How does AC Grayling write books faster than many can read them?

AC Grayling

The gap is even larger than it was in Snow’s day, and this is a problem because it matters that ours should be a scientifically literate society, in the sense that people generally should have an intelligent and informed sense of what is happening in the sciences, especially in the biological, biomedical and climate sciences, for obvious reasons connected with taking a responsible part in discussions about how we apply the lessons thus learned; though it would be great if they could also follow what is happening in fundamental physics and cosmology. The reason for the latter is that science in all its aspects is humankind’s greatest ever achievement – I say that advisedly – and it is a remarkable revelation of nature and ourselves. As intelligent apes we ought to be good spectators of this, if we cannot be participants: we should understand our world and ourselves as best we may, not just through arts and literature but through the investigations of science.

You have tremendous confidence in the power of ideas to change the world. What do you say to those critics who say that this is a kind of faith, one that is not justified?

First, history is unequivocal about the fact that it is ideas that drive events from small to large – what people believe, what they think they need or deserve, what they think matters most, what principles they live by or take themselves to live by – ideas are everything. Secondly, if one does not believe that ideas drive history and that one can debate, argue about, influence and change ideas, then the options are what? Too much input into affairs of unguided emotion, prejudice and whim. If ideas do not drive history, we have no handle on history, and thus no prospect of meliorating the condition of mankind.

You also have a second book out: Liberty in the Age of Terror. “Liberty” is claimed by different people for different ends. What do you see as being liberty in its most important form?

Personal autonomy, privacy and free expression, and institutionalised protections for all three, are essential for human beings to achieve their best and to be as fully themselves as possible – always consistently with the Harm Principle. Restraints on any of the three that are not voluntarily undertaken by the individual for ends s/he recognises as good and desirable ones are diminutions of that possibility. The evidence for this claim lies in the experience of all the oppressed.

How does liberty matter in the “war on terror”?

The miscalled “war on terror” is used by governments to restrict or temporise with civil liberties, but the right response to terrorism is to refuse to do either but to reassert and insist upon the liberal dispensation which in large part is what the terrorists so dislike. In contesting them, we are or ought to be defending the free and open society that they attack – to do so by limiting the freedoms and closing the society is exactly the wrong thing. Governments have a duty to protect their citizens, but not at the expense of their liberties: protection of these latter is, as Mill and Acton from different political standpoints both vigorously argued, the highest duty of government.

You are very prolific, and seemingly more so as you get older. How do you do it, while staving off the dangers of spreading yourself too thinly or repeating yourself?

There is a queue of things within that I want to say, as a contribution to the conversation we have with ourselves about the things that matter to us: thinking and writing, and trying to be constructive for the most part, and combative when necessary (as with the encroachments of religion on our freedom of thought and action – and on the truth!), feel like a duty – a general one, binding on us all, under the principle “from each according…”.

What next?

I am working on a new play with my co-writer Mick Gordon, putting together a collection of essays, and finishing a book which is by far the most ambitious and I think most significant one I have yet attempted.

Ideas that Matter: A Personal Guide for the 21st Century is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson at £20.
Liberty in the Age of Terror: A Defence of Civil Society and Enlightenment Values is published by Bloomsbury at £12.99