Activities
Event Series
A list of 400+ events between 2016-21 is available on the C4E website; event videos are available on its YouTube channel and online journal; podcasts are available here.
Perspectives on Ethics (2016-)
- YouTube Playlist
- 2020-2021:
- Sally Haslanger, Systemic Injustice, Ideology, and Agency
- Sophie Grace Chappell, Forgiveness in Classical Greece: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Their Background Culture
- Iza Hussin, Translating Islamic Law: Mobility, History, Solidarity
- Loubna El Amine, Status, Hierarchy, and the State: Women in the Confucian Classics
- Clare Hemmings, Unnatural Feelings: The Affective Life of ‘Anti-Gender’ Mobilisations
- Rima Basu, Normative Expectations
Ethics@Noon-ish (2016-)
- YouTube Playlist
- 2020-2021:
- Gail Super, Punitive Welfare on the Margins of the State: Narratives of Punishment and (In)Justice in Masiphumelele
- Simon Stern, Reasonable Doubters: Cross-Examination, Detection, Mystification
- Teresa Heffernan, AI, the Immortality Industry, and the Ethics of Death
- Lauren Bialystok, The Authority of Identity in Academic Practice
- Morag M. Kersel, Legal or Right? The Negative Consequences of the Legal Trade in Antiquities
- Amanda Greer, Etiquette (Un)Seen: Post-WWII American Cinema and the Aesthetics of Politeness
- Benjamin Davis, Does the Left have an Ethics? Notes on Stuart Hall’s “Culture, Resistance, and Struggle”
- Juliette Ferry-Danini, What Is the Problem with the Opacity of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine?
- Miriam Hird-Younger, The Productivity of Mistrust: The Ethics of Development Partnerships in Ghana
Public Lectures (2016-)
- Clifford Ando, Pax Romana: Peace, Pacification, and the Ethics of Empire (2017)
- Sheila Jasanoff, Ethical Futures: Imagination and Governance in an Unequal World (2017) (w/ Institute for the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology; Technoscience Research Unit)
- Nick Smith, Apologies as Remedies/Apologies as Weapons (2017) (w/ Jackman Humanities Institute)
- Peter Brooks, The Chameleon Poet and the Ethics of Reading (2018) (w/ Centre for Comparative Literature)
Flash Events (2016-)#
- “Project Marie”: Policing Sexuality in Law, Ethics, Policy (2016)
- Anti-Authoritarian Professional Ethics for Academics: Doing the Right Thing in the Era of Trump (2017)
- “Conscience or Change”: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1967 Massey Lectures (Feb. 13-16, 2017)
- The Ethics of Fake News (2017) (w/ Ethics, Society & Law Association)
- The Ethics of Lawyering in Sexual Assault Cases (2017)
- Doxxing and Hacker Ethics (2017) (w/ Ethics, Society & Law Association)
- The Quebec City Mosque Shooting: What Have We Learned? (2018)
- Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, To Police and Be Policed: Multiple Perspectives on Racialized Law Enforcement in a Diverse and Changing City (2018)
- Bots at the Gate: A Human Rights Analysis of Automated Decision Making in Canada’s Immigration and Refugee System (2018)
- Corporate Social Responsibility Meets International Human Rights Law: The Nevsun Case (2020) (cancelled: pandemic)
- To Surveil and Predict: A Human Rights Analysis of Algorithmic Policing in Canada (2020)
- Mohamed Abdalla, The Grey Hoodie Project: Big Tobacco, Big Tech, and the Threat on Academic Integrity (2020)
- #Say Her Name… Breonna Taylor! Race, Ethics & “Justice”? – A Dialogue with Beverly Bain, Idil Abdillahi, and El Jones (2020)
- Jonathan Kidd & Sonya Winton-Odamtten, Lovecraft Country: A Conversation on Afrofuturism, Black Aesthetics and the Endurance of Counter-Histories (2020)
- Ricky Varghese & Benjamin Weil, Privilege, Race & Imagined Immunities in the Time of COVID (2021)
