I am very Aristotelian in approach - not in detail - so I always find I'm saying things that get people frustrated like 'It's a matter of balance and judgement'. To a lot of philosophers these are terrible words because they're admitting of vagueness and uncertainty. The more I've done philosophy, the more I've become convinced that that is the way it is.

We do wrong willfully when we fail to think hard about whether what we're doing is right.

Happiness is not the same as life satisfaction, while neither are identical to what we might call flourishing.

If we now find ourselves looking down on the cheap and convenient, it is only because we now have better things which are affordable.

Society needs both justice and compassion, a head and a heart, if it is to be civilised.

Christmas is a rare occasion when we are reminded that we have obligations to people we did not choose to be related to, and that love is not just a spontaneous feeling but something we sometimes really have to work at, with people we may not even much like.

If there's one thing that makes me cynical, it's optimists. They are just far too cynical about cynicism. If only they could see that cynics can be happy, constructive, even fun to hang out with, they might learn a thing or two.