Annual Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics

The annual public Uehiro Lecture Series captures the ethos of the Uehiro Centre, which is to bring the best scholarship in analytic philosophy to bear on the most significant problems of our time, and to make progress in the analysis and resolution of these issues to the highest academic standard, in a manner that is also accessible to the general public. Philosophy should not only create knowledge, it should make people’s lives better.

In keeping with this, the Annual Uehiro Lectures are published as a book series by Oxford University Press and we are pleased to announce the recent publication of the latest in the series by 2017 Uehiro Lecturer, Professor Larry S. Temkin, Being Good in a World of Need. Published in January 2022, the book was selected to feature in Oxford University Press' digital campaign 'Philosophy in Focus'. Explore free content and recommended reading here. Search the archives here.

2023 Lectures CANCELLATION NOTICE

We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances, Professor Thomas Hurka's 2023 Annual Uehiro Lectures are postponed until further notice. We hope to be able to hold them in 2024, and will post scheduling updates here as soon as we can.

^{8 August 2023}

2021 Annual Uehiro Lectures

We are delighted to announce that Professor Howard McGary's delayed lecture series will take place in early 2024 as follows:

Series title: The Persistence of Racism in Liberal Societies
Speaker: Professor Howard McGary (Distinguished Emeritus Professor, Rutgers University)
Dates/times: 16:30 - 18:30 on (1) Monday 29 January, (2) Wednesday 31 January, and (3) Friday 2 February 2024
Registration: now open here
Venue: Lecture Theatre, Continuing Education, Rewley House, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA
For full details, visit the 2021 Lectures page.

Book Series

We are delighted to announce details of the latest publication in the Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics, published by Oxford University Press.

book cover how to pool risks across generations photograph of lake and mountains

How to Pool Risks Across Generations: The Case for Collective Pensions

Professor Michael Otsuka, 2020 Uehiro Lecturer

Published: 27 June 2023, Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198885962

How to Pool Risks across Generations makes the case for the collective provision of pensions, on fair terms of social cooperation. Through the insurance of a mutual association which extends across society and over multiple generations, we share one another's fates by pooling risks across both space and time. Resources are transferred, not simply between different people, but also within the possible future lives of each person: from one's more fortunate to one's less fortunate future selves. The book opens with an investigation of the longevity and investment risk that even a single individual on a desert island would face in providing for her old age. From this atomistic starting point, it builds up, within and across the chapters, to increasingly collective forms of pension provision. By joining together, it is possible to tame the risks we would face as individuals each with our own private pension pot. A collective pension can be justified as a 'social union of social unions': an enduring corporate body, which is formed by agreements to pool risks, in a manner that involves reciprocity between the various individuals that constitute the collective. Even though all individuals age and die, a collective pension scheme remains evergreen, as the average age of members remains relatively unchanged, through the influx of new members to replace those who retire. It is therefore possible to smooth risks indefinitely across as well as within generations, to the mutual advantage of each.

Link to the Uehiro Series in Practical Ethics on the OUP website: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/category/academic/series/philosophy/uspe.do