Grand Challenges lecture series Grand Challenges 2018-2019 | Page 4

GRAND CHALLENGES LECTURE SERIES
Dr Rowan Williams
ETHICS, LAW AND THE
FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY
16 OCTOBER 2018 1.00PM-2.00PM
KEELE HALL, THE BALLROOM
We are living in the aftermath of a referendum.
And whatever the rights and wrongs of the particular
result, it’s worth asking why we aren’t usually governed
by referendum. Democracy in the full meaning has an
ethical component, which is in danger if we just go by
majority votes: it assumes something about the liberty
or dignity of every citizen, and so mandates a certain
approach to minorities or dissidents. In this lecture,
Dr Williams will consider how this has evolved and how
it works - and why and where it may be at risk today.
Dr Rowan Williams is Master of Magdalene College,
Cambridge University and former Archbishop of
Canterbury. Dr Williams has a distinguished reputation
as an academic and theologian and has written on a
wide range of theological, historical and political themes.
He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1990,
a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2003,
and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2010.
In 2013 he was made a Life Peer becoming Lord Williams
of Oystermouth in the City and County of Swansea.
Dr Williams is a noted poet and translator of poetry,
and as well as Welsh he speaks or reads nine
other languages.
4