Sarah Bakewell’s new book is a kind of collaboration between her exhilarated younger self and the more measured, adult writer she has become. These co-authors are as generous with each other as they are with their subjects, resulting in a work that is both warm and intellectually rigorous.
ReadThere is nothing new in “playing God”, it’s just that we’re getting better at it.
ReadWe should always try to avoid reducing individual human beings to impersonal units of welfare, a dehumanisation which is utilitarianism at its worst. One way of doing this is simply to ask: if it were our lives or interests that were being sacrificed, should we accept it, however reluctantly?
ReadEven the most blessed life has its share of illness, disappointment and loss. Philosophical traditions such as Buddhism and Stoicism promise an escape from this by cultivating a disinterested detachment. But for me this comes at too high a cost. Love — for other people, for projects, for the world — necessarily entails pain at its loss or failure.
ReadOur omni-connected age endlessly feeds us shallow pleasures that demand little time and effort, when most of what is valuable in life requires a fair bit of both. They are the digital equivalent of chunks of cheap milk chocolate: tasty and harmless enough by themselves but ruinous when eaten endlessly.
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