Calendar

Events

  • Work in Progress Workshop on Structural Injustice @ Salle C-7088, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, Université de Montréal

    9 h 30 – 17 h 00

    The Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ) is hosting the “Work in Progress Workshop on Structural Injustice,” a workshop for doctoral candidates and early-career researchers. It is organized by Ellena Thibaud-Latour (Université de Montréal) and Vojtěch Svěrák (University of Groningen and Charles University), a visiting researcher at the CRÉ.

    Thursday, October 22, 2026, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
    Room C-7088, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, Université de Montréal

    Many of today’s urgent problems are structural in nature: homelessness, global poverty, climate change, worker exploitation, white supremacy, gender-based oppression. They cannot be reduced solely to reprehensible acts of identifiable actors; rather, they stem from social processes, norms and institutional devices with complex histories. The workshop welcomes contributions to ongoing debates on structural injustice and responsibility from all disciplines concerned with oppression and domination broadly understood.

    The workshop is held in English and follows a pre-read format: the texts will be shared with participants after registration.

    Registration is free but required: registration form.

    Program:

    9h30 – 10h00 : Coffee and welcome

    10h00 – 13h00 : MORNING SESSION

    13h00 – 14h00 : Lunch break

    14h00 – 17h00 : AFTERNOON SESSION

    • Robbie Dillon – The Pose-Digital Indian: Indigenous Cu/cure & Identity in the Age of Al
    • Ellena Thibaud-Latour – Obstacles to Action and Political Responsibility: Indifference and the Recurring Issue of Motivation in the Context of Structural lnjustice
    • Vojtěch Svěrák – Promoting Justice from Within: Political Responsibility and Institutional Activism

    17h00 : Drinks

    Organizers: Ellena Thibaud-Latour (ellena.thibaud-latour@umontreal.ca) and Vojtěch Svěrák (v.sverak@rug.nl).

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  • Economic Philosophy Reading Group @ Room 2.880 (espace z), 2nd floor, HEC Montréal, and on Zoom.

    11 h 45 – 13 h 00

    We are pleased to invite you to the economic philosophy reading group on Thursday, October 22, 2026, at 11:45 a.m. (Montreal time). The session will take place in room 2.880 (espace z), 2nd floor, HEC Montréal, 3000 Côte-Sainte-Catherine Road (in the offices of the International Institute of Cooperatives Alphonse and Dorimène Desjardins, at the end of the hallway next to the library).

    In this session, we will discuss Bart Jansen’s (Nyenrode Business University) paper entitled “The Politicization of Business Ethics: State, Corporation, and Society Seen from a Schmittian Perspective”.

    To join via Zoom, click here.

    To obtain a copy of the paper, please write to the organizers:

    We hope to see many of you there, and we would be delighted if you shared this invitation with anyone who might be interested.

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  • “When Injustice Makes no Difference: Causality in Relational Health Justice” @ Room C-7123, 7th floor, Lionel-Groulx Building, Université de Montréal

    12 h 00 – 13 h 15

    As part of the CRÉ’s Midis de l’éthique lecture series, our visiting researcher Elena Popa (University of Seville, Spain) will present her work entitled “When Injustice Makes No Difference: Causality in Relational Health Justice,” co-authored with Jay Zameska.

    The presentation will be delivered in English, but the discussion that follows may take place in either French or English.

    To join the event via Zoom, click here (Meeting ID: 892 5294 0670; Passcode: 9Me2EW).

    Abstract

    Relational theories of health justice often hold that a health inequality is more unjust, and should receive greater priority, when it is caused by an unjust social relation. We argue that this claim cannot be applied without specifying what “caused by” means. Using a case of causal preemption, we show that a simple counterfactual account can treat otherwise identical health inequalities differently merely because one case contains a backup cause. We suggest that this is implausible since the same injustice and same inequality are present in both cases. We further analyze the case of causation by omission. Certain accounts of causation as production are unable to incorporate omissions as causal relata, thus not capturing as causal the connections between lack of access to resources or services and health outcomes. We argue that this shows that relational theories of health justice must clarify their causal assumptions, since different accounts of causation can change which inequalities count as unjust and how they should be prioritized.

