We can take suffering to be an opportunity to learn and to grow. But if we are honest, we should remember that this is making the best of a bad job, and that minimising suffering takes priority over optimising its outcome.

Most people believe, more or less, that the value of a human life is the same, irrespective of where on the planet it happens to find itself. But, of course, not every life has the same value for us.

Trade has played a vital role in the social evolution of humankind. It allowed people to specialise, which raises both skill levels and efficiency. It brought people from different lands together, co-operating rather than competing over resources.

The only good reason to embrace a philosophical position is that you are convinced it is true or at least makes sense of the world better than the alternatives.

I don't think there is ever a direct connection between the philosophical community and the wider populus. I'm very aware of this because I've been working on a book on ideas in global philosophy and you always find some kind of relation between the dominant philosophies in a culture and the folk philosophy but it's not a straight-down dissemination. It's partly bottom-up. Thinkers are the products of the cultures they grew-up in. They aspire to thinking purely objectively and universally, but they are often reflecting ways of thought that are embedded in a culture.

The border between the natural and the supernatural, religion and philosophy, may not always be clear. But there are lines and we should know and accept which side of it we are on.

Morality is more than possible without God, it is entirely independent of him.