The Faces of Responsibility

CRÉ International Conference of Spring 2026

Call for papers for PhD Students and Postdoctoral Fellows

The Centre for Research in Ethics (CRE) will host its international, bilingual, interdisciplinary conference on Responsibility in Montreal from 25-27 March 2026.

Organization : Christian Nadeau (UdeM), Alex Carty (McGill), Melissa Hernandez-Parra (UdM) and Christine Tappolet (UdeM) 

The conference The Faces of Responsibility aims to explore the plurality of forms that responsibility takes in our individual, social, and institutional practices. Drawing on multidisciplinary perspectives by bringing together expertise in moral and political philosophy, political science, and legal theory, our objective is to examine the concepts of moral responsibility, political responsibility, and legal responsibility.

We especially welcome contributions that interrogate the points of convergence and divergence between these different kinds of responsibility: their foundations, their attribution criteria, their functions within our normative practices, and the tensions they may generate in contemporary contexts.

The conference encourages theoretical, critical, or applied approaches and aims to provide a space for dialogue for early-career researchers specializing in any aspect of responsibility.

As the conference is fully bilingual, presentations may be given in either French or English. The presentations will be accompanied by a short abstract in the other language.

We invite the submission of abstracts (maximum 500 words) addressing questions related to moral, political, and legal responsibility, as well as issues at the intersection of these domains, including—but not limited to—the following topics:

• Moral agency, psychological capacities, and responsibility
• Responsibility attributions, reactive attitudes, and emotions
• Responsibility, blame, and punishment
• Defenses and apologies
• Responsibility for non-voluntary attitudes (beliefs, emotions, etc.)
• Moral constructivism and moral responsibility
• Disagreements in responsibility attributions and the question of relativism
• Legal responsibility: criminal vs. civil
• Moral guilt and legal guilt
• Punishment and liability
• Legal doctrines of control, fault, and risk
• Corporate responsibility and institutional responsibility
• The responsibility gap and artificial intelligence
• Punishment and responsibility
• Collective and individual responsibility
• Collective agency and excuses
• Political responsibility vs. social responsibility
• Tensions between moral and legal responsibility
• Reducing one kind of responsibility to another
• Collective and individual responsibility
• Group agency and intentionality
• Responsibility toward future generations
• The political responsibility of states and social responsibility

Submission Guidelines

• Abstracts must not exceed 500 words, including references.
• Please include your name, affiliation, contact details, and a short biography (50 words), including information about your linguistic abilities.
• Submissions must be sent at the latest on January 15, 2026 to: [email protected]

Accepted candidates will be notified by February 15.

For any questions or additional information, please contact: [email protected]