Professor Gaita’s speech explored the conditions for a truthful, authentic and just use of ‘we’ as it might be spoken between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, between different cultures in multicultural Australia, and between nations.

At times deeply personal, Professor Gaita discussed with what right and what authority one may speak about aspects of this topic, when one must speak personally and what kind of ‘I’ must enter some kinds of ‘we’ if either is to be truthful.

Running since Professor Fethi Mansouri’s appointment and now in its fifth year, the UNESCO Chair Oration is an annual lecture delivered by a preeminent thinker in social justice, cultural diversity and human rights. For more information about the UNESCO Chair, visit the UNESCO Chair website.

Professor Raimond Gaita

Author of the award winning Romulus, My Father, Raimond Gaita’s other books include, A Common Humanity: Thinking about Love and Truth and Justice, The Philosopher’s Dog and After Romulus. In 2009, the University of Antwerp awarded Gaita the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa “for his exceptional contribution to contemporary moral philosophy and for his singular contribution to the role of the intellectual in today’s academic world”. He is currently Professorial Fellow at the Melbourne Law School and The Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, the Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy at King’s College London, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.