Hanno Sauer is an associate professor of philosophy at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he teaches ethics, metaethics and political philosophy. Often considered controversial for his provocative ideas around human morality and criticism of historical philosophy, his accessible books on philosophy have been widely acclaimed.

Next month, he’s in Australia where he’ll be challenging the political belief that a truly classless society can ever be achieved, and discussing his latest book, The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality, exploring the evolutionary story behind humanity’s moral transformations over the past 500 years.

Worst habit?

Going to bed late. I don’t like getting up in the morning and I enjoy the nights - I read, and I watch another movie. If you are like me, then you know society is prejudiced against us and biased in favour of early risers. We should split up - we should have two societies.

Greatest fear?

My deepest fear is that harm will come to my children, of course. Another - and this may seem silly, but I am serious - is that when I accepted this invitation [to Australia], I had a long back-and-forth with various people asking what’s the probability I will encounter a non-European spider? I am very arachnophobic; it’s my biggest irrational fear.

Another is that everything becomes slightly more shitty, slowly, and we can’t escape it. It feels like it’s already happening - public infrastructure decays, and it gets grandfathered in and everyone just accepts it.

I know I’m supposed to say climate change and fascism and so on, but personally, I will say that slow, gradual, hard-to-notice inconvenience and dysfunction of things around me. I’m 42 now, so it may just be that I’m getting grumpy, but I do think things used to work better.** **

The line that stayed with you?

I always liked this from a very obscure 18th-century German writer and philosopher, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, who said, “philosophy is a bit like shaving – you shouldn’t practise it in your throat”. It means that you shouldn’t start with dangerous questions.

Biggest regret?

I should have learnt to play an instrument, but I never really liked doing things that didn’t come naturally to me. More seriously, my mother’s father died before I was born, and my father’s father was a drinker - he was morose, so I didn’t enjoy spending time with him. But then my grandmother on my mother’s side met a partner later in life, and I loved him and spent quite a bit of time with him. When I was at university, in the first semester, he got cancer. He was in the hospital and … I was just too young, and I didn’t want to confront the fact that he was dying, and I didn’t visit him. I had a phone call with him and … he knew he was dying and that I really liked him, but I didn’t convey that to him sufficiently. I should have been less scared. That was a mistake and I didn’t handle that well.

Tell us about your turning point?

Originally, I wanted to be a novelist. I wanted to write the Great American novel but whatever the German version of that is - that was my vision when I was about 14 or 15 because I loved reading and that romantic vision of a bohemian lifestyle.

That didn’t happen but the idea of writing non-academically stayed with me - to write books that reach a wider audience. And there came a point in my life when I felt like it’s now or never, so I contacted an acquaintance of mine and asked him, how do I approach this, how do I get published? That was in 2020, and that changed my life. The books have been very successful, and I have got to meet so many interesting, influential and charismatic people, and I’m travelling all the time and I get into controversies - I enjoy that.

The artwork or song you wish was yours?

In terms of owning and having produced it, I would like one of Francis Bacon’s paintings. It would be financially very lucrative, but also, I love his work from when I first saw an exhibition of his pope paintings in Basel in Switzerland when I was 17. They had Bacon’s popes and also Diego Velázquez’s painting (Portrait of Pope Innocent X) that Bacon was referring to, and it was awesome. So I would like an upsetting Francis Bacon painting.

If you could time travel, where would you choose to go?

How long do I have to stay? What can I bring? I don’t want to spend a night in medieval England, it’s super dangerous. I couldn’t survive 24 hours in ancient Rome - I don’t know anyone and I don’t speak the language. Where do I sleep? I’m curious, but it’s too dangerous! I think this question is like asking, which cage in the zoo would you like to be teleported into? None! Most would be too small for me and I could be crushed, or they would contain dangerous animals, or some would be underwater, and I would have to swim, and it wouldn’t be fun. I think the past is like a zoo, and it contains many cages that I’m not interested in visiting. Maybe I would go back to have lunch with (German philosopher) Nietzsche, but I’m sceptical. I’m sticking with the past as a zoo, and I’m not into it.

Hanno Sauer appears at The Wheeler Centre Melbourne as part of The Fifth Estate series on August 20, where he will discuss his latest book and at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney (August 20-30), where he will appear in several panels.