Critical Ethics (2017-18)#
- The Ethics and Economics of Incentivizing the Uninformed
- The Financialization of Universities: Institutional Transparency and Accountability in the Age of “The Art of the Deal”
- The Ethics of Legal Fictions
- Extractive Moralities?: The Impact of the Refugee Boom in the Republic of Nauru
- The Ethics of Food
- James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America
- Emily Baxter, We Are All Criminals
- Rainer Forst, A Critical Theory of Transnational (In-)Justice: Realistic in the Right Way
Ethics & the Arts (2017-)#
Ethics in the City (2017-)#
Ethics of AI in Context (2017-)#
2020-2021
- Alex Hanna, Data, Transparency, and AI Ethics
- To Surveil and Predict: A Human Rights Analysis of Algorithmic Policing in Canada
- Mohamed Abdalla, The Grey Hoodie Project: Big Tobacco, Big Tech, and the Threat on Academic Integrity
- Andre Brock, Black Morpheus: Race in the Technocultural Matrix
- Rodrigo Ochigame, Actuarialism and Racial Capitalism
- Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein, Data Feminism
- Robert Soden, Responsible AI in Disaster Risk Management: A Community of Practice Perspective
- Ishtiaque Ahmed, Whose Intelligence? Whose Ethics?: Ethical Pluralism and Postcolonial Computing
- Smart Cities in Canada: Digital Dreams, Corporate Designs
- Devin Guillory, Combatting Anti-Blackness in the AI Community
- Elettra Bietti, From Ethics Washing to Ethics Bashing: Viewing Tech Ethics from Within Moral Philosophy
Ethics of AI in Context: Emerging Scholars (2018-)#&
2020-2021
- Vinith Suriyakumar, Chasing Your Long Tails: Differentially Private Prediction in Health Care Settings
- Anne-Marie Fowler, Differentiation Is Mechanics, Integration Is Art: Particularity, Community and the Digital Mind
- Muriam Fancy, Governance of Ethical AI: Methodologies to Procure Low Risk AI for Public Use
- Kamilah Ebrahim, The Limits of Anti-Trust Regulation: Reorienting Towards Considerations of Epistemic Power
- Suzanne Kite and Scott Benesiinaabandan, Indigenous Protocols and Artificial Intelligence
- Noam Kolt, Predicting Consumer Contracts with GPT-3: A Legal Case Study in Computational Language Models
- Julian Posada, Disembeddedness in Data Annotation for Machine Learning
Ethics & Film (incl. Ethics of AI Films, Ethics in the City Films) (2018-)#&
Recent:
- My Winnipeg (2007) (Ethics in the City Films)
- The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) (Ethics in the City Films)
- Ethics & Film: Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005) (feat. Daniel Adleman)
- The Land of Many Palaces (2015) (Ethics in the City Films)
- Citizen Jane: Battle for the City (2016) (Ethics in the City Films)
- Ethics & Film: The Experimental City (Ethics in the City Film Series)
- Ethics & Film: Metropolis (Ethics in the City Film Series)
- Ethics & Film: The Human Scale (Ethics in the City Film Series)
- Ethics & Film: Westworld (Ethics of AI Film Series)
- Ethics & Film: Black Mirror (Ethics of AI Film Series)
- Ethics & Film: Sorry to Bother You
- Ethics & Film: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (Ethics in the City Film Series)
Ethics of Pedagogy (2019-20)#&
- Paola Bohórquez, Beyond Deficit Thinking: Strategies for Engaging Linguistic Difference in the Multilingual Classroom
- Jessica Wright, Building Trauma-Informed Pedagogy for Consent Education to Help End Gender-Based Violence
- Marie A. Green, Length, Breadth, Height: Dimensions of Culturally Responsive and Relevant Pedagogy
- Vicki Zhang, The “Invisible Majority”?: Sampling the Chinese International Students’ Experiences
