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Mortal Questions
Thomas Nagel's Mortal Questions explores some fundamental issues concerning the meaning, nature and value of human life. Questions about our attitudes to death, sexual behaviour, social inequality, war and political power are shown to lead to more obviously philosophical problems about personal identity, consciousness, freedom, and value. This original and illuminating book aims at a form of understanding that is both theoretical and personal in its lively engagement with what are literally issues of life and death.
213 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Thomas Nagel
81 books528 followersThomas Nagel is an American philosopher, currently University Professor and Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics. He is well-known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind in his essay "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his contributions to deontological and liberal moral and political theory in The Possibility of Altruism (1970) and subsequent writings.
Thomas Nagel was born to a Jewish family in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). He received a BA from Cornell University in 1958, a BPhil from Oxford University in 1960, and a PhD from Harvard University in 1963 under the supervision of John Rawls. Before settling in New York, Nagel taught briefly at the University of California, Berkeley (from 1963 to 1966) and at Princeton University (from 1966 to 1980), where he trained many well-known philosophers including Susan Wolf, Shelly Kagan, and Samuel Scheffler, who is now his colleague at NYU. In 2006, he was made a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Nagel is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2008, he was awarded a Rolf Schock Prize for his work in philosophy, the Balzan prize, and the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Oxford University.
Thomas Nagel was born to a Jewish family in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (now Serbia). He received a BA from Cornell University in 1958, a BPhil from Oxford University in 1960, and a PhD from Harvard University in 1963 under the supervision of John Rawls. Before settling in New York, Nagel taught briefly at the University of California, Berkeley (from 1963 to 1966) and at Princeton University (from 1966 to 1980), where he trained many well-known philosophers including Susan Wolf, Shelly Kagan, and Samuel Scheffler, who is now his colleague at NYU. In 2006, he was made a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Nagel is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2008, he was awarded a Rolf Schock Prize for his work in philosophy, the Balzan prize, and the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from Oxford University.
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January 16, 2023
Analitička filozofija zna da bude suva, zamorna, ćoškasta, pa i začuđujuće isključiva, posebno prema kontinentalnim filozofima koji se, u najboljem slučaju, doživljavaju kao nadahnuti smutljivci. I to je, naravno, loše, ali o tome detaljnije neki drugi put. Duga je to priča i ne može se ni započeti bez nerviranja.
Ipak, treba istaći da je Nejgel prvak analitičke filozofije, blistavi student Džona Rolsa, profesor na Prinstonu i Berkliju i autor respektabilnog opusa, u kome se posebno izdvajaju eseji uvršteni u knjizi „Pitanja jednog smrtnika”. Zanimljiv podatak vezan za našu sredinu, ali nipočemu presudan za Nejgelovo delo, jeste da je rođen u Beogradu 1937. godine, a njegovi roditelji su se iselili u SAD dve godine kasnije. Da je bilo malo više pameti i dobre volje, veza između Nejgela i Beograda mogla je da se osnaži, makar i simbolično. Sad to, nažalost, deluje prekasno. No i to me odvodi u neke druge priče, koje nisu povezane sa delom, pa da ne okolišam, najbolje bi bilo da sažeto izložim sadržaj knjige. Ukoliko je neko zainteresovan, a nema vremena ili želje da pročita celu knjigu (a čitanje, da upozorim, ovde ne ide glatko), neka pročita drugo i, obavezno, dvanaesto poglavlje.
1) SMRT
Gotovo banalan zaključak: smrt je loša. Dobro je postojati i loše je ne postojati. Ipak, postoji začuđujuća asimetrija između doživljaja prenatalnog i posthumnog nepostojanja – čitavu večnost nismo postojali, onda smo se rodili, živimo neko, zanemarljivo kratko vreme a onda umiremo i vraćamo se u nepostojanje. Ali dok za prvim nepostojanjem niko ne žali, sa drugim nepostojanjem stvari sasvim drukčije stoje. Za Nejgela filozofija nije priprema za umiranje (Plato) niti je smrt savršeni mir, odmor, radost i pravednost (Sv. Avgustin), već prekid mogućnosti. A to je ono što rastužuje i što pravi razliku. Tokom života upoznajemo se sa dobrima kojih nas lišava smrt (27) i tu je problem. Ne radi se, dakle, o neminovnosti smrti, već o prekidu „nedefinisanog spektra mogućih dobara”. Rez, dakle.
2) APSURD
„Ako se ništa ne može opravdati osim ako se ne opravda nečim van sebe, što takođe ima opravdanje, onda nastaje beskonačni regres i nijedan niz opravdanja ne može se završiti.” (30)
„Ono za šta mi mislimo da ima smisao, opravdanje, značaj, takvo je zato što posle određene granice ne tražimo dalje razloge.” (35)
„Skepticizam počinje kada sebe uključimo u svet o kom tvrdimo da nešto znamo.” (36)
„Kada bismo se u potpunosti oslonili na razum, i u tome preterali, naši životi i verovanja bi se urušili – nastupilo bi ludili ako bi se unutrašnja moć shvatanja sveta i života zdravo za gotovo nekako izgubila.” (39)
Inače, Nejgel začuđujuće retko citira. Ovde je, ipak, našao za shodno da spomene Kamija i to ne, usudio bih se reći, sa punim razumevanjem. Nejgelovo razumevanje apsurdnosti je da je to ono što je kod čoveka najljudskije: „manifestacija naših najnaprednijih i najinteresantnijih karakteristika” (42), što suprotstavlja Kamijevoj strategiji odbrane od apsurda kroz prkos i podsmeh, zaboravljajući, na primer, da Sizifa treba, po Kamijevim rečima, da zamislimo sa osmehom. Ovakvo Nejgelovo pojednostavljivanje Kamijeve misli je razočaravajuće.
3) MORALNA SREĆA
Termin vara. Moralna sreća nije happiness već luck. Ukratko bi se mogla ovako objasniti: ukoliko počinilac, na primer, snajperista, zbog nekog nepredviđenog događaja ili okolnosti (poput pancira žrtve) ne izvrši svoj naum, ta sprečenost potpada pod moralnu sreću. Ipak, ni u jednom pravnom sistemu na svetu namera i realizacija se ne kažnjavaju isto. Kako to opravdati imajući u vidu da neizvršenje zločina predstavlja splet okolnosti, a nipošto ne odluku počinioca?
Može se navesti i ovaj primer: neko pijan vozi. U prvom slučaju, slupa se, u drugom je sve kako treba. Iako je nemarnost ista u oba slučaja, u drugom je osoba imala moralnu sreću.
„Uključivanje posledica u naše shvatanje vlastitih postupaka jeste priznanje da smo deo sveta. (59)
4) SEKSUALNA PERVERZIJA
Mislim da je ovo najklimavije poglavlje u celoj knjizi. Čini se, štaviše, da je Nejgelov pogled na perverzije neočekivano proizvoljan, iako se čini da je jasno omeđen. To možda proizlazi iz slabog konsultovanja literature.
Na primer, gotovo trapavo izgledaju nedoumice vezane za razumevanje sadizma i mazohizma kao seksualnih perverzija jer „im nedostaje interpersonalna uzajmnost” (74).
