff

  University of Oxford

  5 shared

Awards & honors

• Sanders Media Fellow in the category for trade books (2025)