- Michael Barnes, The Diversity of Strategies for Diversifying Syllabi
- Ameera Ali, Transcending Equality: Increasing Equity and Accessibility in University Classrooms
- C Dalrymple-Fraser, Disability, Evidence, and Policy: Reappraising Research on Restricting Student Laptop Use
Poetics/Ethics: New Work by Queer Poets (2019-20)#&
Ethics, Aesthetics, Feminisms (2020-21)#&
- Joy James, Captive Maternal Love and War Stories
- Anjo-Marí Gouws, “EXTREMELY BAD MONOLOGUE IN HEAD”: Failure and Form in Anne Charlotte Robertson’s Confessionals
- Jodi Byrd, What Remains: Colonial Racial Capitalism, Videogames, and an Empire in Play
- Rey Chow & Austin Safar, “We Other Victorians”? Novelistic Remains, Therapeutic Devices, Contemporary Televisual Dramas
- Grace Lavery, Pleasure and Efficacy: Techniques of Trans Feminist Criticism
- Ara Osterweil, The Aesthetics of Care
Ethics of Songs (2020-)#&
- Anna Shternshis on “Es geyen yesomim” (“Orphan’s Walk”)
- Nasim Niknafs on “لالایی” (Lālāi)
- David Fallis on “Tiny Perfect Moles”
- Elizabeth Gould on “Mississippi Goddam”
- George Elliott Clarke on “Ride On, King Jesus”
- Rebekah Hutten on “Sorry”
- Antía González Ben on “Que non mo neguen” (They Can’t Deny It)
- Making Plans for Nigel (by XTC), with David Jager
- Collegiate A Cappella, with Roger Mantie
- “Glück, das mir verblieb” from Die tote Stadt (by Erich Wolfgang Korngold), with Amanda Hsieh
- Deep River (African American spiritual, arr. H.T. Burleigh), with Ellie Hisama
Critical Race Studies (2020-)#
- I. Bennett Capers, A New Country: Afrofuturism, Critical Race Theory, and Policing in the Year 2044
- Alex Hanna, Data, Transparency, and AI Ethics
- Xine Yao, The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling: Considering Race and Affect From Below
- Eddie Bruce-Jones, Black Lives and German Exceptionalism
- Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò, Compound Crisis: Cops, Climate, and COVID
- Yolonda Wilson, Death, Pandemic, and Intersectionality: What the Failures in an End-of-Life Case Can Teach About Structural Justice and COVID-19
- Dorothy Kim, Race, Gender, and Sexuality: Premodern Critical Intersectionality
- Michael Dawson, Why Race and Capitalism Not Racial Capitalism?
Race, Ethics + Power: Emerging Scholars (2020-)#&
- Bianca Beauchemin, Sensuous Interdisciplinary Opening: Re-imagining Diasporic Black Radical Insurgency
- Watufani Poe, Representação vs. Representatividade: Analyzing Black LGBTQ+ Identity Politics in Brazil
- Sarah Stefana Smith, Surface, Abstraction and Skin in Black Contemporary Art
- Laura Kwak, The Seat, the Table, the Terms of Incorporation: a Critical Discussion on Representation and the Roles of Racialized Political Elites
- Nisrine Rahal, A Real Battlefield for Emancipation: The Hamburg Kindergarten Movement 1849-1852
- Ola Mohammed, The Black Nowhere: The Social and Cultural Politics of Listening to Black Canada[s]
- Senthuran Varatharajah, Where Are You From? The Ethical Dilemma of Writing Dis/placed
- Gayathri Naganathan, Shadeism, Sexual Health, and Diasporic Women’s Experiences
- Jonathan Kwan, Transitional Legitimacy: A Framework for Theorizing Structural Racism
Ethics of Black Lives Matter (Summer 2020)#
- Black Health Matters: Racism and Protest In the Midst of a Global Pandemic
- Ian Loader, Beyond Brutality: Political Visions in Black Lives Matter
- Luvell Anderson, Hermeneutical Impasses, Hermeneutical Injustices, and Progress
- Siddhant Issar, Reflecting on Black Lives Matter: Visions of Abolition Democracy
- A Conversation Between Rachel Herzing and Amna Akbar
- Amadou Korbinian Sow, Black Lives Matter in Germany: What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in White Jurisprudence?
