'The introductory Justice, Law and Morality course explores the interrelationships between law, justice and morality. Contrary to what many people think, these are not separate views of how we ought to behave: law, justice and morality overlap and interact. What is the law in a certain society, is founded on normative ideas on the good life and good society, prevalent in that society. The very same normative ideas are naturally also found in political and economic decision-making.'

'I study societal phenomena that transcend academic disciplines. Take the example of affluent Western pharmaceuticals conducting clinical trials of experimental drugs in developing countries. There is a myriad of economic, political and legal aspects to be discussed, with normative questions coursing through all of these aspects. Those normative questions taken together offer us a way to think about complex issues that transcends the legal perspective, the economic perspective or the political perspective, but is common to all of these views. When it comes to complex problems, we can't solve them by looking at them from just one angle – we need to find a normative core to all disciplines involved to analyze the problem, in order to find solutions.'

Dr Pierik boasts of an interdisciplinary background in his own education: 'At the time, the public administration programme I graduated from consisted of equal parts of economics, sociology, law, and political science. In addition I studied political philosophy and have taught political theory and legal philosophy over the past years. In my opinion, law and politics only become really interesting when normative questions are at play. Important judgments from superior courts are always of a normative nature. The European Court of Human Rights, for example, often has to decide in cases in which the European Convention of Human Rights does not suffice, so that the court has to fall back on legal principles underlying the convention. Whenever there is no precedent or decisive jurisprudence, normative theory helps to distinguish good decisions from less good decisions. '

'I think the PPLE programme is an excellent preparation for today's challenging society. Many people work in professions that require an interdisciplinary approach to the tasks at hand. Complicated issues can't be solved with the knowledge from just one discipline, so it is of the utmost importance for decision-makers to have a foundation in more than just one area of expertise.'