Daniel Wodak Receives Political Philosophy Prize

Daniel Wodak, Associate Professor of Philosophy, received the 2023 Political Philosophy Prize from the Marc Sanders Foundation for his essay “One Person, One Vote.” In the paper, he discusses the slogan’s omnipresence in democratic movements today, as well as the fact that few in politics today agree on its meaning. “My goal,” he writes, “is to convince you that an urgent problem in democratic theory is to determine what it should mean to have ‘an equal say’ or ‘an equal vote.’”  
 
The prize committee called Wodak’s paper one that “powerfully challenges a widely endorsed slogan” and “provocatively” pushes the reader toward radical conclusions like thinking that “all district-based voting systems including those used in the U.S. House of Representatives, Senate, and Electoral College, violate this minimal demand of political equality.” The Marc Sanders Prize in Political Philosophy is an essay competition for early-career scholars. Submitted works must present original research on topics central to political or social philosophy such as moral issues relating to the state, justice, or freedom.
 
Wodak, who joined Penn’s faculty in 2019 and has a secondary appointment in the Penn Carey School of Law, is also Associate Director of Penn’s Institute for Law and Philosophy. He studies many areas including metaethics, the philosophy of law, the philosophy of race and gender, and social and political philosophy. In 2019, he won the Marc Sanders Prize for Metaethics.