Contemporary moral philosophy has found an original way of being boring, which is by not discussing moral issues at all.

Virtually the only subject in which one could ever get a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge was classics. So I went to Oxford to study classics and, unlike Cambridge, it had a philosophy component, and I became completely transported by it.

I was interested in philosophy before I knew I was. That's to say, when I was at school, I used to argue with my friends about issues that turned out to be philosophical ones of some kind.

Philosophy is altogether less pure now. It's been impurified by science and social science and history.

My attitude about death is, going into the next room, and it's a room that the rest of us can't get into because we don't have the key. But when we do get the key, we'll go in there, and we'll see one another again, in some shape or form or whatever. It's not the end.

The two most mysterious things in our lives are birth and death. They are both miraculous events; one brings shiny, brand new life into the world, and the other snuffs it out like that. That person isn't there anymore.

Dad never really got over Jack's death and was deeply inspired by his brother throughout his life to delve deeper into his own faith.

I don't like being 50 and I don't like thinking about death.