What we do
CEPS is the leading research center in Portugal specializing in the fields of ethics and political philosophy.
The CEPS hosts several academic events in political philosophy and ethics with an international scope. These include the Braga Meetings on Ethics and Political Philosophy, the Summer School in Political Philosophy and Public Policy, the CEPS Seminars, and the PhD Seminars.
Political philosophy lines of research focus on a cluster of four areas: (a) political liberalism and human rights; (b) distributive justice, unconditional basic income, property-owning democracy, and pre-distribution; (c) theories of democracy, public interest, and the right to information; (d) populism, representation, and political rhetoric and its historical dimension.
The ethics line of research focuses on applied ethics and applied philosophy, namely (a) nudge theory and behavioral economics; (b) the concept of food (c) the philosophy of technology and human enhancement.
Recent lines of research have also been launched focusing on the ethics of AI, the ethics of war, the ethics of immigration; workplace democracy, neo-republican approaches to domination, the social philosophy of exclusion, and political epistemology.
CEPS’s researchers actively contribute to teaching and supervision in two graduate programs coordinated by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minho: the MA in Political Philosophy and the PhD Program in Philosophy.