Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study (NIAS) Fellow 24-25

Project: Crisis and Catastrophe: Science-Based Policy Justification under Urgency and Uncertainty

I'm interested in the ethics of crisis and catastrophe. In a crisis, we generally have to act very quickly. But acting quickly means acting under uncertainty. Uncertainty can pose a lot of problems for policymaking – it’s difficult to see what the implications of policies will be, and thus to choose between options, and to justify our choice. It’s hard to see how to hold policymakers responsible, if they’re not in a position to tell what the consequences of their decisions will be. And where policymakers are departing from their usual, slow, reliable procedures, it can be more difficult to trust them. 

At NIAS, I'm exploring how justification, responsibility, and trust can be retained under crisis conditions.

I'm also the coordinator of the research theme Health, Science and Society.