- Emmanuel Blanchard, Black Lives Matter in France: The Colonial Legacy of French Policing
- Norman Ajari & Vincent Lloyd, Black Dignity: The Moral Vocabulary of Black Lives Matter
- Charisse Burden-Stelly & Sandy Placido, Radical Ethics and Black Lives Matter: Pan-Caribbean Perspectives on Capitalism, Imperialism, State Violence, and Antiblackness
- Daniel Loick & Vanessa E. Thompson, Breathing and Unbreathing: The Chokeholds of Racism
Ethics of COVID (Summer 2020)#
- Sunit Das, Terraforming the Ethical Landscape: COVID-19 and the Principle of Justice
- Nicola Lacetera, The Social and Ethical Support of Markets in a Pandemic
- Petra Molnar, Borders and Pandemics: Surveillance Won’t Stop the Coronavirus
- Elena Comay del Junco & Gal Katz, Philosophers as Pundits (During a Pandemic)
- Nina Sun & Livio Zilli, Criminalization & COVID-19: Public Health and Human Rights Implications
- Roberta K. Timothy, Race Matters: Ethical Implications of COVID-19
- Catherine Evans, Expertise and Objectivity in Crisis: A Historical Perspective
- Teresa Scassa, Pandemic Privacy
- Tanya L. Sharpe, Moving from a Moment to a Movement: #30@8:30
- Padraic X. Scanlan, Beats Working: Wage-Replacements in Past and the Present
- Sophia Moreau & Sabine Tsuruda, The Moral and Legal Risks of Immunity Passports
- Trudo Lemmens, Pandemic Clinical Triage Protocols: Adding Insult to Injury for People with Disabilities
- Matthew Smith, Reproducing Freedom
- Racial Inequality During a Pandemic: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives
- John Lorinc, The Ethics of Publishing COVID-19 Drug Research in Real Time
- Rebecca Woods, No Magic Bullet: The COVID-19 Vaccine as Technological Fix
- Alex Luscombe & Alexander McClelland, Policing the Pandemic: Counter Mapping the Expansion of COVID-19 Enforcement Across Canada
- John Ricco, Isolation, Loneliness, Solitude: The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Brought Us Too Close Together
- Steps from the Frontlines: Medical Student Perspectives During COVID-19
- Benjamin Davis, Internationalism Under Lockdown
- Veena Dubal, Surveillance Is Not a Social Good: Technocapital, Public Health, and the Pandemic
- Anna Su, Keeping the Faith During a Pandemic: Religion and COVID-19
- Black Health Matters: Racism and Protest In the Midst of a Global Pandemic
- Nicola Lacetera, The Ethics and Economics of Paying Plasma Donors
- Abi Adams-Prassl & Jeremias Adams-Prassl, COVID-19: Three Challenges for Labour Market Regulation
- Vincent Chiao & Corey Brettschneider, Rights, Solidarity and the Power to Punish in States of Emergency
- Natasha Tusikov, Going Cashless in an Era of Digital Payments & Surveillance
Ethics & Caribbean Philosophy (2020-)#&
Others
- Krister Bykvist, Well-Being and Changing Attitudes (2017)
- Martina Pavlikova: Toward a Digital Media Ethics (2017) (w/ Trinity College, Faculty of Divinity)
Workshops & Panels
- Author Meets Critics (2016-)
- Arthur Ripstein: Private Wrongs (2016)
- Mara Marin, Connected by Commitment: Oppression and Our Responsibility to Undermine It (2018)
- Margaret Kohn: The Death and Life of the Urban Commonwealth (2017)
- Richard Moon, Putting Faith in Hate: When Religion Is the Source or Target of Hate Speech (2018)
- Hilary Evans Cameron, Refugee Law’s Fact-finding Crisis: Truth, Risk, and the Wrong Mistake (2018)
- Mark Kingwell, Wish I Were Here: Boredom and the Interface (2019)
- Sophia Moreau, Faces of Inequality: A Theory of Wrongful Discrimination (2019)
- Brian Cantwell Smith, The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: Reckoning and Judgment (cancelled: pandemic) (2020)
- Smart Cities in Canada: Digital Dreams, Corporate Designs (2021)
- The Ethics of Ethics and Literature (2017)
- Legal Ethics in the Age of Law and Tech (2017) (w/ Centre for Innovation Law & Policy)
- Racial Inequality During a Pandemic: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives (2020)
