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Robert Heeger has been professor of ethics at Utrecht University since 1977, both at the Faculty of Theology and at the Faculty of Philosophy. Since 1985, he has also been teaching at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Before he came to Utrecht, he had worked at Uppsala University for many years. He has always stayed in close contact with his Swedish colleagues, and twice he was a visiting professor at Uppsala University. With his eastern-German background, his roots partly in Russia, his thesis on the Italian philosopher Gramsci and his interest in Anglo-American analytical philosophy he has a broad international orientation. It is no wonder, therefore, that he always felt much at home in the Societas Ethica, the European Society for Research in Ethics, which he served as its president from 1991 to 1995. Robert Heeger is primarily a teacher and excels as a discussion partner. With his sharp analytical mind and his great intellectual curiosity he not only exposes critically the weak. points in an argument, but often also brings up creative suggestions to improve it. Thus he has greatly influenced his many students (he co-supervised fourteen doctoral theses) and his colleagues, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Moreover, he was one of the first moral philosophers in the Netherlands, and even in Europe, to be involved in environmental ethics and in animal and veterinary ethics.
List of contents
I. The Elements of Reflective Equilibrium.- Moral Principles: Authoritative Norms or Flexible Guidelines?.- Morally Relevant Facts: Particularism and Intuitionist Rationality.- Considered Judgements: Meaning, Community and Tradition.- Background Theories and Religious Beliefs: Their Role and Relation in Reflective Equilibrium.- Ideals and Ideal Theory: The Problem of Methodological Conservatism.- II. The Methodology of Reflective Equilibrium.- Rationality, Warrant and Reflective Equilibrium.- The Thinker and the Thinking Process: A Feminist Perspective on the Moral Faculty.- Wide Reflective Equilibrium and the Justification of Moral Theory.- Your Intuition or Mine?.- III. The Scope of Reflective Equilibrium: Fundamental Views of Life and Religion.- Religious Models and Moral Principles.- Reflective Equilibrium and Cosmological Claims.- World Views, Value Change and Reflective Equilibrium.- IV. The Purposes of Reflective Equilibrium: Modelling Public Debate and Dialogue.- Reflective Equilibrium and Public Debate: How to Cast the Public's Web of Beliefs Broadly Enough.- Developing Public Morality: Between Practical Agreement and Intersubjective Reflective Equilibrium.- The Case of the Shared Values: An Example of a Socratic Dialogue.- V. Case Studies in Bioethics.- The 'Herman Case': The Usefulness of the Wide Reflective Equilibrium Model for Ethics Committees.- The Use of the Reflective Equilibrium Method in Normative Veterinary Ethics.- Infanticide in Reflective Equilibrium.- Reflective Equilibrium as a Normative-Empirical Model in Bioethics.- List of Contributors.- Name Index.- Tabula Gratulatorum.
Summary
Robert Heeger has been professor of ethics at Utrecht University since 1977, both at the Faculty of Theology and at the Faculty of Philosophy. Moreover, he was one of the first moral philosophers in the Netherlands, and even in Europe, to be involved in environmental ethics and in animal and veterinary ethics.