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  • Animals and the Right to Politics (OUP 2025) @ SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation, Concordia University

    All day

    On Friday, October 30, 2026, a book workshop will be held on the latest book by Sue Donaldson (Queen’s University) and Will Kymlicka (Queen’s University), “Animals and the Right to Politics”, published by Oxford University Press in 2025.

    The event is supported by the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ), the Groupe de recherche en éthique environnementale et animale (GRÉEA), Concordia University’s Social Justice Centre, the Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (APPLE) network and the Observatoire québécois de droit animalier (OQDA).

    The workshop is organized by Valéry Giroux (Université de Montréal), Virginie Simoneau-Gilbert (Queen’s University) and Christiane Bailey (Concordia University), as part of the activities of the CRÉ’s Environmental and Animal Ethics research axis. It will take place at the SHIFT Centre for Social Transformation, Concordia University. It will be structured around five short commentaries, followed by an open discussion with all participants. The commentators are:

    Food and drinks will be provided throughout the day.

    Space is limited. If you are interested in attending the workshop in person, please contact the co-organizer at virginie.simoneaugilbert@queensu.ca for further information.

    Schedule

    Friday, October 30, 2026

    9:00–9:30 – Welcome and introduction

    9:30–10:30 – COMMENTARY 1

    • Virginie Simoneau-Gilbert (Queen’s University): Animal Minds and Politics: Greta the Goat, Political Bees, and Other Challenges

    10:30–11:00 – BREAK

    11:00–12:00 – COMMENTARY 2

    12:00–13:00 – LUNCH

    13:00–14:00 – COMMENTARY 3

    14:00–15:00 – COMMENTARY 4

    15:00–15:30 – BREAK

    15:30–16:30 – COMMENTARY 5

    • Christiane Bailey (Concordia University): Governing with Animals: Towards Inclusive Zoopolities

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  • “Hostile reporters? Bias in traditional and AI-generated news” @ Room C-7123, 7th floor, Lionel-Groulx building, Université de Montréal

    12 h 00 – 13 h 15

    As part of our Midis de l’éthique series, guest researcher Alexa Tullett (University of Alabama) will give a talk entitled “Hostile Reporters? Bias in Traditional and AI-Generated News.”

    The talk will be in English, but the discussion can take place in either English or French.

    Join us on Zoom here (Meeting ID: 890 1062 5757; Passcode: 007258)

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  • Why Don’t We See Animals? @ En ligne

    11 h 30 – 13 h 00

    The Quebec Observatory on Animal Law and Concordia University’s Social Justice Centre, in collaboration with the CRÉ, invite you to a research workshop (in English) entitled “Why Don’t We See Animals?”, to be held on Thursday, November 5, 2026, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., on Teams. The workshop will consist of a presentation of a work in progress, followed by commentary and discussion.

    Pablo P. Castelló (University of Denver) will present his chapter entitled “On the Conditions for Recognizing Animal Freedom.” The chapter examines the work of Alasdair Cochrane, specifically his book Animal Rights Without Liberation. It aims to bring animal worlds into view and to establish the conditions necessary for recognizing their moral and political status as members of shared communities.

    The presentation will be followed by a commentary from Angie Pepper (University of Roehampton).

    The session will be held virtually. Registration is free but required: register here to receive the Teams link.

    For more information click here.

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  • “A. John Simmons and the Case of the Lucky Canadian” @ Room C-7123, 7th floor, Lionel-Groulx building, UdeM, hybrid.

    12 h 00 – 13 h 15

    Our visiting scholar Mark Nelson will give a presentation entitled “A. John Simmons and the Case of the Lucky Canadian” as part of the CRÉ’s Midis de l’éthique.

    To join via Zoom, click here (Meeting ID: 872 6976 7843; Passcode: 5753130).

