Dolphins are social mammals, capable of enjoying their lives. They form close bonds with other members of their group.

I don't think nationalism is alone holding the field; it's in contention with a lot of different things.

I suppose what's happened recently has confirmed suspicions I voiced in the book, and I think made clearer some of those things that I point out. For instance I have a section of the book where I talk about the possibility of torture.

When you look at food as an ethical issue in the Christian tradition, you don't find very much about it. You don't find, as you do in the Jewish or Islamic or Hindu traditions, a lot of restrictions saying you can eat this but you can't eat that. But what you do find is the idea that gluttony is a sin and that it's something that we ought to be ashamed of.

The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.

Extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness.

If penicillin had been judged by its toxicity to guinea pigs, it might never have been used by man.