Vice-rector: Culture, Inclusion and Social Responsibility
He was born in 1963 in Porto, where he lived and studied until completing his degree in Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. He obtained a Master's degree in Social and Political Philosophy from the same institution and earned his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence. He later achieved his Habilitation at the University of Minho, where he is Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the School of Arts and Humanities (ELACH).
His research has focused on Moral and Political Philosophy, addressing topics such as social justice, doctrinal and ideological pluralism, multiculturalism, and the foundations of human rights. He has published over one hundred academic works, including twelve books authored or edited by him, in Portugal and abroad. He founded the Centre for Ethics, Politics and Society at the University of Minho.
He has taught more than thirty different courses, not only in the undergraduate degree in Philosophy (which he helped to establish) and the Master's in Political Philosophy (which he founded), but also in various other programmes at the University of Minho and other universities, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His teaching activity has covered five main areas: 1. History of Social and Political Ideas; 2. Political Philosophy and Contemporary Theories of Justice; 3. Philosophy of Human Rights; 4. Analysis of Ideologies; and 5. Normative and Applied Ethics.
He has been a visiting professor at the Institute for Political Studies of the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon, the Autonomous University of Madrid, ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. During unpaid or sabbatical leave periods, he was a visiting professor at Brown University, a Senior Associate Member at St Antony's College – University of Oxford, and a visiting researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Madrid.
He has served as President of both the Portuguese Political Science Association and the Portuguese Philosophical Society, of which he remains a member of the Scientific Council. He was recently elected President of the Portuguese Association of Political Philosophy.
Within ELACH, he has held several positions, including course director, head of department, research unit director, chair of the School Council, Dean of the School and chair of its Scientific Council. At the University of Minho level, he has been a member of, among others, the Ethics Committee, the Academic Senate, and the General Council.
He was the chair of the University of Minho's 50th Anniversary Commemorative Commission.
