Cheats prosper until there are enough who bear grudges against them to make sure they do not prosper.

The idea that we can actually have an impact on places more or less instantly, too, by responding in some way or not responding, I think, also makes it true.

My major concern about leaving enhancement to the marketplace is that then the rich will be able to buy themselves genetically superior children and the poor will not - sharpening the class divisions we have now. That problem could be overcome if, genetic enhancement were available to all, subsidized by the state - and that would, over time, have benefits for society as well.

In the sense that you're not at the centre of power, like a president or prime minister of a major power, everyone is marginalised; my position doesn't isn't unique in that respect. I think there are different sorts of relevance in different contexts.

When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of happier life for the second. Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effect on others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him.

I am not saying that factory farming is the same as the Holocaust or the slave trade, but it's clear that there is an immense amount of suffering in it, and just as we think that the Nazis were wrong to ignore the suffering of their victims, so we are wrong to ignore the sufferings of our victims.

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