Ana Marta Gonzalez, scientific coordinator and researcher of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) and professor of Philosophy Moral at the department of Philosophy of the University of Navarra, will carry out a three-month stay at the department of Philosophy of Harvard University (USA) with a scholarship of the mobility program 'Salvador de Madariaga'. The financial aid is part of the State Plan of research Scientific, Technical and Innovation, for the period 2013-2016.

Professor Gonzalez, who directs the project 'Emotional culture and identity of the ICS' -funded by Zurich Insurance-, will develop in the American campus the project 'Culture, identity internship and moral obligation in Christine M. Korsgaard'.

The researcher explains that the immediate goal of the stay is to conclude the essay of two scientific articles: 'Practical identity according to Korsgaard: between culture and morality' and 'Emotions and the genesis of value'. They are part of his contribution to the project 'Action, emotion and identity. Elementos para una teoría de las sociedades tardo-modernas' (funded by the Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness), of which she is principal investigator and which ends in December this year.

Another of its purposes is to consolidate the academic relationship with Professor Korsgaard, which began during her postdoctoral stay as a Fulbright Scholar in the 2002-2003 academic year, and to study future possibilities of institutional partnership . 

Identity internship: mediator between culture and morals

"In spite of the interest that Christine M. Korsgaard's philosophical-moral production has been awakening, her concept of "identity internship" has been scarcely explored. It is, however, one of her most original contributions, which allows linking the moral Philosophy and social sciences through the notions of culture and identity, a subject to which I have been dedicating my research in recent years", explains Ana Marta Gonzalez.

"What I consider particularly worthy of study is the way in which the notion of identity internship allows us to articulate, or mediate, between culture and morality. The importance of distinguishing between identity internship and moral identity is seen in accounting for possible conflicts between the two (e.g., "a good soldier obeys orders, but a good human being does not massacre innocents")."