- Sidewalk Toronto Revisited: Looking Back, Looking Ahead (2020)
Conferences
- How Should We Vote? Electoral Reform in Canada (2016)
- Leonard Cohen: Ethics and the Artist (2017) (w/ Faculty of Music, Department of English, Centre for Jewish Studies, VIVA! Youth Singers of Toronto)
- Judgement, Relationality, Care: A Celebration of the Work of Jennifer Nedelsky (2017) (w/ Faculty of Law, Department of Political Science)
- Music Amidst Violence: A Discussion Forum (2017) (w/ Faculty of Music, Jackman Humanities Institute, Centre for Jewish Studies)
- Imagining 150: The Ethics of Canada’s Sesquicentennial (2017)&
- The Ethics of Apology: Interdisciplinary & International Perspectives (2017)
- Collective and Temporally Extended Rights and Wrongs (2018) (w/ Department of Philosophy, Munk School of Global Affairs, Faculty of Law)
- Globalization and Its Critics in the 21st Century (2018)&
- Toward a Handbook of Ethics of AI: An Interdisciplinary Workshop (2019) (w/ Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation)
- The Ethics of Roles: Public, Professional, Personal (2019)&
- The Future of Work in the Age of Automation and AI (2020)
- Transparency in the Digital Environment (2021)
Master Classes (by Speakers)
- Rey Chow (w/ Comparative Literature)
- Deborah Stone, Why Statistics Should be Taught as Ethics, Not Math (2017) (Departments of Economics and Political Science at U of T)
- Deirdre McCloskey, Humanomics: A Better Plan for the Social Sciences (2017) (w/ Departments of Economics and Political Science)
- Sheila Jasanoff, Post-Modern Democracy: Truth and Trust in the Public Sphere (2017)
- James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (2017) (w/ Criminology & Sociolegal Studies)
- Rainer Forst, Noumenal Alienation: Rousseau, Kant and Marx on the Dialectics of Self-Determination (2018)
- Peter Brooks (w/ Comparative Literature)
- Clifford Ando (w/ Classics)
Reading/Discussion/Screening Groups
- The Ethics of Digital Platforms (2018)&
- Ethics of Translation (2019)&
- Ethics, (Im)migration and Cinema (2020)&
- Race, Ethics + Power Discussion Group (2020-2021)&
- Stuart Hall, Race, and Neoliberalism (2020-2021)&
Exhibits, Performances
- VIVA! Youth Singers of Toronto (2017) (for Leonard Cohen: Ethics and the Artist)
- Emily Baxter, We Are All Criminals (2018) (photographs)
- Dobrochna Zubek (cello) (for Music Amidst Violence: A Discussion Forum)
- Ethics of Songs (various)
Events Co-Sponsored by C4E
- Symposium on “Grace” by Jane Doe (Nightwood Theatre, Toronto)
- Peter Alilunas, Closed (to the Profane) Due to Pressure from the Morality Squad: The Cinema 2000, Porn Studies, and Cultural Consecration (Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, Cinema Studies Institute, Centre for the Study of the United States, Canadian Studies Program)
- The Sexual Representation Collection Presents: Susanna Paasonen and Jenny Sundèn (Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies)
- Ruth Gavison, Israel and the Legacy of World War II (Centre for Jewish Studies, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Centre for Diaspora and Transnational Studies, Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs, Department of History, Joint Initiative in German and European Studies and the German Academic Exchange Service, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, Konstanty Reynert Chair of Polish History, Al and Malka Green Program in Yiddish Studies)
- Atsushi Moriya: “Harmony Between Morality and Business: The Philosophy of Shibusawa Eiichi” (Japan Foundation, Shibusawa Eichi Memorial Foundation)
- Rainer Forst, A Critical Theory of Transnational (In-)Justice: Realistic in the Right Way (Faculty of Law)
- Stefan Gosepath, Is Inheritance Justified? (Department of Political Science)
- Deborah Stone, Why Statistics Should be Taught as Ethics, Not Math (School of Public Policy & Governance)
