Inaugural lecture: Practicing Ethics

On January 11, I had the honor to present my inaugural lecture as professor of Philosophical Ethics at Utrecht University. One of the reasons why this is such a honor is that it is the chair of my dissertation supervisor Robert Heeger, one of the founding editors of the journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Robert Heeger has been key in the Netherlands to promote research on how practical ethics can reinforce ethical theory and vice versa. I can only hope to contribute a bit to that idea. In my talk I offer a critical assessment of the role of thought experiments in practical ethics (owing much to James Wilson's splendid work (see here), I offer examples of how practicing ethics might 'work' and end with dreaming about developing a radically pluralistic moral theory which could also bring different branches of 'applied' ethics together.On this page you'll find the official text and a quick-and-dirty autimated translation to English.

One of the joys of the day was to bring together people of the former Centre for Bioethics and Health Law, and the current group of its successor, the fabulous Ethics Institute of Utrecht University.