•  510
    This chapter describes a philosophical approach to theorizing justice, mapping out some main strands of the tradition leading up to contemporary political philosophy. We first briefly discuss what distinguishes a philosophical approach to justice from other possible approaches to justice, by explaining the normative focus of philosophical theories of justice – that is, a focus on questions not about how things actually are, but about how things ought to be. Next, we explain what sorts of methods…Read more
  •  278
    This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a transitional approach to justice focusing on manife…Read more
  •  225
    Reflective equilibrium and moral objectivity
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 60 (5): 443-465. 2017.
    Ever since the introduction of reflective equilibrium in ethics, it has been argued that reflective equilibrium either leads to moral relativism, or that it turns out to be a form of intuitionism in disguise. Despite these criticisms, reflective equilibrium remains the most dominant method of moral justification in ethics. In this paper, I therefore critically examine the most recent attempts to defend the method of reflective equilibrium against these objections. Defenders of reflective equilib…Read more
  •  92
    Why Humean constructivists should become Kantian constructivists
    Philosophical Explorations 22 (3): 280-293. 2019.
    One of the main reasons for philosophers to have embraced Humean constructivism rather than Kantian constructivism is a negative one: they believe that in the end Kantian constructivism is an unsta...
  •  87
    In defence of fact-dependency
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 44 (3-4): 443-462. 2014.
    G.A. Cohen and David Estlund claim that, because of their fact-dependent nature, constructivist theories of justice do not qualify as moral theories about fundamental values such as justice. In this paper, I defend fact-dependent, constructivist theories of justice against this fact-independency critique. I argue that constructivists can invoke facts among the grounds for accepting fundamental principles of justice while maintaining that the foundation of morality has to be non-empirical. My cla…Read more
  •  83
    It only takes two to tango: against grounding morality in interaction
    Philosophical Studies 176 (10): 2767-2783. 2019.
    Most Kantian constructivists try to ground universal duties of interpersonal morality in certain interactions between individuals, such as communication, argumentation, shared action or the second-person standpoint. The goal of this paper is to present these, which I refer to as arguments from the second-person perspective, with a dilemma: either the specific kind of interaction that is taken as a starting point of these arguments is inescapable, but in that case the argument does not justify a …Read more
  •  41
    Christine Korsgaard’s argument for the claim that one should not only value one’s own humanity but also the humanity of all other persons, ‘the publicity of reasons argument’, has been heavily criticized and I believe rightly so. However, both in an early paper and in her most recent work, Korsgaard does not rely on controversial, Wittgensteinian ideas regarding the publicity of reasons, but instead she uses a different argument to justify interpersonal morality, which I will refer to as ‘the ar…Read more
  •  34
    Can Person-Centered Care Deal With Atypical Persons?
    American Journal of Bioethics 13 (8): 44-46. 2013.
    No abstract
  •  19
    Academische filosofie = publieksfilosofie?
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 108 (2): 239-243. 2016.
    Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.
  •  1
    Recensie Marc Slors: Dat had je gedacht! Brein, bewustzijn en vrije wil in filosofisch perspectief Amsterdam (review)
    with Fleur Jongepier
    Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Wijsbegeerte 104 (4): 306. 2012.