- Killam Prize Lecture: Thomas Hurka (Department of Philosophy)
- Author Meets Critics: Alan Brudner The Owl and the Rooster: Hegel’s Transformative Political Science (Cambridge 2017)(Faculty of Law, Department of Political Science)
- Radical Black Political Thought in the 20th and 21st Centuries (Department of Social Justice Education, OISE)
- Conference: The Limits and Legitimacy of Referenda (Faculty of Law)
- Embodiment: Bodies and Embodied Experience (Department of Philosophy)
- Techniques of the Corporation (Technoscience Research Unit)
- Are Refugees Welcome Here? Trump, Immigration, and Canadian Responses (Faculty of Law, International Human Rights Program, Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies)
- Identity and the State: Immigration, Race and Belonging after the US Election (Department of Social Justice Education, OISE)
Publications
- Ethics in Context (C4E’s book series at Oxford University Press)
- The Oxford Handbook of Ethics of AI (2020, paperback 2021)
- Ethics in Context: Journals | Videos | Podcasts | Books
- Symposium Issues
- “Project Marie”: Policing Sexuality in Law, Ethics, Policy (2017)
- The Ethics of Ethics & Literature (2017)
- Anti-Authoritarian Professional Ethics (2017)
- Leonard Cohen: Ethics & the Artist (2017)
- The Ethics of Apology: Interdisciplinary & International Perspectives (2017)
- Mara Marin: Connected by Commitment (2018)
- Richard Moon: Putting Faith in Hate (2018)
- Abraham Rotstein: Myth, Mind and Religion
- Leo Zaibert: Rethinking Punishment (2018)
- Mark Kingwell: Wish I Were Here: Boredom and the Interface (2019)
- The Future of Work in the Age of Automation and AI: An International & Interdisciplinary Workshop (2020)
- Sophia Moreau, Faces of Inequality: A Theory of Wrongful Discrimination (2020)
- Racial Inequality During a Pandemic: Philosophical and Historical Perspectives (2020)
Community Outreach
- Public Lectures & Events (see above; most C4E events are open to the public)
- YouTube Channel & Ethics in Context (since 2018, most public C4E events are recorded, edited, and published)
- Podcasts#
- C4eRadio
- Ethics of AI in Context
- Black Lives Matter
- Ethics of COVID
- Let’s Get Ethical
- Open Questions
- Cited Media (22 episodes) (recorded & produced at C4E)
- Eventbrite (all public C4E events are listed on Eventbrite)
- TikTok#
Communication Efforts
- Centre for Ethics Website [111,000+ views]
- Ethics in Context: Journals | Videos | Podcasts | Books# [56,000+ views]
- YouTube# [82,000+ views]
- Instagram#
- TikTok# [300,000+ views]
- Eventbrite [18,000+ registrants]
- C4E App#
- Weekly MailChimp Newsletter# [2,000+ subscribers]
- UofT News
- U of T’s Centre for Ethics takes mandate of open discussion to heart with public events (2016)
- Ethics and the Artist series celebrates Leonard Cohen (2017)
- Why say sorry? Interdisciplinary perspectives on public apologies (2017)
- Opening up ethical debates, one question at a time (2017)
- ‘The conscience of AI’: Why this U of T expert created a forum for AI researchers and entrepreneurs to discuss ethics (2017)
- Urban experts tackle Toronto’s most pressing ethical issues at U of T event series (2018)
- U of T’s Centre for Ethics speeds ahead with popular ‘ethics of AI’ focus (2018)
- ‘Built for this moment’: U of T researcher helps develop ethics of AI handbook (2019)
- U of T’s Centre for Ethics explores ethical questions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic (2020)
- U of T takes the plunge into TikTok (2021) (Varsity)
- U of T Centre for Ethics explores relationship between race, ethics and power (2021)
- Beyond the song: Roger Mantie discusses the ethics of music performance (2021) (Varsity)
- The Ethics of Architecture: Mark Kingwell launches U of T-Oxford book series (2021)
Initiatives Introduced
Visitors & Fellows (including Ethics of AI Lab & Race, Ethics + Power)
- A list of C4E visitors and fellows 2016-21 is available on the C4E website.
