degree (First Class) in Philosophy & Modern Languages from the University of Oxford (Magdalen College, 1984).
He received his PhD in philosophy ("Human Death: its Nature and Significance") from Birkbeck College, University of London, in 1992.
The book is both an introduction into the subject and a substantive argument in favour of the neo-Aristotelian view of the objectivity of moral claims.
[citation needed] Benn was among the 43 signatories of a 2002 letter sent to Tony Blair, expressing alarm at the teaching of creationism in British state-funded schools.
[9] Commenting in New Humanist in 2002, Benn suggested that people who fear the rise of Islamophobia foster an environment "not intellectually or morally healthy", to the point that what he calls "Islamophobia-phobia" can undermine "critical scrutiny of Islam as somehow impolite, or ignorant of the religion's true nature", encouraging "sentimental pretence that all claims to religious truth are somehow 'equal', or that critical scrutiny of Islam (or any belief system) is ignorant, prejudiced, or 'phobic'".