I try to be a responsible hedonist. I like to relax, to enjoy good food, listen to my favourite music, and to take pleasure in an active lovelife. I am fascinated by the human body and the sheer variety of pleasures that it is able to experience. But I also worry a lot. I am often afraid of making the wrong decision and of judging things in the wrong terms. I do not prefer others to make the decisions for me, though. It's not that I think that I am a bad decision-maker, it's just that I think that life throws very complicated questions at us. All the easy answers are false. So I spend a lot of time thinking about how I should live my life, how people should live their lives in general, and what it even means to say that a certain decision was the right one for someone to make. But that's okay, because these questions fascinate me, so thinking about them is actually another source of joy in my life.

I work at a university in a philosophy department, on a PhD thesis in the field of ethics. It is about the question how the concept of having a good reason to do something links up with the actual, psychological features that motivate you to actually do it - or to do something else entirely. Furthermore, I am also writing a philosophy textbook on free will. Is our behaviour fully determined by psychological, biological and physical factors that are ultimately beyond our control? If so, can we still be responsible for our actions? These are the kind of questions that I write about.

I am in an open, serious long-term relationship. I also keep dating others (we both do). I am not actively looking for more relationships, but we have a polyamourous attitude, so should it happen, then it may.

Books: fiction: Orwell (1984); Huxley (Brave New World); Houellebecq (all); Herbert (Dune); Gerrit Krol (all, esp. "De Ziekte van Middleton"); Donna Tartt (The Secret History); Paul Mennes ("Tox", "Soap", "Web"); Arthur C. Clarke ("Rama" series); Asimov ("Foundation" series);

non-fiction: Harry Frankfurt (all); David Chalmers ("The Conscious Mind", and various articles); Daniel Dennett (esp. the old stuff on intentionality); Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy ("The Ethical Slut", "The New Topping Book", "The New Bottomming Book"). I also like David Hume, John Stuart Mill, C.S. Peirce and John Dewey.

Movies: Pulp fiction, Natural Born Killers, Fight Club, Trainspotting, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove, Magnolia, The Godfather, From Dusk Till Dawn, Brazil, Das Experiment, Amelie, City of the Lost Children.

Music: Arcturus, Ulver, Borknagar, Opeth, Katatonia, Anathema, Emperor, Death, Hecate Enthroned, Dissection, and various other black, doom and death bands - especially black metal, it is my religion; Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Evergrey, Savatage, Pain of Salvation, Nevermore, Queensryche, and more heavy and progressive metal; Marillion and Fish, Genesis and Peter Gabriel, Camel, Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree, always interested in a good symphonic rock band; all the old thrash stuff from Megadeth, Metallica and Sepultura; and when I'm in the mood for highschool nostalgia: Pantera, Faith No More, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and of course, Guns N' Roses.

Food: a medium-rare sirloin steak, and many Italian dishes.

Women, blowjobs, a text editor, my files, unhealthy food, and the principle of non-contradiction.

I have been thinking and reading a lot about the problem of climate change lately. In fact, there are many problems, of course. As a philosopher, I am mostly interested in the philosophical problems that climate change is posing. One problem is what sort of reasons ordinary people have to believe the general idea that (1) anthropogenic climate change is going to have catasthropic consequences and (2) that we should do everything in our power to mitigate the causes and adapt to the consequences that we are unlikely to prevent. Most people are in no position to verify the data themselves, and many people are suspicious of the scientific authority of the IPCC.

Assuming that nevertheless, all things considered, we do have reasons to believe the above two claims, the second problem is why our society doesn't respond adequately, and how an adequate response would be possible. Is democracy a disadvantage here? Or is it, on the contrary, in the context of the democratic *deficit* of corporate governance that we should understand our lack of collective responsible agency?

In my more pessimistic moments, the aforementioned question changes to how an adequate response *would have been* possible. Which gives rise to the third problem: if our society is going to fail, then what sort of responsibility do we have towards the society, if any, that will be built upon the ruins of ours?