The problem with equality

"Parliament is still far from representative. This matters, but not for the reasons often given. It is not, as Katharine Viner wrote in the Guardian days after the election, because 'the millionaire who slashes away at public services can have no true understanding of the affect of the loss of those services on the single mother with nowhere else to go.' Such objections are common, but are also premised on a pernicious idea that weakens the case of many of those calling for greater representation: that in order to speak for a group, someone must be a member of that group. Muslims need Muslims in parliament to speak for them, women need women, and so on. This is fundamentally incoherent."

Article in latest issue of Prospect.

Today - BBC Radio Four

I was on this morning's programme talking about heroism. This link takes you directly to that item and should work for at least a week.

Ten of the greatest: Philosophical principles

"Philosophical principles are like credit agreements: the headlines are convincing, but the small print catches you out."

Article in The Mail On Sunday's Live Magazine, published 23 May

How The Light Gets In - 29-31 May

I'm doing one talk and chairing two panels at How The Light Gets In, the philosophy festival at Hay.

29 May, 3pm "The Trouble With the God Wars" talk
30 May, 12pm, chairing Mortality and Immortality, with Aubrey de Grey, Mary Warnock and Phillip Blond.
31 May, 10.30am, chairing Work: The Meaning or Emptiness of Life? with Will Hutton, Tom Hodgkinson and Douglas Murray.

Full festival programme here

If Aristotle ran the Huffington Post

Artifice is not the same as deceit. The media is full of artifice. Words are edited in print, chopped and put back together in audio and video, not to misrepresent, but simply to provide a smoother, more coherent picture of the ideas being presented. So where is the line between benign artifice and deceit?

Latest blog at Talking Philosophy

Weekend Edition - NPR

I was on this morning's show and you can click here to listen again, read transcripts, and extracts from the book I was talking about.

Newshour - BBC World Service

I was on the programme yesterday talking about pressure on philosophy departments and what the value of philosophy is. You can listen here at 41:12, probably for about a week.

What Green victory?

"The stark facts are these. Nationally, the Green Party's share of the vote actually went down 0.1% to 1%. In terms of vote share, the BNP (1.9%) and UKIP (3.1%) both did better than the Greens. Nearly twice as many voted BNP as did Green, while three times more people backed UKIP. The BNP almost tripled its support compared to 2005, while UKIP received around half as many votes again as last time."

Latest post at the Guardian's Comment is Free

May podcast

I’m back after an April break with Daniel Dennett talking about the new atheism, and a guest report by Antonia Macaro on the relevance of stoicism for today, with interviewees Richard Sorabji and John Sellars.

Click here to listen or download now, or download from

Pedestrian’s village protest is democracy in action

"The litmus test of a true democrat is his willingness to accept a fair defeat. If, after all due process, society decides that congestion, subsidence and bad air are the price for easy access to the area, you don’t have to like it but you do have to lump it."

Short article in The Times today

Out of sight, out of mind

"While the sins of our forebears are all too evident, the wickedness of our own age is much harder to discern. It would take a great deal of moral certitude, a kind of ethical hubris, to suppose that we are the first generation in human history not to be blind to some kind of systemic wrongdoing."

What is the great moral blind spot of our time? Essay in today's Independent