Members of the Centre de recherche en éthique (CRÉ) wish to congratulate the Centre’s three student members who took up the challenge issued by the team at BistroBrain: presenting a complex ethical position in only twelve minutes! The event took place at L’Île Noire Pub on February 25, before a particularly attentive audience and feedback collected afterward indicated unanimous satisfaction. Indeed, all respondents to the evaluation form reported having had a “very good experience” and rated the quality of the science communication as “very good.” Congratulation to our three great science communicators !

The presentations were filmed and are now available online:

Alexis Boivin (M.A. student in philosophy at the Université de Montréal): “Protester contre les enfantillages des adultes”

If civil disobedience is justified and necessary in non-democratic regimes, then we must also raise the question in relation to children, who have neither the right to vote nor the right to represent themselves, and who likewise lack the autonomy to maintain student councils without adult supervision.

Georges Lupwana Ngamasana (PhD candidate in philosophy, Université de Montréal) : “Punir les victime ? Repenser la justice sociale”

Abolitionism and reformism stand in opposition regarding criminal justice. They share a critical diagnosis of penal institutions but diverge in their responses. Abolitionists regard imprisonment as immoral and socially harmful, and advocate its abolition. Reformists, by contrast, maintain that the institution can be improved. Incarceration reproduces structural injustices and involves selective criminalization, though not through any simple or mechanically continuous historical process.

Mathilde Genest (PhD candidate in Philosophy and Feminist Studies, McGill University) : “Les survivantes d’agression sexuelle à la barre”

How can we limit the harms and injustices experienced by survivors of sexual assault during trial? Refocusing legal processes on their needs and well-being, beyond their role as witnesses, would allow us to serve them better.