From the Flourishing edition, available from our online store
What is your demon?
My doubts that my work hasn’t made any difference and that the one career I will likely ever have, will end up producing little of lasting value.
Which thinker has had the greatest influence on your life?
C.S. Lewis. Reading him in high school had a profound impact on my religious thinking. It was also what got me interested in philosophy.
What do you doubt most?
Whatever position it is that a philosopher today claims to have established or proven or shown to be true with a great deal of confidence.
If you could change one thing about the world, what would that be?
It might sound cliché, but replacing the hate in the world with genuine love, a love that is deeply concerned with the well-being of other people for their own sake, and not with how we can benefit ourselves in the process.
What does it mean to be human?
It is extremely hard to come up with necessary conditions here. But at least a common tendency among humans is that we have a mixed character of some good and some bad.
What would you never do, no matter the price?
Kill myself or anyone in my family.
What illusion do you suffer from?
If it is genuinely an illusion, then I guess I can’t answer this question. But I suspect one illusion I suffer from, is that I think I am a better person than I really am. Raising three children has helped to expose some of my moral warts that I didn’t know were there.
If you could choose, what would you have for your last meal?
Yellow cake with chocolate icing, refrigerated. It was my birthday cake growing up. Doesn’t get much better than that!
The question you’d most like to ask others?
How do you find meaning and purpose in your life?
Your favourite word?
These days, since it’s what I do so much research on – ‘honesty’.
What is your motto?
“I only teach ethics.” No, I’m not being serious. That’s not my motto. It is something like, “I am very much a mixed bag of good and bad. How I can do better, and help others do the same?”
What is a good death?
It is easy to say dying peacefully in my sleep. But however I die, I will count it as a good death if I know that my family is happy, and that I lived a life that helped people and that I can be proud of.
What do people accuse you of?
Of being too absorbed in my own academic world of philosophy, and not doing more to learn about other areas of life, including areas where people are struggling or suffering. It’s a fair accusation.
Christian Miller is A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University.
From the Flourishing edition, available from our online store
