Sabine Roeser

I am Professor of Ethics at TU Delft (distinguished Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor) and at Twente University (Socrates Chair, part-time). My research covers theoretical, foundational topics concerning the nature of moral knowledge, emotions and evaluative aspects of risk, but also urgent and hotly debated public issues on which my theoretical research can shed new light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js6n7iwl2Co&t=1s

Research Profile

I am Professor of Ethics at TU Delft (distinguished Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Professor) and at Twente University (Socrates Chair, part-time). I have been working at Delft since September 2001.

Research:

My main research interests are in risk and emotion and in ethical intuitionism. I am editor in chief for Springer’s Handbook of Risk Theory (co-editors Rafaela Hillerbrand, Martin Peterson and Per Sandin). I frequently organize conferences with leading scholars. Together with Maureen Sie I am the coordinator of the Dutch research group on metaethics and methodology. I am regularly interviewed for popular media, and I am a member of the ‘Filosofisch Elftal’ (Philosophers’ team) of the Dutch newspaper Trouw. I am a member of the COGEM, a committee that advises the Dutch government about genetic modification, and of the advisory board of the COVRA/OPERA, the Dutch organization for nuclear waste disposal. I am former managing director of the 3TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology and currently a member of the management team.

Research topics:

My research covers theoretical, foundational topics concerning the nature of moral knowledge, emotions and evaluative aspects of risk, but also urgent and hotly debated public issues on which my theoretical research can shed new light. Examples of such issues are nuclear energy, information on infant feeding (together with dr. Jessica Nihlén Fahlquist) and IVF (together with Sofia Kaliarnta and dr. Jessica Nihlén Fahlquist).

Research projects:

From July 2010-June 2015 I am head of a research group on Moral Emotions and Risk Politics for which I have received a VIDI-grant for excellent researchers, worth 800.000 Euros (plus a 100.000 Euro Aspasia-grant), from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). From September 2009-June 2010 I was a NIAS-fellow, where I have worked on a project on how to include emotions in the design process of risky technologies. From April 2005 through July 2009 I have worked on the research project: Emotions and Technological Risks: Emotions as a Normative Guide in Judging the Moral Acceptability of Technological Risks, for which I obtained a prestigious VENI-grant from NWO.

Education:

I obtained my PhD in 2002 at the Free University, Amsterdam, for my thesis Ethical Intuitions and Emotions: A Philosophical Study. During my PhD-research, I spent two terms abroad: in the Fall term 2000 I studied at the University of Reading with Jonathan Dancy, in the Spring term 1999 I studied at the University of Notre Dame. I hold an M.A.-degree in Philosophy (cum laude, 1997) and an M.A.-degree in Political Science (1998), both from the University of Amsterdam. I did my B.A. in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Maastricht (1994; some of my paintings of that time have now been incorporated in the cover of my book Moral Emotions and Intuitions).