H. Orri Stefánsson

Pro Futura Scientia Fellow, SCAS.
Professor of Practical Philosophy, Stockholm University.
Research Fellow, Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm

Orri Stefánsson did his undergraduate studies in philosophy and economics at the University of
Iceland and Technische Universität Berlin. After graduating in 2007, he worked as a journalist
for a couple of years, after which he moved to London to do an MSc in Philosophy and Public
Policy and a PhD in Philosophy, both at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
After completing his doctoral studies in 2014, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at FMSH
in Paris, where he was associated with the Chair for Welfare Economics and Social Justice and
the Franco–Swedish Program for Philosophy and Economics. After that, he took up a position
as a Researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm, and then an Assistant Professor-
ship at the University of Copenhagen. Since 2019 he is a Pro Futura Scientia Fellow at the Swedish
Collegium for Advanced Study and Stockholm University.

Stefánsson works mainly on decision theory, ethics, and the philosophy of risk. He has published
both in interdisciplinary journals, such as Risk Analysis and Economics and Philosophy, as well as
in leading philosophy journals, such as Mind, Philosophy of Science and AJP. He recently wrote
(with Katie Steele) a book entitled Beyond Uncertainty: Reasoning with Unknown Possibilities,
published by Cambridge University Press. Stefánsson’s current research mostly concerns how one
should choose in situations of severe uncertainty, including in situations where one suspects that the
outcomes of one’s actions (or inaction) could be catastrophic.

Stefánsson’s Pro Futura Scientia project is entitled Decision-Making at the Extremes: Environmental
Catastrophes and Radical Uncertainty.

H. Orri Stefánsson is in residence at the Collegium in the spring of 2024.
This information is accurate as of the academic year 2023-24.