- Faculty
- from Australia, Canada, Finland, Holland, Japan, Lithuania, Pakistan, South Africa, Spain, UK, US; in Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, English, History of Science, Information Studies, Law, Medicine, Philosophy, Political Science, Women’s Studies
- Post-docs & Research Associates
- from Belgium, Canada, France, UK, US; in German, Law, Philosophy, Political Science, Social Justice Education (OISE), Sociology, Women’s Studies
- Graduate students
- from Canada, Germany, Singapore, Switzerland; in Anthropology, Cinema Studies, Comparative Literature, Computer Science, Criminology & Sociolegal Studies, Human Geography, iSchool, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Philosophy, Political Science, Public Health, Religion, Social Justice Education (OISE)
- Undergraduate students
- in Bioethics, Canadia Studies, Classics, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Critical Studies in Equity & Solidarity, English, Environmental Studies, Ethics, Society and Law, Health Studies, History, Human Geography, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Political Science, Russian Literature
Teaching
Graduate Courses
ETH1000H1-Y: Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Context (Dubber; 18-19, 19-20, 20-21) (new)
This year-long, half-credit graduate course exposes students to advanced methods employed in the analysis of ethical issues related to the production, dissemination, and application of AI in a variety of contexts. A diverse team of speakers from a range of academic disciplines including, for instance, computer science; criminology; engineering; law; literary studies; media studies; philosophy; or political science, will model various methodological approaches and modes of analysis. Students will write three short responses each semester to specific presentations, and participate in group discussions of the scheduled guest lectures.
Undergraduate Courses
ETH201H1 – Contemporary Moral Problems (PDF; 16-17, 17-18, 20-21)
ETH201H1 is an introductory course in ethics. How should we live? Which course of action is the right one? When and why should we blame ourselves and/or others? We all have and exercise moral opinions; this course is about justifying them. The course begins with some critical reasoning skills, and then explores philosophical strategies for justifying moral beliefs. We will then examine some specific issues of moral and political significance before concluding with psychological mechanisms behind moral attitudes and behaviour.
ETH230H1 – Morality in Cross-Cultural Perspective (PDF; 17-18, 18-19)
Is morality universal, or does it vary by time and place? This course will examine cultural differences in moral codes from both empirical and philosophical perspectives.
ETH401H1-Y – Seminar in Ethics (Dubber; 16-17, 17-18, 18-19, 19-20, 20-21)
The seminar will expose advanced undergraduates to cutting edge research in ethics. It meets bi-weekly over the entire academic year. Participants will attend research presentations at the Centre for Ethics (topics have included bioethics, indigenous rights, equality and education, free speech, and workplace democracy). They will also meet individually with the instructor (the Centre’s Director) to plan an independent research project related to the theme of the course. In the winter term, students will present their research and discuss it with the other students in the seminar.
ETH350H1-Y – Topics in Value Theory (Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Context) (Dubber 18-19, 19-20, 20-21) (new)
ETH350H1 – Topics in Value Theory (Bias in Medicine: From Evidence Based Medicine to Artificial Intelligence)(PDF; 20-21) (new, OTO)
ETH350H1 – Topics in Value Theory (The Future of Work in the Age of AI (PDF; 19-20) (new, OTO)
ETH350H1 – Topics in Value Theory (Philosophy of Race & Racism) (PDF; 19-20) (new, OTO)
ETH350H1 – Topics in Value Theory (Moral and Aesthetic Value) (PDF; 18-19) (new, OTO)
ETH350H1 – Topics in Value Theory (Human Dignity) (PDF; 16-17) (new, OTO)
ETH210H1 – Rationality and Action (PDF; not taught in 16-21)
An introductory survey of attempts that have been made to develop a formal model of practical rationality, with particular emphasis on the way moral considerations enter into those deliberations. Topics may include: utility-maximization theory, introductory game theory, consequentialism, and deontic reasoning, as well as the limitations of rationality.
ETH220H1 – Moral Psychology (PDF; not taught in 16-21)
A study of issues that arise at the intersection of psychology and moral philosophy. Why do people act morally? What role do reason and emotion play? Can we know what is right, yet not be motivated to do it? What role can science play in advancing our understanding of morality?
* This overview was prepared for the Centre’s self-study covering the period of July 1, 2016 – June 30, 2021; it tracks the structure of the self-study template.
# Activities marked with # are new in 2016-21.
& Activities marked with & were created and hosted by C4E graduate, doctoral, or post-doctoral fellows.