Ipak, zanimljive su mi zapažanja vezana za fenomenologiju hrane, kao što je, na primer, da naš odnos prema hrani zavisi od naše veličine – za razliku od mnogih drugih organizama, mi u hrani ne živimo, niti ulazimo u nju. Perverzija bi se tu pronašla u zameni dimenzija i funkcija.
„Svi stupnjevi seksualnog opažaja su forme poistovećivanja osobe sa sopstvenim telom.” (70)
Koga ovo zanima neka pogleda Epštejnovu „Filozofiju tela”.
Takođe, Nejgel ostavlja otvorenim pitanje heteroseksualnost kao prirodnog izraza „muških i ženskih seksualnih dispozicija koje nisu poremećene” (75).
Opet jedna Alan Ford misao: „loš seks je generalno bolji od nemanja seksa”. (76)
5) RAT I MASAKR
Nije lako odrediti šta je dopušteno u ratu. To svi dobro znamo. Iako se sadržaj ovog poglavlja pre svega odnosi na Vijetnamski rat, ono je, nažalost, uznemirujuće aktuelno. Od jezive formulacije da su civili pobijeni kao „nuspojava akcije” (86) do pitanja u kakvim se sve situacijama mogu pojaviti motivi za ratne zločine (101).
Nejgel zaključuje da je svet loše i zlo mesto. (102)
6) BEZOBZIRNOST U JAVNOM ŽIVOTU
Sukob interesa – mešanje javnih i privatnih funkcija, mito & korupcija.
Logika institucija drukčija je od logike pojedinaca. A koga zanima, naći će i objašnjenje zašto uzimanje poreza nije pljačka (118).
7) POLITIKA PRVENSTVA
Pozitivna diskriminacija i afirmativne mere – za i protiv.
8) JEDNAKOST
Može biti politička, pravna, društvena i ekonomska.
Argumenti jednakosti mogu iti komunitaristički (jednakost je uslov ispravne vrste odnosa među članovima društva i obrazovanja zdravih bratskih stavova) i individualistički (jednakost kao ispravan distributivni princip – kao ispravan način da odgovorimona suprotstavljene potrebe i interese različitih ljudi). (139–140)
Nejgel daje prednost individualizmu.
Nakon toga polemiše sa Rolsom, svojim mentorom – lome koplja oko vrednosti egalitarnosti.
Sve životinje su jednake, ali su neke jednakije od drugih.
9) FRAGMENTACIJA VREDNOSTI
Na čemu vrednosti počivaju i kako se mogu povezati, odnosno, sistematizovati?
Potreban metod za razlaganje ili analiziranje praktičnih problema – Nejgel predlaže naučni sud (179).
10) ETIKA BEZ BIOLOGIJE
Vredan esej o odnosu biološkog i etičkog, a problemi samo izviru. Ne samo što nemamo opšte biološko razumevanje ljudskog mišljenja, već ni etika nije nepromenljivi skup biheviornih i intelektualnih navika, već proces. (182)
11) BISEKCIJA MOZGA I JEDINSTVO SVESTI
Eksperimenti – šta se dešava kada kod mačaka presečemo žuljevito telo koje povezuje levu i desnu moždanu hemisferu? (192)
Može li se govoriti o više umova u jednom telu?
12) AKO JE TO BITI SLEPI MIŠ?
Čuveni i vrlo uticajni tekst o problemu svesti.
„Želim da znam kako je za slepog miša da bude slepi miš. A opet, kada to pokušam da zamislim, bivam ograničen sredstvima svog sopstvenog uma, a ona nisu adekvatna za takav zadatak.” (214)
„Iako negde u univerzumu ima svesnog života, velike su šanse da nećemo moći da ga opišemo čak ni najopštijim terminima.” (214)
„Svakako je moguće da ljudsko biće vveruje da postoje činjenice za čije predstavljanje ili razumevanje ljudi nikada neće imati potrebne pojmove.” (216)
„Začudo, možemo imati dokaz za istinu nečega što ne možemo zaista da razumemo.” (224)
13) PANPSIHIZAM
Kako biti mistik kroz sasvim nemistično izlaganje.
„Ako je materija dospela na zemlju, pa je na njoj izrasla trava, pa travu jela krava, a njeno mleko pila trudnica, onda je i mozak njenog deteta delom sačinjen od te materije.” (227)
(Mene je ovo podsetilo na čuvenu Hamletovu repliku upućenu Klaudiju o, mogu reći, „kruženju mateije” – riba, crv, kralj.)
„Panpsihizam u ovom smislu ne povlači panpsihizam u onom poznatijem smislu, prema kome drveće i cveće, a možda čak i kamenje, jezera i krvna zrnca, imaju nekakvu svest. Ali toliko malo znamo o tome kako svest nastaje iz materije u slučaju nas i životinja u kojima prepoznajemo svest, da bi bilo dogmatično pretpostaviti da ona ne postoji u drugim kompleksnim sistemima, ili čak u sistemima veličine jedne galaksije, kao rezultat onih istih osnovnih svojstava materije koja su odgovorna i za nas.” (243)
14) SUBJEKTIVNO I OBJEKTIVNO
„Razlika između subjektivnog i objektivnog je relativna, Opšta ljudska tačka gledišta je objektivnija od našeg ličnog gledišta, ali manje objektivna od gledišta fizike.” (256)
Zadatak prihvatanja polariteta treba da bude kreativan i kao takav je dragocen. Susret je sve. Ukrštaj, dodajem ja.
Ipak, treba istaći da je Nejgel prvak analitičke filozofije, blistavi student Džona Rolsa, profesor na Prinstonu i Berkliju i autor respektabilnog opusa, u kome se posebno izdvajaju eseji uvršteni u knjizi „Pitanja jednog smrtnika”. Zanimljiv podatak vezan za našu sredinu, ali nipočemu presudan za Nejgelovo delo, jeste da je rođen u Beogradu 1937. godine, a njegovi roditelji su se iselili u SAD dve godine kasnije. Da je bilo malo više pameti i dobre volje, veza između Nejgela i Beograda mogla je da se osnaži, makar i simbolično. Sad to, nažalost, deluje prekasno. No i to me odvodi u neke druge priče, koje nisu povezane sa delom, pa da ne okolišam, najbolje bi bilo da sažeto izložim sadržaj knjige. Ukoliko je neko zainteresovan, a nema vremena ili želje da pročita celu knjigu (a čitanje, da upozorim, ovde ne ide glatko), neka pročita drugo i, obavezno, dvanaesto poglavlje.
1) SMRT
Gotovo banalan zaključak: smrt je loša. Dobro je postojati i loše je ne postojati. Ipak, postoji začuđujuća asimetrija između doživljaja prenatalnog i posthumnog nepostojanja – čitavu večnost nismo postojali, onda smo se rodili, živimo neko, zanemarljivo kratko vreme a onda umiremo i vraćamo se u nepostojanje. Ali dok za prvim nepostojanjem niko ne žali, sa drugim nepostojanjem stvari sasvim drukčije stoje. Za Nejgela filozofija nije priprema za umiranje (Plato) niti je smrt savršeni mir, odmor, radost i pravednost (Sv. Avgustin), već prekid mogućnosti. A to je ono što rastužuje i što pravi razliku. Tokom života upoznajemo se sa dobrima kojih nas lišava smrt (27) i tu je problem. Ne radi se, dakle, o neminovnosti smrti, već o prekidu „nedefinisanog spektra mogućih dobara”. Rez, dakle.
