This is Philosophy Bites with me Nigel Warburton and me David Edmonds.

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Nothing is sacred, some people claim.

But Roger Scruton wants to defend the notion of the sacred.

He's also a defender of fox hunting, the relevance of which will soon become

apparent. Roger Scruton, welcome to Frost v Bites.

Thank you for inviting me.

The topic we're going to focus on is The Sacred.

What is the Sacred?

I'd prefer to rephrase the question, what is it to see something as sacred?

Many people have experiences that they want to describe in this way,

saying that for me this aspect of reality this person this

ritual this place this state of mind is sacred and they mean by that something very special and the question is

finding out what they do mean.

The concept of the sacred usually contrasted with the profane is essentially a religious concept.

Yes, but of course that doesn't really get us very far because we don't

haven't yet got an account of what makes something religious.

All sorts of people all over the world make the

distinction between the sacred and the profane, which has something to do with the distinction

between those things which are, as it were, outside the world of ordinary experience and those things which are just part of it, part of the ongoing flow of natural events.

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