ERC Grant Funds Research on Solidarity and Shared Agency

The European Research Council has awarded a Starting Grant worth more than €1.48 million to social philosopher Matthew Rachar of Freie Universität Berlin to develop a new theoretical account of solidarity. The award announcement, dated 3 September 2026, identifies shared agency and the norms governing collective commitments as central questions in Rachar’s project, “Unifying Solidarity.” The grant supports planned conceptual and experimental research; it does not report experimental results or establish practical effects from the project. Rachar’s work examines how individuals who form collective intentions mutually influence one another in ways that generate normative commitments.

His proposed theory treats shared agency as more than coordinated behavior: it changes the relationship among participants by creating interpersonal obligations. Under this account, people acting together become responsible to one another in ways that can support solidarity. The funded project will investigate how solidarity is structured, when its norms should be regarded as binding, and how individuals can evaluate the rationality of choosing it.

The project begins from the observation that solidarity has been understood in several different ways, including as a special relationship, an emotion, and a moral virtue. Rachar argues that these interpretations share a common foundation in the interdependent commitments of people who share a fate. His planned research will use that common structure to connect descriptions of solidarity’s norms with an account of their moral authority.

The broader aim is to clarify why solidarity norms may bind people, when that binding force applies, and how those norms relate to shared agency. To develop this framework, Rachar plans to combine ideas from value theory, philosophy of action, and metaethics with empirical methods from experimental philosophy. The announced objectives are to explain the relationship between solidarity and shared agency, provide a descriptive account of solidarity norms, develop a normative account of why and when those norms bind, and evaluate the rationality of choosing solidarity.

Because these are the objectives of a newly funded project, the announcement does not provide findings about which moral judgments people make or whether philosophical experiments confirm any part of the proposed theory. Rachar has taught and conducted research at Freie Universität Berlin’s Department of Philosophy and Humanities since 2024. Before joining the university, he was a lecturer in philosophy at Douglas College in Canada and a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Vienna in Austria.

His stated areas of expertise include action theory, ethics, social and political philosophy, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and experimental philosophy. The ERC award will support the extension of his earlier research on collective action and social obligations into a comprehensive account of solidarity and its moral and political implications. Rachar said the project aims to advance philosophical debates and provide a framework for considering solidarity in current societal and political issues, while also developing an account of how solidarity may contribute to a life well lived.

Subject of Research: A funded philosophical project examining solidarity, shared agency and normative commitments in collective action.

Article Title: ERC Starting Grant awarded to social philosopher Matthew Rachar

Article References: ERC Starting Grant awarded to social philosopher Matthew Rachar. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

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Keywords: European Research Council, ERC Starting Grant, social philosophy, solidarity, shared agency, collective action, normative commitments, experimental philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin, Starting, Grant, awarded