It is with great pleasure that we announce Prof. dr. Frank Hindriks has joined the SCOOP Board, to replace Prof. dr. Martin van Hees.
Frank Hindriks is Professor of Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Groningen. His research concerns institutions and organizations, how they constrain and enable individuals, as well as the benefits and burdens they generate for insiders and outsiders. He relates these topics in social ontology to topics in collective ethics, such as group rights, collective responsibility and structural injustice. They come together in his recent book The Structure of the Open Society: Social Ontology Meets Collective Ethics (OUP, 2025). Hindriks is a founding editor of the Journal of Social Ontology (JSO), a founding member of the International Social Ontology Society (ISOS), and a member of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KMHW).
Frank has participated in SCOOP since its inception and co-supervises several SCOOP PhD projects. We look forward to continuing collaborating with him in the coming years.
When asked what is the key ingredient to sustainable cooperation, Frank answered:
Sustainable cooperation concerns the robust realization of social value. Which values are at stake depends, in the first instance, on what societies prioritize. These may range from property and profit to safety and solidarity, and from freedom to responsibility. Such values can be realized through social norms that structure and require cooperation. The key question, however, is what it takes for these norms to secure value in a resilient manner.Cooperation may succeed whether it is detached or engaged, but this distinction is not decisive. What matters more is how individuals are motivated to comply with social norms. This motivation, in turn, depends to a large extent on whether those norms are perceived as legitimate and fair. Sustainable cooperation therefore brings together questions of social interaction with questions of value, legitimacy, and obligation.
