The University of Waterloo Public Lecture Series in Philosophy

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Past Lectures

2007

Series Title: Justice Through the Generations
Janna Thompson (LaTrobe, Australia/ Humphrey Professor Waterloo)
Political societies and cultural and religious communities persist through time and the generations. Individuals are born into a society or culture which, in most cases, will continue to exist, perhaps for many generations, after they are dead. They inherit institutions and traditions from their predecessors and their community makes decisions that will affect the lives of successors. Relationships between the generations give rise to questions about moral and political obligations. What ought we to do for the sake of succeeding generations? What do co-existing generations owe to each other? Do we also have duties to past generations? This series of related, but independent, public lectures aims to answer these questions.

Friday, February 9 – Lecture 1. Giving the Dead Their Due: Justice and Past Generations
Our forebears made sacrifices for the sake of our community. They also committed some injustices. Do their deeds, good and bad, create obligations for us? In this lecture I will explain how we can have duties in respect to the dead and their deeds, and will discuss what they are.

Friday, March 23 – Lecture 2. Fair Play Between the Generations: Gratitude and Justice in a Multi-Generational Society
Societies consist of members of generational groups who are at different stages in their progression through life. Relationships between these groups raise issues of justice, especially at a time of demographic change. Is it just to make younger generations subsidise the pensions and other expenses of a large cohort of elderly baby boomers? Is it just to make the young pay public debts that their elders incurred? Do the young have duties of gratitude to the old? In this lecture, I will discuss how such questions should be answered and will explain how duties in families are related to generational duties of members of a society.

Friday, March 30  – Lecture 3. Sustainability and Duties to Future Generations
Is it morally wrong to use up non-renewable resources, or to store nuclear wastes that could leak and cause harm to people of the distant future? These questions raise some difficult issues concerning our relationship to future generations: What is the basis for duties to future people? How far into the future do our responsibilities extend? Can we wrong people whose very existence will depend on the policies that we now pursue? How should we deal with uncertainty and lack of knowledge about what the future holds? In this talk I will present a view about justice to future generations, and will show how it can be used to answer these questions.

Thursday, April 5 – Trawling for Columbine: School violence in the news media
Tim Kenyon (Waterloo)

2006

Wednesday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m., at the Waterloo Public Library
Topic: School Violence in the Media
Tim Kenyon, University of Waterloo