The Wonderbox

‘Man only knows himself insofar as he knows the world,’ he wrote. This does not mean, though, that we should be filling our days with incessant activities, reducing ourselves from human beings to human doings. Rather, his point was that self-understanding comes not only from philosophical introspection but from experiential ‘outrospection’.

Living by our beliefs, says Singer, will sustain us more than commitment to self-centred desires such as wealth or social status, no matter how pleasurable they may seem

Cosseted within our peer group or social milieu, we may think it is perfectly normal and justifiable to own two homes, or to oppose same-sex marriage, or to bomb countries in the Middle East. We cannot see that such views may be perverse, unjust or untrue because we are inside a circle of our own making, which constantly reinforces our worldview. If we want to question our beliefs, we need to follow the example of Tolstoy, spending time with people whose values and everyday experiences contrast with our own. Our task must be to journey beyond the perimeters of the circle.