I believe that in this new world that we live in, we often have a responsibility, you know, to actually go beyond the thou shalt nots - that is, the not harming others - and say we can help others and we should be helping others.

It would be nonsense to say that it was not in the interests of a stone to be kicked along the road...A stone has no interests because it cannot suffer. The capacity for suffering and enjoyment is, however, not only necessary, but also sufficient for us to say that a being has interests - at an absolute minimum, an interest in not suffering. A mouse, for example, does have an interest in not being kicked along the road because it will suffer if it is.

There are a lot of weapons that we've developed which we've pulled back from - biological weapons, chemical weapons, etc. This may be the case with armed autonomous robotics, where we ultimately pull back from them.

Probability is the guide of life, and of death, too.

When children see animals in a circus, they learn that animals exist for our amusement. Quite apart from the cruelty involved in training and confining these animals, the whole idea that we should enjoy the humiliating spectacle of an elephant or lion made to perform circus tricks shows a lack of respect for the animals as individuals.

If we are prepared to take the life of another being merely in order to satisfy our taste for a particular type of food, then that being is no more than a means to our end.

What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.