Jocelyn Maclure
Professor & Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair in Human Nature and Technology
DPhil, University of Southampton
After a B.A. at Laval University and an M.A. at the University of Victoria, Jocelyn Maclure earned a DPhil from the University of Southampton. Before joining the philosophy department at McGill University in 2021, he taught for 17 years in the Faculty of philosophy at Laval University. He held visiting appointments in several universities.
Jocelyn’s research is ethics, political philosophy, the philosophy of AI and social epistemology. His book Secularism and Freedom of Conscience (Harvard University Press, 2011), co-authored with Charles Taylor, appeared in more than 10 languages. His recent work on artificial intelligence and on end-of-life issues led him to explore different metaphysical questions ranging from the mind-body problem to the enigma of personal identity.
As a public philosopher, he served as an expert-analyst for the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on cultural and religious accommodations, co-chaired the group of experts on medical assistance in dying, advanced medical directives and neurodegenerative diseases, and participated in numerous public debates. He was the president the Quebec Government Ethics in Science and Technology Commission from 2017 to 2024. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2023.
Maclure, J., Morin-Martel, A. “AI Ethic’s Institutional Turn”, Digital Society, 4, 18, 2025.
Hamrouni, N., Maclure, J. “Precedent Autonomy and the Patient’s Best Interest: A Reasonable Path for Advance Medical Assistance in Dying Requests”, in Research Handbook on Law and Assisted Dying, Ben White (ed.), Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025.
Dimitrios Karmis and Jocelyn Maclure, Civic Freedom in an Age of Diversity. James Tully’s Public Philosophy, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023.
Cossette-Lefebvre, H., Maclure, J. “AI’s Fairness Problem: Understanding Wrongful Discrimination in the Context of Automated Decision-Making”, AI Ethics (2022).
Maclure, J. “AI, Explainability and Public Reason: The Argument from the Limitations of the Human Mind”, Minds and Machines, 2021.
Levy, J., Maclure, J. & Weinstock, D. (ed.), Interpreting Modernity. Essays on the Work of Charles Taylor, Montreal : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020.
Maclure, J. “Context, Intersubjectivism, and Value : Humean Constructivism Revisited”, Dialogue. Canadian Philosophical Review, 59, 3, 2020, pp. 377-410.
Maclure, J. “The Merits and Limits of Conscience-Based Legal Exemptions,” Criminal Law & Philosophy, 2020.
Maclure, J. “Jenseits der Toleranz und Zurück”, in Toleranz in transkultureller Perspektive, S. Dhouib (ed,), Velbrück-Wissenschaft, Berlin, 2020.
Maclure, J. “The new AI spring: a deflationary view”, AI and Society, 35, 2019.
Maclure, J. “Reasonable Naturalism and the Humanistic Resistance to Reductionism”, in Markus Gabriel, Neo-Existentialism. How to Conceive the Mind After Naturalism’s Failure, Polity Press, 2018.
Maclure, J. “The Regulation of Hateful and Hurtful Speech. Liberalism’s Uncomfortable Predicament”, McGill Law Journal, Vol 63:1, 2018, pp. 133-154.
Maclure, J. Dumont, I. “Selling conscience short: a response to Schuklenk and Smalling on conscientious objections by medical professionals”, Journal of Medical Ethics, 43, 2017; 241-244.