My name is Dick Timmer. I am an Assistant Professor (wissenschaftlicher Beschäftigter, fixed-term) in moral and political philosophy at the Technical University Dortmund.
My research is in political philosophy and ethics. I think and write about distributive justice, economic ethics, climate change, responsibility, activism, state neutrality, and moral status, among other things. I am also interested in meta-oriented questions about methods and arguments in normative philosophy.
In September 2021, I defended my doctoral thesis entitled Thresholds and Limits in Theories of Distributive Justice at Utrecht University, which I wrote under the supervision of Ingrid Robeyns. In Utrecht, I was a member of the ERC Fair Limits Project. I am now an affiliate member of that research project.
I am an active contributor to public debates. I have published pieces for a wider audience on a variety of topics, such as climate ethics, flying, limits to wealth, and refugees, in various different media outlets, such as De Correspondent, Nederlands Dagblad, NRC Handelsblad, and Trouw. I have given interviews for Algemeen Dagblad, Het Financieele Dagblad, Radio 1, De Standaard, Trouw, and De Volkskrant, among others. Between 2019-2022, I was an editor of the popular Dutch philosophy blog Bij Nader Inzien.
I have studied philosophy (BA & MA) and religious studies and theology (BA) at Utrecht University, and as a visiting student at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Protestant Theological University.
Together with my spouse and two children, I live in Gouda (the Netherlands).