2) APSURD
„Ako se ništa ne može opravdati osim ako se ne opravda nečim van sebe, što takođe ima opravdanje, onda nastaje beskonačni regres i nijedan niz opravdanja ne može se završiti.” (30)
„Ono za šta mi mislimo da ima smisao, opravdanje, značaj, takvo je zato što posle određene granice ne tražimo dalje razloge.” (35)
„Skepticizam počinje kada sebe uključimo u svet o kom tvrdimo da nešto znamo.” (36)
„Kada bismo se u potpunosti oslonili na razum, i u tome preterali, naši životi i verovanja bi se urušili – nastupilo bi ludili ako bi se unutrašnja moć shvatanja sveta i života zdravo za gotovo nekako izgubila.” (39)
Inače, Nejgel začuđujuće retko citira. Ovde je, ipak, našao za shodno da spomene Kamija i to ne, usudio bih se reći, sa punim razumevanjem. Nejgelovo razumevanje apsurdnosti je da je to ono što je kod čoveka najljudskije: „manifestacija naših najnaprednijih i najinteresantnijih karakteristika” (42), što suprotstavlja Kamijevoj strategiji odbrane od apsurda kroz prkos i podsmeh, zaboravljajući, na primer, da Sizifa treba, po Kamijevim rečima, da zamislimo sa osmehom. Ovakvo Nejgelovo pojednostavljivanje Kamijeve misli je razočaravajuće.
3) MORALNA SREĆA
Termin vara. Moralna sreća nije happiness već luck. Ukratko bi se mogla ovako objasniti: ukoliko počinilac, na primer, snajperista, zbog nekog nepredviđenog događaja ili okolnosti (poput pancira žrtve) ne izvrši svoj naum, ta sprečenost potpada pod moralnu sreću. Ipak, ni u jednom pravnom sistemu na svetu namera i realizacija se ne kažnjavaju isto. Kako to opravdati imajući u vidu da neizvršenje zločina predstavlja splet okolnosti, a nipošto ne odluku počinioca?
Može se navesti i ovaj primer: neko pijan vozi. U prvom slučaju, slupa se, u drugom je sve kako treba. Iako je nemarnost ista u oba slučaja, u drugom je osoba imala moralnu sreću.
„Uključivanje posledica u naše shvatanje vlastitih postupaka jeste priznanje da smo deo sveta. (59)
4) SEKSUALNA PERVERZIJA
Mislim da je ovo najklimavije poglavlje u celoj knjizi. Čini se, štaviše, da je Nejgelov pogled na perverzije neočekivano proizvoljan, iako se čini da je jasno omeđen. To možda proizlazi iz slabog konsultovanja literature.
Na primer, gotovo trapavo izgledaju nedoumice vezane za razumevanje sadizma i mazohizma kao seksualnih perverzija jer „im nedostaje interpersonalna uzajmnost” (74).
Ipak, zanimljive su mi zapažanja vezana za fenomenologiju hrane, kao što je, na primer, da naš odnos prema hrani zavisi od naše veličine – za razliku od mnogih drugih organizama, mi u hrani ne živimo, niti ulazimo u nju. Perverzija bi se tu pronašla u zameni dimenzija i funkcija.
„Svi stupnjevi seksualnog opažaja su forme poistovećivanja osobe sa sopstvenim telom.” (70)
Koga ovo zanima neka pogleda Epštejnovu „Filozofiju tela”.
Takođe, Nejgel ostavlja otvorenim pitanje heteroseksualnost kao prirodnog izraza „muških i ženskih seksualnih dispozicija koje nisu poremećene” (75).
Opet jedna Alan Ford misao: „loš seks je generalno bolji od nemanja seksa”. (76)
5) RAT I MASAKR
Nije lako odrediti šta je dopušteno u ratu. To svi dobro znamo. Iako se sadržaj ovog poglavlja pre svega odnosi na Vijetnamski rat, ono je, nažalost, uznemirujuće aktuelno. Od jezive formulacije da su civili pobijeni kao „nuspojava akcije” (86) do pitanja u kakvim se sve situacijama mogu pojaviti motivi za ratne zločine (101).
Nejgel zaključuje da je svet loše i zlo mesto. (102)
6) BEZOBZIRNOST U JAVNOM ŽIVOTU
Sukob interesa – mešanje javnih i privatnih funkcija, mito & korupcija.
Logika institucija drukčija je od logike pojedinaca. A koga zanima, naći će i objašnjenje zašto uzimanje poreza nije pljačka (118).
7) POLITIKA PRVENSTVA
Pozitivna diskriminacija i afirmativne mere – za i protiv.
8) JEDNAKOST
Može biti politička, pravna, društvena i ekonomska.
Argumenti jednakosti mogu iti komunitaristički (jednakost je uslov ispravne vrste odnosa među članovima društva i obrazovanja zdravih bratskih stavova) i individualistički (jednakost kao ispravan distributivni princip – kao ispravan način da odgovorimona suprotstavljene potrebe i interese različitih ljudi). (139–140)
Nejgel daje prednost individualizmu.
Nakon toga polemiše sa Rolsom, svojim mentorom – lome koplja oko vrednosti egalitarnosti.
Sve životinje su jednake, ali su neke jednakije od drugih.
9) FRAGMENTACIJA VREDNOSTI
Na čemu vrednosti počivaju i kako se mogu povezati, odnosno, sistematizovati?
Potreban metod za razlaganje ili analiziranje praktičnih problema – Nejgel predlaže naučni sud (179).
10) ETIKA BEZ BIOLOGIJE
Vredan esej o odnosu biološkog i etičkog, a problemi samo izviru. Ne samo što nemamo opšte biološko razumevanje ljudskog mišljenja, već ni etika nije nepromenljivi skup biheviornih i intelektualnih navika, već proces. (182)
11) BISEKCIJA MOZGA I JEDINSTVO SVESTI
Eksperimenti – šta se dešava kada kod mačaka presečemo žuljevito telo koje povezuje levu i desnu moždanu hemisferu? (192)
Može li se govoriti o više umova u jednom telu?
12) AKO JE TO BITI SLEPI MIŠ?
Čuveni i vrlo uticajni tekst o problemu svesti.
„Želim da znam kako je za slepog miša da bude slepi miš. A opet, kada to pokušam da zamislim, bivam ograničen sredstvima svog sopstvenog uma, a ona nisu adekvatna za takav zadatak.” (214)
„Iako negde u univerzumu ima svesnog života, velike su šanse da nećemo moći da ga opišemo čak ni najopštijim terminima.” (214)
„Svakako je moguće da ljudsko biće vveruje da postoje činjenice za čije predstavljanje ili razumevanje ljudi nikada neće imati potrebne pojmove.” (216)
„Začudo, možemo imati dokaz za istinu nečega što ne možemo zaista da razumemo.” (224)
13) PANPSIHIZAM
Kako biti mistik kroz sasvim nemistično izlaganje.
