Annual Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics

About the Series

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 2020 Lecturer, Professor Michael Otsuka. How to Pool Risks Across Generations: The Case for Collective Pensions was published by OUP in June 2023.  More details here.

Upcoming Lectures

2023 Lectures

Photrograph of Thomas Hurka with OUC logo

Professor Thomas Hurka's 2023 Annual Uehiro Lectures have now been rescheduled and will take place in March 2024 as follows:

  • Series title: Knowledge and Achievement: Their Value, Nature, and Public Policy Role
  • Dates/times: 16:30 - 18:15 on (1) Mon 4 Mar, (2) Weds 6 Mar, and (3) Fri 8 Mar 2024
  • Venue: H B Allen Centre Lecture Theatre, Keble College, 25 Banbury Rd, Oxford OX2 6NN
  • Registration: now open here
  • For full details, visit the 2023 Lectures page.

2021 Annual Uehiro Lectures

racism 1284

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
  • Dates/times: 16:30 - 18:15 on (1) Monday 29 Jan, (2) Weds 31 Jan, and (3) Fri 2 Feb 2024
  • Venue: Lecture Theatre, Continuing Education, Rewley House, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2JA
  • Registration: now open here
  • For full details, visit the 2021 Lectures page.
The Uehiro Lectures by Year
Book Series

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

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

Podcasts
Uehiro lectures podcast album logo

Audio recordings of the Lectures from 2011 onwards are freely available to download from Oxford Podcasts.  Where available, other resources can be found on the Past Lectures pages below.

 
News

Professor Larry Temkin retires

A conference was held in Larry's honour at Rutgers University on 27 October 2023, guests included several past Uehiro Lecturers, Shelly Kagan (2016), Jeff McMahan (2006), Mike Otsuka (2020), Frances Kamm (2008), Howard McGary (forthcoming 2021), and Peter Singer (2007), as well as Roger Crisp (Director, Oxford Uehiro Centre) and Ingmar Persson (Distinguished Research Fellow).

We wish Professor Larry Temkin (2017 Uehiro Lecturer) a long and happy retirement! For information on Larry's lecture series Obligations to the Needy, titles, abstracts, audio recordings, as well as the resulting book Being Good in a World of Need, please see the 2017 Lectures page.

Group photograph of guests at Larry Temkin's retirement conference
YouTube

Videos of some of the Uehiro Centre's Annual Lectures, including Allen Buchanan (2009), Janet Radcliffe Richards (2012), Tim Scanlon (2013), Michael Otsuka (2020) and Peter Railton (2022) are available on our YouTube channel (full playlist below).

https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLrZLXu5hwoDO7rrZhroG6RltEcLwJLAY9
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