Monique Canto-Sperber

Monique Canto-Sperber is the director of the Ecole normale supérieure (Ulm), she is a university professor and a fellow of National Center for Scientific Research  (CNRS, Center Raymond Aron), she was the former vice president of the French National Ethics Committee.

Alumnus of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, with a agregation and a doctorate in philosophy, she was professor at several universities (University of Rouen and Amiens). She chaired a research center  (at University of Caen) and in 1993 was appointed director of research at the CNRS. She was the scientific director of many international scientific conferences. She taught at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and at many other universities abroad. She taught during several years at Stanford University (USA).

Monique Canto-Sperber sat in numerous boards and committes. She was a member of the board of trustees of the French national Library, and she chaired the Philosophy Committee of the National Center of Letters. She is the editor of two series edited at the Presses Universitaires de France. She takes part in a television programm on essays and debates in the Senate channel, Public Sénat, and runs a radio weekly programm on France Culture.

Monique Canto-Sperber wad trained as a classicist and first worked in the field of ancient philosophy. She published four translations and commentaries of Plato’s dialogues and several books on Greek philosophy (Les Paradoxes de la connaissance (1991), Philosophie grecque (1997) et Ethiques Grecques (2002).

For more than fifteen years,  most of her books have been devoted to contemporary moral and political philosophy and to pratical ethical questions. She published numerous books on these issues, translated in several languages, among them La Philosophie morale britannique (1994), le Dictionnaire d’Ethique et de philosophie morale (1996, 4ème édition : 2004), L’Inquiétude morale et la vie humaine (2001),  Les Règles de la liberté (2003), Le Bien, la guerre et la terreur (2005), Faut-il sauver le libéralisme ? (octobre 2006). She was the editor of several books as Le Style de la pensée (2002), Ethiques d’aujourd’hui (2004).

Monique Canto-Sperber is Chevalier des arts et des lettres, Chevalier de la légion d’honneur and Officier de l’ordre national du mérite and Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium.