Is it in the UK's interests to leave the EU? It depends on your values. The answer can't be read off of GDP statistics under various scenarios or some measures of global influence.

The Enlightenment is not a nightmare, nor is it something that comes easily to us. It is an aspiration - and a good one!

Since we're not very good at something as basic as controlling our reproduction, life is really bad for more people than ever before.

Moral revolutions are typically seen retrospectively. Prospectively, the revolutionaries tend to look like crazy people, and sometimes they are.

If we don't have historical consciousness we can't really understand problems in all their dimensions, and if we can't understand problems than we can't find solutions.

People will suffer and so will nature, but life is likely to go on with a great deal of loss and mourning. Human adaptability and resilience will still be alive, and so will that great need and resource of ours called love.

I think when it comes to climate change, the single most important thing in the world is for the United States' Congress to pass an effective bill that will put a price in carbon because if it starts costing something to emit carbon, this will provide an incentive, people do act on the basis to some extent of economic incentives to emit fewer greenhouse gases.