Daniel Weinstock is a well-known Canadian political philosopher and a frequent public commentator on a wide-range of issues as diverse as public health and cultural accommodation. Currently, he is the MacDonald Professor of Law at McGill University, where he teaches both law and philosophy. Before moving to McGill, Weinstock held a Canada Research Chair in ethics and political philosophy at the Université de Montréal, where he was the founding director of the Centre de recherche en éthique de l'Université de Montréal. In 2004, Professor Weinstock was appointed a fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

For his Big Thinking/Trudeau lecture Daniel Weinstock will weave together elements of an autobiographical account of his academic trajectory with a more theoretical account of what he views as the contribution of ethics to the elucidation of difficult public policy dilemmas. He will argue that in the face of intractable differences at the level of principle, there is room for building what American political philosopher John Rawls has called "overlapping consensuses" by focussing on consequences of public policy choices, and in particular on harm reduction.

In English and French. Simultaneous interpretation is available.

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