„Ako je materija dospela na zemlju, pa je na njoj izrasla trava, pa travu jela krava, a njeno mleko pila trudnica, onda je i mozak njenog deteta delom sačinjen od te materije.” (227)
(Mene je ovo podsetilo na čuvenu Hamletovu repliku upućenu Klaudiju o, mogu reći, „kruženju mateije” – riba, crv, kralj.)
„Panpsihizam u ovom smislu ne povlači panpsihizam u onom poznatijem smislu, prema kome drveće i cveće, a možda čak i kamenje, jezera i krvna zrnca, imaju nekakvu svest. Ali toliko malo znamo o tome kako svest nastaje iz materije u slučaju nas i životinja u kojima prepoznajemo svest, da bi bilo dogmatično pretpostaviti da ona ne postoji u drugim kompleksnim sistemima, ili čak u sistemima veličine jedne galaksije, kao rezultat onih istih osnovnih svojstava materije koja su odgovorna i za nas.” (243)
14) SUBJEKTIVNO I OBJEKTIVNO
„Razlika između subjektivnog i objektivnog je relativna, Opšta ljudska tačka gledišta je objektivnija od našeg ličnog gledišta, ali manje objektivna od gledišta fizike.” (256)
Zadatak prihvatanja polariteta treba da bude kreativan i kao takav je dragocen. Susret je sve. Ukrštaj, dodajem ja.
July 30, 2009
Fourteen essays in this book tie together the question of how philosophy applies in everyday life. Nagel’s writing drags a bit in places, and not all the essays are of equal interest. The personal nature of the inquiry is the book's main draw and the best reason for reading it. The most helpful approach to this kind of book is to list its topics and give my ratings, as follows:
TOPIC:
Death – A rather short discussion asking why death is thought of as such a bad event. ****
Absurdity – Excellent topic with good insights *****
Sexual Perversion -- A logically poor survey of sexual attitudes, but a fascinating look at how philosophy doubly abstracts the subject from its instinctive and psychological nature. ***
War – Dated; of little interest to me. *
Public Life – Less here than meets the eye **
Affirmative Action – Dated look at a trendy but exhausted subject. *
Equality – Excellent comparison of individual rights, utilitarianism and egalitarianism *****
Fragmentation of Value – Must all our values derive from one source? *****
Ethics and Biology – Short and uninteresting *
Unity of Consciousness – Outdated by modern brain research *
On Being a Bat – Excellent discussion of subjective experience *****
Panpsychism – Channeling Spinoza ****
Subjective and Objective – Very interesting. ****
The discussions are a little more technical than others I’ve seen, and the author surveys many concepts. I recommend the book for people having a general interest in philosophy and at least a basic familiarity with its terms.
TOPIC:
Death – A rather short discussion asking why death is thought of as such a bad event. ****
Absurdity – Excellent topic with good insights *****
Sexual Perversion -- A logically poor survey of sexual attitudes, but a fascinating look at how philosophy doubly abstracts the subject from its instinctive and psychological nature. ***
War – Dated; of little interest to me. *
Public Life – Less here than meets the eye **
Affirmative Action – Dated look at a trendy but exhausted subject. *
Equality – Excellent comparison of individual rights, utilitarianism and egalitarianism *****
Fragmentation of Value – Must all our values derive from one source? *****
Ethics and Biology – Short and uninteresting *
Unity of Consciousness – Outdated by modern brain research *
On Being a Bat – Excellent discussion of subjective experience *****
Panpsychism – Channeling Spinoza ****
Subjective and Objective – Very interesting. ****
The discussions are a little more technical than others I’ve seen, and the author surveys many concepts. I recommend the book for people having a general interest in philosophy and at least a basic familiarity with its terms.
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October 19, 2021این کتاب دربرگیرندهی موضوعهایی بهغایت گیرا و دنبالکردنی است که هر انسانی در زندگی خود ناگزیر با آن دستبهگریبان است؛ موضوعهایی نظیر مرگ، پوچی، میل جنسی، اخلاق، سیاست. بااینهمه، واقعیت این است که ترجمهی ناخوب و پُرگره، پیگیری و فهم نوشته را تا حد زیادی نامقدور کرده است. ترجمه بااینکه در جاهایی فهمیدنی است، در مجموع نامفهوم و نافارسی است و بهنوعی اثر را تباه کرده است. بهزحمت بیش از نیمی از کتاب را خواندم و دیگر نتوانستم ادامه دهم.
June 28, 2008
One of the most probing and worthwhile philosophic disquisitions of the twentieth century.
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May 22, 2019Too hard for me! I understood chunks of it, but there was plenty that whizzed past me. Great topics though. Includes the famous “What is it like to be a bat” essay. I guess I need a “Thomas Nagel for Dummies” book.
July 8, 2021
Thomas Nagel was one of the premier analytic philosophers of the 20th Century, and had the remarkable ability to comprehend and write on a variety of subjects. In this anthology of some of Nagel's journal articles he has written (plus two published for the first time in this book), he discusses a wide variety of topics, ranging from death to what it is like to be a bat (the subjective nature of consciousness). Because many of the articles are different in both their topic and their quality, I will list my overall thoughts first and then briefly address each of the chapters.
Overall, this is a well-written book, but it is dense. This work requires concentration and dedicated effort to get through. He does tend to digress at times and sometimes repeats himself, but overall his articles are structured in a fairly logical and straightforward manner. That said, I would recommend that a potential reader have some sort of philosophical background, because these articles presume at times that you already know something about the topic (particularly those topics in the philosophy of mind at the end of the book). Now, on to the individual chapters.
Death
My rating: 4/5
Here, Nagel discusses the topic of death and why humans believe death to be a bad thing or an evil, and how we should think about it in response to that. It was very thought-provoking and left me with quite a few questions.
The Absurd
My rating: 5/5
This chapter is one of the most interesting analyses I've read on the topic of the absurd from a naturalistic/secular lens. He essentially examines the tension between a life that we take very seriously and purposefully with the possibility that it could all be meaningless or arbitrary. It made me grateful that I believe there is a telos to life, but is still a question everyone has to reckon with themselves. It also made me think of the importance of faith in the face of the absurd at times.
Moral Luck
My rating: 5/5
I had not read much on the subject of moral luck until this chapter, though I knew the general premise. Nagel does a terrific job in posing a lot of thought-provoking ideas about how we can assign moral praise or blame to people who do things that seemingly depend on factors outside of their control.
Sexual Perversion
My rating: 3/5
This chapter was interesting to a degree, but I didn't find it quite as compelling as some of the other ones. Perhaps it's only because this topic isn't one that I'm particularly interested in. Nagel does do a good job though of outlining what he believes a perversion to be, and he applies that to sex to show how what are normally healthy sexual desires can become blocked or perverted in a person, from a philosophical standpoint. However, I did wish he had considered the idea of sex having an intentional design or end, but that generally wouldn't fit in his worldview, as I understand it.
War and Massacre
My rating: 5/5
As someone who is interested in military ethics and Just War Theory, this chapter really appealed to me. I thought Nagel made a great argument for why military planners and politicians must consider absolutist ethics in addition to utilitarian ethics when going to war or engaging in combat.
Ruthlessness in Public Life
My rating: 3/5
Just based on the title, I was intrigued and unsure where Nagel would take this line of thinking. While I didn't totally agree with his line of reasoning at some points, he still left me with a lot to think about in terms of public crimes and the type of behavior that politicians or other leaders may use, and if that behavior differs from private morality.
