By temperament and disposition and emotions, I'm a liberal; but in my beliefs about what's best for the country, I'm a centrist.

Do people believe in human rights because such rights actually exist, like mathematical truths, sitting on a cosmic shelf next to the Pythagorean theorem just waiting to be discovered by Platonic reasoners? Or do people feel revulsion and sympathy when they read accounts of torture, and then invent a story about universal rights to help justify their feelings?

Reciprocity is a deep instinct; it is the basic currency of social life.

Sacredness binds people together, and then blinds them to the arbitrariness of the practice.

I think that we are passionate creatures who really live our fullest life when we are deeply engaged, when we feel successes, and exult in them, when we feel losses and tragedies and are hurt by them. So I came to the conclusion that Eastern ideas of withdrawal may not be right for modern Westerners. If you read the ancient texts, they're pretty severe. I mean, they really are not the sort of thing that you would think compatible with really throwing yourself into life and being a part of it.

I did say that in-group, authority and purity are necessary for the maintenance of order, but I would never give them a blanket endorsement.

If I have a mission in life, it is to convince people that everyone is morally motivated - everyone except for psychopaths.