Albert W. (Bert) Musschenga (1950) is, besides being the director of the Blaise Pascal Institute, professor of Philosophical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy of the Vrije Universiteit. He is the founder and former head of the university's Institute of Ethics. He is currently the director of the Netherlands School for Research in Practical Philosophy.

The Dutch organisation for scientific research NWO commissioned him to develop a national research programme about 'Ethics and Public Policy'. At present he is vice-chairman of the programme's Steering Committee. With Robert Heeger of Utrecht University he is editor-in-chief of Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, published by Springer Verlag. He is also the editor, with Paul J.M. van Tongeren of the Catholic University of Nijmegen, of the series Morality and the Meaning of Life, published by Peeters Publishers and Booksellers, Leuven, Belgium.

Research Areas

The subject of his doctoral dissertation (Vrije Universiteit, 1979) was a meta-ethical and anthropological investigation into social morality: Noodzakelijkheid en mogelijkheid van moraal, (Assen (Van Gorcum) 1980). He explored the problem of the universality of morals in several publications.

In his more recent publications he concentrates on liberal political morality which in his view is a modern-western, contingent but truth-claiming moral tradition. Starting from that conception he investigates the relation between liberal political morality and comprehensive conceptions of the good in general, and Christian morality in specific. His interest in the universality of morals has also driven him to reflect on the moral basis of the Dutch minority policy.

In the field of medical ethics his main subject is quality of life. His main publication on that topic is Kwaliteit van leven: Criterium voor medisch handelen? (Quality of Life as a Criterion for Medical Action), Baarn (Ambo) 1987. Other fields of interest in medical ethics are: priorities in health care policy, and: the assessment of the risk-benefit ratio of medical experiments in oncology with humans by ethics committees.

His most recent research topics are integrity and empirically informed ethics. On integrity: see a.o. 'Integrity: personal, moral and professional'. In: Albert W. Musschenga a.o. (eds.), Personal and Moral Identity, Dordrecht (Kluwer) 2002 and Integriteit: eenheid en heelheid van de persoon (Integrity: Unity and wholeness of the person), Utrecht (LEMMA) 2004. On empirically informed ethics: 'Empirical ethics: context-sensitivity and contextualism', Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (forthcoming, October 2005).

A list of publications can be downloaded: Publications.