The Policy of Preference
My rating: 4/5
In this chapter, Nagel deals with the morality and justice of preferential policies in society, such as affirmative action. He essentially argues that though justice does not require these sorts of policies in our society, they are not unjust. His line of thinking was interesting to follow, and at times persuasive, though I did leave with a few questions unanswered. This chapter was especially interesting in light of the recent political climate.
Equality
My rating: 5/5
Here, Nagel examines the idea of equality and examines equality from three different perspectives: utilitarian equality, rights-based equality, and egalitarian equality. He ultimately argues that while none of these are wholly sufficient, a mix of utilitarian and egalitarian equality, with some rights protections, is ultimately best for society. While I questioned some of his arguments in this chapter, I thought it was a very interesting read.
The Fragmentation of Value
My rating: 4/5
This chapter deals with the differing types of value and obligations we have in life, and Nagel basically argues that there cannot be one unified standard of value, but rather we must use practical wisdom and judgment to determine which standard of value to apply in a given scenario.
Ethics without Biology
My rating: 3/5
This chapter was one of my less favorite ones, as Nagel's point seemed fairly obvious from the outset, arguing that humans should consider our biology as the starting point of ethics, but he argues that we have surpassed this point now. Therefore, biology is not very helpful to ethics.
Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness
My rating: 2/5
While I'm sure that some people would find this chapter quite interesting (though it may have since been disproven or made irrelevant by modern neuroscience), I was unable to really stay engaged during this chapter. It is the first of three chapters Nagel has on the philosophy of mind, and this one is probably the weakest of the three, in my opinion. That said, some of the examples used were interesting, and he does offer some decent questions to wrestle with, though, as mentioned, I don't know how modern neuroscience would react to it.
What is it like to Be a Bat?
My rating: 5/5
This is one of Nagel's landmark articles in philosophy, and is one of my favorites of his. In it, he argues against physicalism's attempt at reductionism with regard to the mind-body problem, stating that pure physicalism cannot account for the subjective experience of conscious creatures. Even if I knew everything about the physical processes and mechanisms of a bat's brain, I still would not know what it is like to be a bat. There is something missing. Overall, a great read.
Panpsychism
My rating: 3/5
This chapter was interesting at times, though I've never read much on the subject of panpsychism. It is essentially the view that matter must have mental properties as well as physical properties, and when that matter is arranged in such a way in certain organisms, it produces consciousness and mental states. Nagel examines this view, objections to it, and then attempts to refute those objections, concluding that while panpsychism is a little out there, it may be the best theory philosophy of mind has going for it. I was a little irritated by how dismissive Nagel was to the concept of the soul, giving it very little discussion time as an objection to panpsychism, but that seems to be the general trend among many philosophers of mind that I've studied.
Subjective and Objective
My rating: 4/5
This article might have been better positioned earlier in the book, because by the time you reach it, he's already discussed quite a few of the topics he mentions in this article. He also tends to repeat himself. That said, I still gave it four stars because it's such an important topic, and he handles the question well. How can we make sense of both the subjective and objective components of reality if we only create a system of accounting for one of them? For example, if we believe that objectivity is the closest we can get to true reality, we will minimize or discard the subjective, including what it means to be truly human. Likewise, there are problems when you go in the other direction. Nagel doesn't solve this problem, but he does offer a lot of good food for thought.
All said, though I may not have agreed with Nagel on everything, and I may have had issues with some of his arguments, I thought this book was very good because it caused me to wrestle with a lot of important and interesting questions, which ultimately is what philosophy tries to do. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in philosophy and examining Nagel's take on certain big questions in life.
Overall, this is a well-written book, but it is dense. This work requires concentration and dedicated effort to get through. He does tend to digress at times and sometimes repeats himself, but overall his articles are structured in a fairly logical and straightforward manner. That said, I would recommend that a potential reader have some sort of philosophical background, because these articles presume at times that you already know something about the topic (particularly those topics in the philosophy of mind at the end of the book). Now, on to the individual chapters.
Death
My rating: 4/5
Here, Nagel discusses the topic of death and why humans believe death to be a bad thing or an evil, and how we should think about it in response to that. It was very thought-provoking and left me with quite a few questions.
The Absurd
My rating: 5/5
This chapter is one of the most interesting analyses I've read on the topic of the absurd from a naturalistic/secular lens. He essentially examines the tension between a life that we take very seriously and purposefully with the possibility that it could all be meaningless or arbitrary. It made me grateful that I believe there is a telos to life, but is still a question everyone has to reckon with themselves. It also made me think of the importance of faith in the face of the absurd at times.
Moral Luck
My rating: 5/5
I had not read much on the subject of moral luck until this chapter, though I knew the general premise. Nagel does a terrific job in posing a lot of thought-provoking ideas about how we can assign moral praise or blame to people who do things that seemingly depend on factors outside of their control.
Sexual Perversion
My rating: 3/5
This chapter was interesting to a degree, but I didn't find it quite as compelling as some of the other ones. Perhaps it's only because this topic isn't one that I'm particularly interested in. Nagel does do a good job though of outlining what he believes a perversion to be, and he applies that to sex to show how what are normally healthy sexual desires can become blocked or perverted in a person, from a philosophical standpoint. However, I did wish he had considered the idea of sex having an intentional design or end, but that generally wouldn't fit in his worldview, as I understand it.
War and Massacre
My rating: 5/5
As someone who is interested in military ethics and Just War Theory, this chapter really appealed to me. I thought Nagel made a great argument for why military planners and politicians must consider absolutist ethics in addition to utilitarian ethics when going to war or engaging in combat.
Ruthlessness in Public Life
My rating: 3/5
Just based on the title, I was intrigued and unsure where Nagel would take this line of thinking. While I didn't totally agree with his line of reasoning at some points, he still left me with a lot to think about in terms of public crimes and the type of behavior that politicians or other leaders may use, and if that behavior differs from private morality.
The Policy of Preference
My rating: 4/5
In this chapter, Nagel deals with the morality and justice of preferential policies in society, such as affirmative action. He essentially argues that though justice does not require these sorts of policies in our society, they are not unjust. His line of thinking was interesting to follow, and at times persuasive, though I did leave with a few questions unanswered. This chapter was especially interesting in light of the recent political climate.
Equality
My rating: 5/5
Here, Nagel examines the idea of equality and examines equality from three different perspectives: utilitarian equality, rights-based equality, and egalitarian equality. He ultimately argues that while none of these are wholly sufficient, a mix of utilitarian and egalitarian equality, with some rights protections, is ultimately best for society. While I questioned some of his arguments in this chapter, I thought it was a very interesting read.
The Fragmentation of Value
My rating: 4/5
This chapter deals with the differing types of value and obligations we have in life, and Nagel basically argues that there cannot be one unified standard of value, but rather we must use practical wisdom and judgment to determine which standard of value to apply in a given scenario.
Ethics without Biology
My rating: 3/5
This chapter was one of my less favorite ones, as Nagel's point seemed fairly obvious from the outset, arguing that humans should consider our biology as the starting point of ethics, but he argues that we have surpassed this point now. Therefore, biology is not very helpful to ethics.
Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness
My rating: 2/5
While I'm sure that some people would find this chapter quite interesting (though it may have since been disproven or made irrelevant by modern neuroscience), I was unable to really stay engaged during this chapter. It is the first of three chapters Nagel has on the philosophy of mind, and this one is probably the weakest of the three, in my opinion. That said, some of the examples used were interesting, and he does offer some decent questions to wrestle with, though, as mentioned, I don't know how modern neuroscience would react to it.
What is it like to Be a Bat?
My rating: 5/5
This is one of Nagel's landmark articles in philosophy, and is one of my favorites of his. In it, he argues against physicalism's attempt at reductionism with regard to the mind-body problem, stating that pure physicalism cannot account for the subjective experience of conscious creatures. Even if I knew everything about the physical processes and mechanisms of a bat's brain, I still would not know what it is like to be a bat. There is something missing. Overall, a great read.
Panpsychism
My rating: 3/5
This chapter was interesting at times, though I've never read much on the subject of panpsychism. It is essentially the view that matter must have mental properties as well as physical properties, and when that matter is arranged in such a way in certain organisms, it produces consciousness and mental states. Nagel examines this view, objections to it, and then attempts to refute those objections, concluding that while panpsychism is a little out there, it may be the best theory philosophy of mind has going for it. I was a little irritated by how dismissive Nagel was to the concept of the soul, giving it very little discussion time as an objection to panpsychism, but that seems to be the general trend among many philosophers of mind that I've studied.
Subjective and Objective
My rating: 4/5
This article might have been better positioned earlier in the book, because by the time you reach it, he's already discussed quite a few of the topics he mentions in this article. He also tends to repeat himself. That said, I still gave it four stars because it's such an important topic, and he handles the question well. How can we make sense of both the subjective and objective components of reality if we only create a system of accounting for one of them? For example, if we believe that objectivity is the closest we can get to true reality, we will minimize or discard the subjective, including what it means to be truly human. Likewise, there are problems when you go in the other direction. Nagel doesn't solve this problem, but he does offer a lot of good food for thought.
All said, though I may not have agreed with Nagel on everything, and I may have had issues with some of his arguments, I thought this book was very good because it caused me to wrestle with a lot of important and interesting questions, which ultimately is what philosophy tries to do. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in philosophy and examining Nagel's take on certain big questions in life.
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November 4, 2009First time to my knowledge I've seen a philosopher argue that death is really bad and we should be scared of it. And it's a good point about the nature of goodness not being restricted to non-relational properties ascribable to a human at different times. Still, surprising that Nagel would fail to look into the huge variety of other reasons that philosophers have embraced the idea of death.
Which points to a crucial element of Nagel's style. He is arguing with the language of the people, using the people's definitions of the words at stake. It has a certain charm, a feeling of someone sincerely engaged in questioning their way of life, at first it almost feels Socratic. But then one remembers that Socrates (of early Plato particularly) radically questioned the people's definitions and made them think about the definitions they'd been using. Nagel doesn't fuss over words. Is this appropriate?
Let's look at the second essay, on the Absurd. I was excited to read it, as it draws on Camus' Sisyphus essay, which was one of the first works of "real" (i.e. not Christopher Pike's) philosophy I ever read. And I was really getting pleased, when I read Nagel's argument that we learn our standards of meaning within life, therefore we cannot use the same standards when we step outside of life, in order to look at the big picture. I agree entirely. Life cannot as a whole be meaningless, because meaning is only something generated from within life, and no longer makes sense as a tool with which to judge life as a whole. We pull ourselves out of the individual chain of justifications when we look at the big picture, and may no longer ask for another link on that chain. Sadly, I got the same slap in the face from the ending that I'd gotten before with Camus. We should live our lives with IRONY? Wha? Why? He's just demonstrated that we may not look at our overall struggles as meaningless. So what use do we have for irony? It's just as unjustified within the text as Camus' call to defiance.
This lesson about when you can use what words (such as in the second essay, "justification" and "meaning") is throughout the book not taken seriously enough. There is a problem with using work-a-day definitions for philosophic thought, words understood according to their use in certain normal situations are plucked out of their context and made in this innocent form to take part in exotic dances. Naturally, this method leads to mixed up conclusions - unexpected, yet no more rigourous for all that. We're struck by an embarassingly clear example in the essay on Sexual Perversion, written in 1969. The conclusions do not hold and are ridiculously dated. Philosophic truths should exercise a permanent claim on our attention, and not become silly artifacts after a mere forty years. Yet, this is only possible when we examine the concepts we're using. If you take them out of the mouths of those conversing under entirely other circumstances, you end up with stiff nonsense.
Which points to a crucial element of Nagel's style. He is arguing with the language of the people, using the people's definitions of the words at stake. It has a certain charm, a feeling of someone sincerely engaged in questioning their way of life, at first it almost feels Socratic. But then one remembers that Socrates (of early Plato particularly) radically questioned the people's definitions and made them think about the definitions they'd been using. Nagel doesn't fuss over words. Is this appropriate?
Let's look at the second essay, on the Absurd. I was excited to read it, as it draws on Camus' Sisyphus essay, which was one of the first works of "real" (i.e. not Christopher Pike's) philosophy I ever read. And I was really getting pleased, when I read Nagel's argument that we learn our standards of meaning within life, therefore we cannot use the same standards when we step outside of life, in order to look at the big picture. I agree entirely. Life cannot as a whole be meaningless, because meaning is only something generated from within life, and no longer makes sense as a tool with which to judge life as a whole. We pull ourselves out of the individual chain of justifications when we look at the big picture, and may no longer ask for another link on that chain. Sadly, I got the same slap in the face from the ending that I'd gotten before with Camus. We should live our lives with IRONY? Wha? Why? He's just demonstrated that we may not look at our overall struggles as meaningless. So what use do we have for irony? It's just as unjustified within the text as Camus' call to defiance.
This lesson about when you can use what words (such as in the second essay, "justification" and "meaning") is throughout the book not taken seriously enough. There is a problem with using work-a-day definitions for philosophic thought, words understood according to their use in certain normal situations are plucked out of their context and made in this innocent form to take part in exotic dances. Naturally, this method leads to mixed up conclusions - unexpected, yet no more rigourous for all that. We're struck by an embarassingly clear example in the essay on Sexual Perversion, written in 1969. The conclusions do not hold and are ridiculously dated. Philosophic truths should exercise a permanent claim on our attention, and not become silly artifacts after a mere forty years. Yet, this is only possible when we examine the concepts we're using. If you take them out of the mouths of those conversing under entirely other circumstances, you end up with stiff nonsense.
January 25, 2018
Thomas Nagel began with the most abstract issues and areas in philosophy to reach concrete issues: metaphysics-> epistemoligy,-> philosophy of mind-> Ethics-> political philosophy-> economics.
Thomas Nagel in all areas of philosophy: "metaphysics, epistemology, ethics", and some of the most important branches of philosophy: "philosophy, ethics, philosophy of law, political philosophy, philosophy of mind", has had a huge contribution.
He discusses the most abstract philosophical issues, such as "consciousness", "point of veiw / perspective" (from objective and subjective point of view), "altruism and egoism" (all in philosophy of mind); Virtue and Vice, duty and responsibility(in Ethics); Equality and partiality, Justice, Legitimacy(in politic and Law).
