I am assistant professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at Tilburg University.

I am an economist and a political philosopher. I completed my PhD in Philosophy at Tilburg University. Before that, I did an MA at Erasmus University, an MSc at the Stockholm School of Economics, and a BA at University College Utrecht.

I have held positions at Utrecht University and Erasmus University Rotterdam. I have been on research visits to Gothenburg University, Oxford, Pompeu Fabra University, and Yale.

Research

My research is in political philosophy, often on questions at the intersection of economics and political philosophy. I mainly work on topics in distributive justice, particularly on desert, egalitarianism, and taxation. I also have a research interest in the ethics of markets, the meaning and future of work, moral status, personal identity, the value of life and death, and wellbeing.

I am currently working on a number of papers on desert, luck egalitarianism, and taxation (see research page). If you are interested in reading a draft version of a paper, feel free to get in touch. In February 2024, I started working on a 4-year Dutch Research Council (NWO) Veni project on philosophy of taxation (see the projects page for a short description and updates).

Editorial activities

I am an associate editor of The Journal of Ethics, handling submissions on distributive justice. I am a member of the editorial oversight board of the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, the international, peer-reviewed journal of the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics (EIPE).

At present, I am co-editing a special issue of The Monist on philosophy of taxation (with Dan Halliday) and special issue of The Journal of Ethics on meritocracy (with Jahel Queralt). Publication of both special issues is expected in 2028.

Labor unions

In addition to these roles at journals, I am the treasurer of labor union Alternatief voor Vakbond (AVV), which aims to actively involve employees who are not members by allowing them to vote on proposed collective labor agreements and working closely with workers’ councils. I am also a member of the sector council for universities of AOb, the largest education union of the Netherlands. The input of the council determines the agenda and the focus of negotiations with the government and educational institutions.

Month of Philosophy

Finally, I am the treasurer of the Month of Philosophy, a Dutch-Flemish association that appoints the ‘Philosopher Laureate of the Low Countries’ (Denker der Nederlanden), publishes an annual essay and an annual book for young adults, and awards the Socrates cup for the best philosophy book published in Dutch that year.

Everyone professor

I created an overview document indexing the policies of the 14 universities that make up Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) regarding (1) use of the professor title, (2) cap and gown wearing, (3) ius promovendi, and (4) PhD committee composition. The latest version is from March 2026, you can check it out here.

Contact

You can email me on H [dot] M [dot] Brouwer [dot] philosophy [miukumauku] proton [dot] me. You can also, if you like, connect with me on LinkedIn and/or follow me on BlueSky @huubbrouwer.bsky.social.