Dirk Verhofstadt

Dirk Verhofstadt (b. Dendermonde 1955) is a Belgian social liberal (Rawlsian) theorist and brother of former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt. He has a keen interest in political philosophy, and his philosophical outlook is influenced by Karl Popper, John Stuart Mill, Cesare Beccaria, Thomas Paine, Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. He graduated in law and press- and communication sciences, and obtained a PhD in moral philosophy at the University of Ghent. He is professor Media and ethics at the University of Ghent.

With his book Het menselijk liberalisme (Human Liberalism) he inspires politicians in Belgian liberal parties as well as in the Dutch parties Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie and Democraten 66. He defends liberalism against attacks by anti-globalists, by stating that liberalism implies/should imply and that green politics is not contradictory to liberalism. He wrote the books Pleidooi voor het individualisme (A Plea for Individualism) and De derde feministische golf (The Third Feminist Wave), much of it focusing on Islamic feminism and its impact in Europe. This book contains exclusive interviews with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, Naima El Bezaz, Nahed Selim (), Naema Tahir () and Yasmine Allas.

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