In this era of globalization we are witnessing struggles within individual states about what their identity and interests consist in.

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

In trying to develop an impartial, expansive ethic we are trying to get ethical systems to do something which they did not evolve in order to do. This doesn't mean that it can't be done or that we shouldn't try to expand the reach of our ethical frameworks, only that there are reasons to be skeptical about its success.

The millennium development goals are important, both morally and economically, because much of the world's population maybe is as much as a third of the world's population hasn't yet reached the level of economic development where we begin to get a dissociation from people's economic status and their reports about personal happiness. So we really do need to do much more and much more effectively in order to give everyone the kind of basis for which they can have good vibes.

In much of the world today there are no more chilling words than "I'm from the United States and I'm here to help you."

Most "process" philosophy is historicist (e.g., Hegel) and not concerned with "deep time." Maybe Whitehead is an exception. He may be a really important philosopher for all I know. I've never been able to read him.

When I first started studying climate change back in the 1980s, I was struck by how difficult it was be for people to understand this issue.