In this collection of essays (this book), he addresses concrete issues. In this book, he has discussed articles (topics), and referring to nearly 2,600 books. Nearly all of the papers in the past 40 years have been at the center of the philosophical controversy: death, absurd, moral luck, war and massacre, sexual perversion, ruthlessness in public life,
the policy preference, equality, etc.
Perhaps it can be said that all fourteen articles, with all their initial differences, look at one issue: the meaning of life.
I have repeatedly read the essay "Absurd" and is still one of the most profound articles of philosophy that I have read about the sense of "absurd" and perhaps "the meaning of life.
Thomas Nagel in all areas of philosophy: "metaphysics, epistemology, ethics", and some of the most important branches of philosophy: "philosophy, ethics, philosophy of law, political philosophy, philosophy of mind", has had a huge contribution.
He discusses the most abstract philosophical issues, such as "consciousness", "point of veiw / perspective" (from objective and subjective point of view), "altruism and egoism" (all in philosophy of mind); Virtue and Vice, duty and responsibility(in Ethics); Equality and partiality, Justice, Legitimacy(in politic and Law).
In this collection of essays (this book), he addresses concrete issues. In this book, he has discussed articles (topics), and referring to nearly 2,600 books. Nearly all of the papers in the past 40 years have been at the center of the philosophical controversy: death, absurd, moral luck, war and massacre, sexual perversion, ruthlessness in public life,
the policy preference, equality, etc.
Perhaps it can be said that all fourteen articles, with all their initial differences, look at one issue: the meaning of life.
I have repeatedly read the essay "Absurd" and is still one of the most profound articles of philosophy that I have read about the sense of "absurd" and perhaps "the meaning of life.
March 15, 2023
Each essay here hits you with the force of a freight train! It is probably true to say that the first three of them completely changed my outlook on death, the meaning of life, and moral luck. It is a difficult book, but one worth going through.
February 7, 2024
I picked this up because I focused on Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" essay for a philosophy assessment. I enjoyed the majority of writings in this book and thought some were especially impressive commentaries on the respective topic. My favourite essays were: Death, The Absurd, Moral Luck, Sexual Perversion, What is it like to be a bat?, Panpsychism, Subjective and Objective.
Would highly recommend, even for those already acquainted with the field of philosophy.
Would highly recommend, even for those already acquainted with the field of philosophy.
February 10, 2021
Always fun but also extremely challenging and frustrating to read philosophy. This is no beginner’s intro to philosophy and I definitely but off more than I can chew.
The essays on war and massacre, the fragmentation of value, and the subjective objective were my favourites.
War and massacre because I’m a utilitarian/consequentialist and Nagel wrote a convincing argument against utilitarianism and for absolutism. I’
The fragmentation of value was excellent because it’s so applicable (like many of the ideas in this book) to everyday life. We are all faced with decisions and will face many difficult decisions that really offer no solution. What makes these decisions so difficult is the fact that each one has multiple values of varying degrees. How should we then evaluate each of those values comparatively? Nagel provides a useful framework for bettering our judgement and at the very least made me feel better about not always having to make the best decision.
Subjective and objective was also persuasive on the inaccuracy of claiming there is an objective reality.
Overall I found Nagel’s approach of “the middle” way, multiple solutions, “there’s not really a solution that comes to my mind this is just the problem” to be slightly annoying because I want definitive answers. But I also realize that that’s just a fact of life and philosophy. Not many rules can really be strictly applied and the rules to be applied will likely require a case by case analysis.
(3 stars bc honestly it was quite technical and I didn’t understand a decent amount of this book)
The essays on war and massacre, the fragmentation of value, and the subjective objective were my favourites.
War and massacre because I’m a utilitarian/consequentialist and Nagel wrote a convincing argument against utilitarianism and for absolutism. I’
The fragmentation of value was excellent because it’s so applicable (like many of the ideas in this book) to everyday life. We are all faced with decisions and will face many difficult decisions that really offer no solution. What makes these decisions so difficult is the fact that each one has multiple values of varying degrees. How should we then evaluate each of those values comparatively? Nagel provides a useful framework for bettering our judgement and at the very least made me feel better about not always having to make the best decision.
Subjective and objective was also persuasive on the inaccuracy of claiming there is an objective reality.
Overall I found Nagel’s approach of “the middle” way, multiple solutions, “there’s not really a solution that comes to my mind this is just the problem” to be slightly annoying because I want definitive answers. But I also realize that that’s just a fact of life and philosophy. Not many rules can really be strictly applied and the rules to be applied will likely require a case by case analysis.
(3 stars bc honestly it was quite technical and I didn’t understand a decent amount of this book)
December 5, 2019
First half of this book is a 3, while the second half is a 5..had I known it'd have a much more interesting finish, I probably would have prioritized reading it a bit more! Nagel's ideas on consciousness, value fragmentation, and the dichotomous issues of objectivity/subjectivity are seemingly timeless, and great food for thought for those that don't fall in the same camp as him on these particular issues.
October 12, 2024
Really, my only issue with this book, aside from a few of the essays not being as interesting, is that this format necessarily doesn’t allow for much depth. Nagel was obviously focused on the subjective vs objective vein in philosophy and it shows, but the outer shell that this interest takes on can vary from philosophy of mind, the absurd, morality, politics, etc. So, we go from topic to topic and this isn’t bad, but it did leave me wishing for a longer, deeper, and more nuanced treatment on some of these topics. More reading, I guess.
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January 24, 2019Tried using this as a broad introduction to philosophy. Too dense / abstractly written for me to really get into. Now I get why everyone who read the New Yorker likes philosophy so much...
Maybe this is one I try again later in life when I'm a more sophisticated and wise guy
Maybe this is one I try again later in life when I'm a more sophisticated and wise guy
October 14, 2025
Timida definizione (mia) di Coscienza:
La Coscienza è quella cosa che più cerchi di capire meno capisci cosa è.
Detto ciò questo libro è l'archetipo di come mi piacerebbe fare filosofia.
La Coscienza è quella cosa che più cerchi di capire meno capisci cosa è.
Detto ciò questo libro è l'archetipo di come mi piacerebbe fare filosofia.
February 10, 2018
The title of Thomas Nagel’s Mortal Questions may appear to promise a set of inquiries with reachable termination points, but in fact the opposite is true. This collection of short essays explores a slew of multifaceted and often-insouble problems surrounding the nature of human society and experiential life that Nagel pondered during the 1970s. Nagel is nobly driven to confront issues that are “multiple, complex, often cloudy, and mixed up with many others,” and to plumb the intellectual depths of situations where “we may have evidence for the truth of something we cannot really understand” (141, 177).
While I applaud this approach and enjoy Nagel’s able writing, I find his arguments to be of inconsistent quality. The essays that explore scientific topics are quite dated and will prove generally unimpressive to anyone familiar with the last few decades of research in experimental psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience. The essay “Panpsychism,” while containing a few nuggets of good sense, is rife with musings that could pass muster in the ’70s but seem laughable now. There are similar problems with the essays that address sexuality, the relationship between biology and ethics, and the mind-body problem.
