Professor of Philosophy at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. Author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution (Bloombury Press and Oxford University Press, 2009). Born in Los Angeles. My parents, William and Thelma Dutton, who met when they worked at Paramount in the 1930s, were booksellers well known for Dutton's Books. The stores, later owned by brothers Dave and Doug, survived till 2008. I graduated from UCSB in 1966, spent two years in the Peace Corps in India, returned to NYU for a year, and finally received my Ph.D from UCSB in 1974. Founder and editor of Philosophy and Literature, the scholarly journal published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, and Arts & Letters Daily, website owned by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Married in 1969 to Margit Stoll; two children, Sonia, who now lives in Manhattan, and Ben, who lives in Sydney.