In the case of Donald Trump I think you've got to accept that a lot of what's going on in political discourse is based upon judgement. How the economy works - how people work - what will come to pass - what will not come to pass - what is possible - what is not possible. There is this whole modal dimension. There's a lot in politics that is making a judgement about what might be and can be and would be. Trump frightens a lot of people but there is a bizarre possible world in which it turns out as he's vindicated, though most of us think the evidence is against it.

The simplest and clearest motivation for taking animal welfare seriously is the recognition that pain is in and of itself a bad thing, and that to inflict significant amounts of it unnecessarily is wrong.

Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be.

I don't feel proprietorial about the problems of philosophy. History has taught us that many philosophical issues can grow up, leave home and live elsewhere.

The idea that the mind can extend even beyond the body is an intriguing one, and is bound to become more pressing as we increasingly develop technologies that augment our natural abilities.

No matter how convinced we are that someone is nasty, evil or just plain criminal, if they have not been convicted of any crime and support views that are upheld and defended by many law-abiding citizens, the only way to tackle them is through democratic debate.

Talking about creating truth tends to alarm people, because truth is meant to be 'just out there'. It doesn't take much thinking to appreciate that we sometimes change truths on the ground - sometimes just by words. A new law will change what is possible. I think - perhaps because the paradigm we follow tends to be scientific, and all about discovery - the creative element of truth is one upon which we don't focus so much attention. This is particularly so in anglophone philosophy, perhaps because we associate it too much with those 'pernicious' continental trends.