Martin van Hees

Martin Vinzenz Baldur Paul Maria (Martin) van Hees (born 26 July 1964 in Beilen) is a Dutch philosopher.

Van Hees was professor of ethics at the University of Groningen and since April 2013 professor of political theory at the University of Amsterdam. He received a VICI-grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to further research and develop the program Modelling Freedom: Formal Analysis and Normative Philosophy. Van Hees is a vegetarian.

In August 2014, van Hees became professor of Ethics at VU University Amsterdam. He is also a senior editor of the journal Economics and Philosophy. In 2016, van Hees became Dean of the John Stuart Mill College of the VU Amsterdam and programme director for the VU's recently established Philosophy, Politics & Economics Bachelor's programme. Since 1 March 2021, van Hees became Dean of Amsterdam University College.

van Hees disputes the claim that there exists an incompatibility between Pareto efficiency and liberalism (Arrow's impossibility theorem). He suggests that the paradox can be solved through legal-political games which add the right to stay passive on a given issue.

Education After receiving degrees in political science and philosophy at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, van Hees obtained his PhD in social sciences at the Radboud University Nijmegen in 1994 with the dissertation: Rights, liberalism and social choice: a logical and game-theoretical analysis of individual and collective rights.

Van Hees became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2013.