Jan-Christoph Heilinger

Biography

Jan-Christoph Heilinger holds the Chair of Practical Philosophy at Witten/Herdecke University, Germany. He also has an appointment as permanent visiting professor at Ecole Normale Supérieure, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

He studied philosophy at the Universities of Cologne, Paris (IV-Sorbonne and X-Nanterre), and Berlin (Humboldt) where he received his doctoral degree in philosophy in 2009. After working for Walter de Gruyter publishers (2003–2004), he pursued his research at Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (2005–2010), the Ethics-Centre at the University of Zurich (2010–2013), LMU Munich (2013-2020), and RWTH Aachen (2020-2023). He held visiting positions, among others, in New York City, Sydney, and Paris.

Jan publishes and lectures in the field of moral philosophy, political philosophy, and applied ethics. Currently, he is particularly interested in problems of global ethics and global justice, discussing moral responsibilities with regard to global challenges and structural injustice. He strongly believes that education, research and the careful use of knowledge can contribute to making the world a better place.