The Journal of the History of Philosophy has announced that the winner of its 2025 article prize is Joe Stratmann, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Professor Stratmann was awarded the prize for his paper, “Autonomy without Compromise: Wolff, Kant, and the Grounds of Moral Laws“, which was published in the journal in January of 2025.

Here is the paper’s abstract:

Moral autonomy might seem to harbor inconsistency. Whereas nomos suggests that moral laws are grounded in our essence or nature (and thus are not up to us), autos suggests that they are grounded in some free act of self-legislation or prescription (and thus are up to us). Latter-day Kantians often respond by compromising on autonomy, deflating either nomos or autos. This investigation reconstructs how Christian Wolff, Kant’s great rationalist predecessor, already forged a path for embracing autonomy without compromise. His reconciliation, I argue, rests on distinguishing different respects in which moral laws stand in need of grounding. I further unravel why no parallel reconciliation is found in Kant. This, I conclude, still leaves open that Kant may similarly seek to embrace autonomy without compromise.

More information about the article prize, including a list of previous winners, can be found here.