Where should we draw the line?
There may be clear moral lines, but also a need to cross them. Paradoxical though it may sound, something may still be wrong even when it becomes right to do it.
ReadAuthor: Julian Baggini
Is it OK not to have an opinion?
There is a kind of agnostic who genuinely has no opinion and so doesn’t criticise those who do. But many agnostics have a very clear opinion indeed: that the balance of probability is too fine to call. This is not suspension of belief in the face of uncertainty but the certain belief that the matter is especially uncertain.
ReadEdinburgh International Book Festival
TAKING FOOD WITH A PINCH OF SALT – EDINBURGH BOOK FESTIVAL, 13 AUGUST. Talking about my book The Virtues of the Table at 3pm.
ReadHas the world become too noisy?
The portable personal stereo created the mindset of portable personal space. People increasingly move around in bubbles, behaving as though in their own living rooms, oblivious to others.
ReadIs the whole really greater than the sum of its parts?
Start with a wrong idea of the parts and, good though they may seem, the whole you try to build from them just won’t add up, and the cool, rational pursuit of the abstract general good will not lead to the real good after all.
Read