Rate My Professor Stephanie Collins

Stephanie Collins is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Monash University, where she joined in 2022 and currently serves as Director of the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics program. She obtained her PhD in Philosophy from the Australian National University in 2013, with a thesis titled "The Scope of Dependency Duties"; a Master of Public Policy from the University of Auckland in 2010; and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Philosophy from the University of Auckland in 2009. Prior to her current role, Collins held positions as Researcher at the Dianoia Institute of Philosophy, Australian Catholic University from 2018 to 2021; Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Manchester from 2013 to 2018; Visiting Research Professor at the University of Vienna in 2019 on an ERC-funded project concerning the normative foundations of group agency; and Mind Association Research Fellow from 2017 to 2018.

Collins specializes in moral, social, and political philosophy, with particular emphasis on theories of group agency and group responsibility. Her work examines whether entities such as states, corporations, and non-governmental organizations function as moral agents capable of wrongdoing, whether group-level wrongdoing is reducible to individual members' actions, and the distinctive nature of group obligations. These inquiries extend to applications in politics, law, business ethics, care ethics, associative duties, human rights, and individuals' responsibilities in collective action scenarios. She is the author of Organizations as Wrongdoers: From Ontology to Morality (Oxford University Press, 2023), Group Duties: Their Existence and Their Implications for Individuals (Oxford University Press, 2019), and The Core of Care Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). Key publications include "States' Culpability through Time" (Philosophical Studies, 2024), "Decision-making Procedures Explain Group Agency" (Inquiry, 2025), "Group Blameworthiness and Group Rights" (Inquiry, 2025), and "Care Ethics and Structural Injustice" (The Bloomsbury Handbook of Care Ethics, 2025). Collins was awarded the Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award for 2020-2023 for her project "Organisations’ Wrongdoing: From Metaphysics to Practice." She has served as associate editor for the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Journal of Applied Philosophy (2020-2023), Ergo (2018-2024), and Analysis (2016-2021), and as President of the International Social Ontology Society from 2022 to 2024.