With the rise of capitalism, it became more obvious that people pursue individual self-interest. The great nationalist in Italy, Giuseppe Mazzini, a wonderful philosopher, said that we need the nation. We need something that people can lean on, from which they can then reach out to the whole world. The idea of all humanity is too vague. It can't motivate human aspiration in a reliable way.

If you really do want to increase women's status, you could focus on just that, but you'd probably better focus also on women's education. Access to artificial contraception, I would say, is also a very important determinant of women's status.

Life is about more than earning a living, and if you're not in the habit of thinking about it, you can end up middle-aged or even older and shocked to realize that your life seems empty.

We really have to think about aging because women are living longer than men. More of the people who need care are women. A lot of them are living alone, with no one to care for them, or they're shunted into institutions. I would like to see a sensible aging policy more like what the Nordic countries have. They're cutting back those programs, but there you can still have in-home nursing care. You don't have to rely on your children. I personally don't want to be a burden on my daughter.

I think that's what we really need in America, for people to hear each other. And I think philosophy could do a little bit better on that.

People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious.

The humanities teach us the value, even for business, of criticism and dissent. When there's a culture of going along to get along, where whistleblowers are discouraged, bad things happen and businesses implode.