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In Britain, the Government gets its power from a Parliament that we all elect. At the same time, the monarch is a non-partisan figure we can all respect. That all sounds great. On the other hand, the very idea of a monarch, someone set above us by accident of birth and long-ago battles, is an insult to the equal status of all of us. And the Government can call itself the Crown, get grand ideas, exercise a vast range of powers, and drag Parliament along behind it. How did we get to where we are now? What sort of philosophical beliefs about government and power could justify our current system? And should we arrange things differently?

Kings, said Plato, are more than just rulers. There is another way in which they may impact on the lives of individuals: They set an example to people. We learn by looking at others and monarchs tend to be particularly visible. Today royals are celebrities next to movie stars and singers. What they have in common is that people look to them as models when making decisions about what to wear, buy or do. But who is well equipped to serve as such a cultural icon? Would you agree with Plato that "philosophers should be kings"?

Many philosophers believed monarchs to be dangerous and unpredictable. Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Hobbes even likened absolute monarchs to monsters. Niccolo Machiavelli teaches us that “Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.” Yet many of them believed monarchy to be the most efficient and stable form of government. Is monarchy inherently flawed? Does it have distinct advantages over democracy? We will discuss ideas about monarchy by philosophers as diverse as Aristotle, Machiavelli and Bertrand Russell.

Ideas and physical force, mind and muscles – at first glance these seem completely incompatible realms. However, some interesting voices claim the opposite: “All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football.”, said the Existentialist thinker and former national goal keeper Albert Camus. The famous philosopher and Olympic gold medallist Hans Lenk believes that looking to our experiences in the realm of sport can uniquely teach us about the function of enthusiasm and the nature of authentic achievement. – Should philosophers be athletes and athletes philosophers?