Daniel Weinstock

Full Professor
Associate Dean (Research)
Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the Faculties of Law and of Arts

New Chancellor Day Hall
3690 Peel Street
Room 201
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3A 1W9

514-398-2372 [office]
daniel.weinstock2 [at] mcgill.ca (Email)

Website: McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy

Daniel Weinstock


Media contributions
"COVID-19 Q&A: Daniel Weinstock on ethics, social distancing and reopening elementary schools." McGill Reporter, 28 April 2020.
"Quebec’s surprisingly conservative approach to cannabis." Policy Options Politiques, 21 November 2019.


Professor Daniel Weinstock's research interests have spanned widely across a wide range of topics in contemporary moral and political philosophy – from the just management of ethnocultural and religious diversity in modern liberal democracies, to state policy with respect to children, families, and educational institutions.

His main research interests at present have to do with the problem of health equity, and with issues of justice and inclusion as they arise in the organization of modern cities.

The guiding thread of his research has been to connect philosophical and ethical argument with institutional reasoning. It is marked by the firm conviction that moral and political philosophers have paid insufficient attention to the institutional parameters that both enable and constrain the realization of normative ideals. His areas of expertise also include the politics of language and identity, democracy, citizenship, and pluralism.

He joined McGill’s Faculty of Law in August 2012, and was director of the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy from 2013 to 2020. He was appointed Katharine A. Pearson Chair in Civil Society and Public Policy in the Faculties of Law and of Arts on June 2020, for a seven year mandate. He started a three-year mandate as the Faculty's Associate Dean (Research) in September 2021.

Professor Daniel Weinstock has published many articles on the ethics of nationalism, problems of justice and stability in multinational states, the foundations of international ethics, and the accommodation of cultural and moral diversity within liberal democratic societies. He has also been an active participant in public policy in Québec, having been a member from 1997 to 1999 of a Ministry of Education working group on religion in public schools, and from 2003 to 2008, the founding director of Quebec’s Public Health Ethics Committee.

Professor Weinstock is a prize fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation (2004), and a recipient of the André-Laurendeau Prize given by the Association canadienne-française pour l’avancement des sciences (2008). A James McGill Professor from 2014 to 2020, he was awarded the 2017 Charles Taylor Prize for Excellence in Policy Research by the Broadbent Institute.

Previously a Professor of Philosophy at the Université de Montréal, Daniel Weinstock held Canadian Research Chair on Ethics and Political Philosophy. He was also the director of the Research Centre on Ethics at Université de Montréal (CRÉUM) for many years. He is also a member of Centre d'études ethniques des universités montréalaises (Université de Montréal).

He studied under Charles Taylor, and at Harvard University, he also studied under John Rawls. Professor Daniel Weinstock holds a DPhil in philosophy (Oxford), an MA in political philosophy, and a BA in French literature and political philosophy (McGill).

Recent publications

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Chapters in edited collections or other volumes

Collections

Areas of interest

Social and political philosophy; ethics of public policy; ethics of nationalism; foundations of international ethics politics of language and identity; democracy, citizenship, and pluralism; justice in multinational states; accommodation of cultural and moral diversity in democratic societies

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