Many people on the political left found my work psychologically liberating. They began to say: once you realize that standards emerge historically, then you can see through and discard all the norms to which we have been falsely enslaved.

The idea - the core idea of humanism - is that the act of reading about great deeds will lead you to imitate them.

The first thing to ask when writing a sentence is 'What am I trying to do?'

It is always incorrect to assume you can know what someone's moral convictions are based on their philosophical theories.

It is of no help to us that there is an absolute truth of the matter of things because unfortunately, none of us are in a position to say definitively what that is - although we all think that we are.

I should have known better. Pro-life arguments are now based on scientific evidence and the pro-choice arguments are not. That is a cultural, historical fact.

In general, higher education does not know how to speak for its interests. It offers a stance that is defensive, cowardly and likely to be ineffective.