I have to say that some philosophers such as the late Bernard Williams, and I would include myself in this group, would say that tranquillity is overrated as the goal of life.

Human courtship has some wild extremes. At one end of the spectrum, there is harassment, pestering, blackmail, and an abuse of institutional power, which its targets rightly fear and loathe. At the other end is love, which as Nietzsche said, is beyond good and evil and always deserves our respect and compassion even when it is doomed or destructive. In the wide middle of the spectrum are all the ambiguous and tragi-comic goings-on of our species.

In Western Europe and North America some things are better than they were - at least relative to their moral nadirs - such as labour legislation, the opening of the professions to women, intolerance for domestic violence, but so much is still morally unacceptable - the weapons trade, cruel and unusual punishment, economic parasitism.

People should be able to develop their abilities and interests and have access to such goods as friendship, artistry, and nature and a political voice. It's possible to be poor and yet have all this, but in a polarized society, and one where culture and adventure have been thoroughly monetised, it is a lot more difficult.

The life-world of human and animal experience, with colours, tastes, solid objects, is a perceptual effect of massed atoms.

Claims like 'Slavery is wrong' are not fully common-sensical, so they must be at least partly theoretical.

Atomism had no absolute 'above' and 'below' and no such rulers, so favoured the undersranding of justice as an agreement amongst equals.