To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support - which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection - but also by taking active steps to end the baby's life swiftly and humanely.

There is an obvious evolutionary explanation for the scarcity of altruistic saints: Without a strong predilection for their own interests, our ancestors would have been unlikely to survive, reproduce, and give their own offspring a chance of doing the same. Now conditions have changed and for most of us, surviving and reproducing isn't such a struggle but we still carry the genes of our ancestors and they influence - not determine, but influence - our behavior.

My fear is that that's what's going to happen with robotics and the military. Importantly, this discussion has to involve not just the scientists, but also the political scientists. It's got to be a multidisciplinary discussion. You can't have it be another repeat of what happened with the people working on the atomic bomb.

If we all think only of our own interests, we are headed for collective disaster - just look at what we are doing to our planet's climate.

To protest about bullfighting in Spain, the eating of dogs in South Korea, or the slaughter of baby seals in Canada, while continuing to eat eggs from hens who have spent their lives crammed into cages, or veal from calves who have been deprived of their mothers, their proper diet, and the freedom to lie down with their legs extended, is like denouncing apertheid in South Africa while asking your neighbors not to sell their houses to blacks.

Without in any way minimising the economic and psychological blow that people experience when they lose their jobs, the unemployed in affluent countries still have a safety net, in the form of social security payments, and usually free healthcare and free education for their children. They also have sanitation and safe drinking water.