a clever way of pre-empting the question. But clever philosophers aren’t necessarily either the most morally serious people or the most sensible of people. For the truth is that people do ask this question as if it were not only perfectly meaningful but also very well worth asking, so much so that it could be said to be the most important of all questions, whether or not an answer can be found to it. Perhaps the most obvious starting point for most people through the ages is the existence of good