Julian Baggini

Society needs both justice and compassion, a head and a heart, if it is to be civilised.

Justice can only be dispensed when you have all the facts in front of you.

When you do the right thing, but not to any particular person, we instinctively feel that we have earned some sort of pay back. Since no-one will do that for us, we opt for self-service reciprocation.

Constructive complaint requires only two things: that what you are complaining about should be different, and that it can be different. It sounds simple, but too often our protests fail this test.

Untested assumptions and lazy habits of thought can be shown up, once put in a spotlight of a different hue.

Looking out over the port of Dover, with the endless steam of boats coming in and out, every British citizen is reminded that belonging here has never been about blood or genes. It's simply about being at home on this discrete island and being aware of the privileges and responsibilities that brings.

Instead of showing strangers kindness and giving them the benefit of the doubt, we increasingly show them only fear, and that is bad for us and them.

As a teenager, I increasingly had questions about religion to which I found no good answers.

There is such a thing as fanaticism, it is always wrong, and if you disagree, you're wrong too.

The greatest moral failing is to condemn something as a moral failing: no vice is worse than being judgmental.

Being virtuous is wonderful thing, but feeling virtuous is a shortcut to vice.

Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be.