    Abstract

    One of the enduring questions of political philosophy is the question of Political Obligation, and one of the most promising answers to this question is based on the idea of fair play.  Despite its promise, however, the argument from fair play for political obligation faces some well-known challenges.  In this paper, I consider a less well-known but serious challenge:  that, on an intuitive reading, the fair play argument for political obligation yields counter-intuitive results about who is (and who is not) subject to a duty of political obedience to particular states.  I shall explain how this problem arises for the Fair Play Argument (FPA) given a general and unqualified reading of the Principle of Fair Play (PFP).  I shall then consider A. John Simmons’s attempt to qualify the principle, noting that it saves the PFP, but makes it unfit for use in an argument for political obligation.  I shall then propose what I take to be a more natural way to qualify the PFP, concluding that even this superior reading of the PFP makes the FPA dependent on some rather dubious assumptions.  But first a brief sketch of the question of political obligation and some of the main answers to it.

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  • Charles Taylor Lecture Series 2026 : Will Kymlicka (Queen’s University) @ The 12, salle Leacock 232, McGill University; the 13, Cinema J.A. De Sève, Concordia University

    12 Nov 16 h 00 – 13 Nov 18 h 00

    The 2026 Charles Taylor Lecture Series welcomes Will Kymlicka for two talks on “An Ethics of Membership for Diverse Societies.”

    The series of conferences will take place at McGill and Concordia Universities:

    • “The Need for an Ethics of Membership” (November 12 at McGill from 4:00 – 6:00 pm – Leacock 232)
    • “Addressing the Pathologies of an Ethics of Membership” (November 13 at Concordia, 4 – 6 pm – Cinéma De Sève) – followed by a reception

    Please let us know you will join us.

    About the speaker

    Will Kymlicka is the Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen’s University, where he has taught since 1998. He has published eight books and over 200 articles, which have been translated into 32 languages, and has received several awards. His books include Contemporary Political Philosophy (1990; second edition 2002), Multicultural Citizenship (1995), which was awarded the Macpherson Prize by the Canadian Political Science Association, and the Bunche Award by the American Political Science Association, Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (2007), which was awarded the North American Society for Social Philosophy’s 2007 Book Award, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (2011), co-authored with Sue Donaldson, and, most recently, Animals and the Rights to Politics (2025).

    This series of conferences are co-organized by the GRIPP – Groupe interuniversitaire de recherche en philosophie politique, the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ), Concordia’s Social Justice Centre, the Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair in Human Nature and Technology – McGill University and the Chaire UNESCO d’étude des fondements philosophiques de la justice et de la société démocratique at UQAM.

    Thanks to our partners for helping with publicity: Le Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie (CRIDAQ), The Institute for Research on Migration and Society (IRMS) at Concordia University, le Groupe de recherche sur les sociétés plurinationales (GRSP), the Center for the Study of Democratic Citizenship (CSDC) and the Collectif de recherche Action Politique et Démocratie (CAPED).

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  • Léonore Deleuze (Paris 1-Sorbonne) @ Room C-7123, 7th floor, Lionel-Groulx Building, Université de Montréal

    12 h 00 – 13 h 15

    As part of the CRÉ’s Midis de l’éthique lecture series, our visiting research student Léonore Deleuze (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) will give a presentation under the supervision of our collaborator Magali Bessone.

    Further details to come.

    To join the event via Zoom, click here (Meeting ID: 873 0946 2018; Passcode: 188471).

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  • “Comment conceptualiser la transmission intergénérationnelle des émotions ?” @ Room C-7123, 7th floor, Lionel-Groulx Building, Université de Montréal

    12 h 00 – 13 h 15

    As part of the CRÉ’s Midis de l’éthique series, Laura Mirbek (Phd student, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany), a visiting researcher at the CRÉ working with Christine Tappolet, will give a talk entitled “How Should We Conceptualize the Intergenerational Transmission of Emotions?”

    Join us on Zoom here (Meeting ID: 869 2945 9428; Passcode: 880939).

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