The obvious exception is “What Is It Like To Be A Bat?”, which remains a landmark statement of why consciousness is such a difficult subject to wrap our heads around. Nagel focuses on the specificity of what it is like to be various kinds of conscious or semi-conscious entities, as well as the intellectual commitments that follow from accepting consciousness as a gradated and pluralistic phenomenon. Even for those who accept a physicalist/materialist account of consciousness and view internal experience as essentially an illusion (which I do), this essay survives as an apt articulation of thorny questions that still tease us today.
The pieces that really shine in this collection are Nagel’s existential and sociopolitical critiques. I am especially impressed with the “The Absurd,” “Moral Luck,” and “The Policy of Preference.” I shall analyze the first two together since I see them as attacking the same set of intellectual queries, and then discuss the third on its own.
“The Absurd” is a terrific expansion of the idea that Albert Camus popularized in his classic essay “An Absurd Reasoning". While Camus posits the absurd as the taunting contrast between the world as we find it and the world as we imagine it might be, Nagel argues that the absurd “derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world, but from a collision within ourselves” (17). This collision arises from our understanding of two opposing viewpoints: (1) from an outside perspective, human life is patently meaningless, and (2) from an internal perspective, we cannot help but take ourselves seriously. This is a clever reinterpretation of Camus’s original conundrum, one that I believe has important consequences for how we should understand free will (or rather, the absence of free will).
Before attempting to cash out that last point, it will be useful to take up Nagel’s views on “moral luck,” which he defines as a situation “Where a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him…as an object of moral judgment” (26). In other words, we become morally lucky if influences outside our control cause events for which we can take (or are granted by others) moral credit, and we become morally unlucky when the opposite is true. Nagel doesn’t shy away from the weighty implications of this, stating clearly that “nothing or almost nothing about what a person does seems to be under his control” (26).
Though it would be a stretch to claim that the issue of free will has been settled since this essay was first written, contemporary research generally concords with this conclusion, indicating that what we usually call free will is merely a placeholder for our incomplete understanding of nature’s causal mechanisms. With a little help from Marvin Minsky, Robert Sapolsky explains:
"The artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky once defined free will as 'internal forces I do not understand.' People intuitively believe in free will, not just because we have this terrible human need for agency but also because most people know next to nothing about those internal forces…Our behaviors are constantly shaped by an array of subterranean forces…that, not that long ago, we didn’t know existed." ( Behave , 603, 605)
The same is true for external forces that enter into our bodies and become themselves internal, subterranean forces (weather, social relationships, nutrients, etc.). As Nagel puts it:
"As the external determinants of what someone has done are gradually exposed, in their effect on consequences, character, and choice itself, it becomes gradually clear that actions are events and people things. Eventually nothing remains that can be ascribed to the responsible self, and we are left with nothing but a portion of the larger sequence of events, which can be deplored or celebrated, but not blamed or praised." (37)
Nagel’s concept of moral luck is a wonderful and humbling way to accept non-agency, and to generate gratitude for whatever moral luck we come across, knowing surely that we did not cause it and therefore do not deserve it. Taking moral luck seriously also prioritizes compassion when dealing with those who are morally unlucky, etiolating arguments that a morally unlucky person deserves a nasty fate as punishment for having executed a series of bad choices that could have been avoided.
Returning now to the absurd, we can see how moral luck interacts with our adolescent but inescapable need to take ourselves seriously. We long for things to matter gravely and crave recognition for bringing about circumstances that are favorable to us and others. But in reality our lives are meaningless and we are rushing downstream, self-reflective but not -controlled passengers riding an endless current of causality that decides moment to moment what we are and where we go. Nagel’s description is better:
"That is the main condition of absurdity––the dragooning of an unconvinced transcendent consciousness into the service of an immanent, limited enterprise like a human life." (22)
So, taking or being given moral credit for actions we are not responsible for (which is every action) is just as absurd as receiving blame for actions we are not responsible for (which is every action). These “actions” are just events, observable transpirings of our dragooned nature, like sunsets or winter storms.
Lest we should conclude that the only available route from here is a descent into jaded skepticism about the possibility goodness or meaning in life, Nagel comes to our rescue:
"Our absurdity warrants neither that much distress nor that much defiance…I would argue that absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics. Like skepticism in epistomology, it is possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight––the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought…[If] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair." (22-3)
This may seem like an intellectual cop-out to some, but I see it as a genuine “solution” to an unsolvable problem. Accepting our inability to resolve the absurdity of our lives, we can fall back on the assurance that there is nothing boring or simplistic about humans and the world that contains us. Despite our many negative capacities, we are also endowed with capacities for discovery, for euphoria, for growth, for love. The significance of these small miracles and our gratitude for their unnecessary existence need not be tarnished by the reality that we did not and cannot choose them, and their ultimate meaninglessness need not contravene their meaningfulness to our little lives in the here and now.
The last essay I’d like to discuss is one that I wish would rise to public prominence is this time of social and political strife. “The Policy of Preference” is a nuanced and smart examination of how we should attempt to ameliorate some of the deepest divisions that threaten civil society. For us Americans, the most obvious of these are our despicable histories of slavery, racial discrimination, and gender discrimination, the consequences of which have been dire and pervasive in our national narrative, even as the worst results of embedded inequity have attenuated over time.
Nagel delves into the difficult question of whether the act of creating a policy of preference such as affirmative action is compatible with justice. His fair conclusion is that such policies are compatible with justice, but Nagel is careful to acknowledge that policies of preference do not always solve the problems they purport to address, and also that their implementation does not come without significant cost:
"When we try to deal with the inequality in advantages that results from a disparity in qualifications (however produced) between races or sexes, we are up against a feature of the system which at every turn exacts costs and presents obstacles in response to attempts to reduce the inequalities. We must face the possibility that the primary injustice with which we have to contend lies in this feature itself, and that some of the worst aspects of what we now perceive as racial or sexual injustice are merely conspicuous manifestations of the great social injustice of differential reward." (96)
By “differential reward,” Nagel means that human resources are everywhere distributed unfairly due to systems that reward people based on certain qualities (skills, accomplishments, inheritance, nepotism, chance, etc.), each of which is not equally accessible to all members of society. And since any quality that can conceivably bring about a reward obtains solely from moral luck, it becomes clear that any system of differential reward is indefensible. No one deserves anything. The logical next step is to conclude that, in a just society, everyone ought to get a fair piece of what’s available. The struggle to define and distribute a “fair piece” to everyone is of course not easy or uncomplicated, but the crucial point is that the project of just distribution need not by necessity focus on any particular group or groups that have been discriminated against (although there is certainly no prohibition against that). All people are potentially vulnerable to injustice and suffering, depending on circumstance; no one has a monopoly on lousy moral luck.
In our hyper-polarized political climate, I cannot over-stress the importance of this unifying view, which overrides superficial differences in identity without denying their contextual importance. Solving injustice is not about obsessing over what people look like or how they act or speak, but rather about identifying societal systems that allow for and perpetuate occurrences of unfair distribution and doing the hard work of remaking those systems with the help of allies who also want a better world. Critically, the details of how this “better world” will be and the language used to describe it need not align perfectly in order for people from different backgrounds and experiences to cooperate in common cause; dogmatism in this regard is a surefire way to kill coalitions that would prove otherwise capable of affecting widespread change.
All of this brings us to a well-trodden truth that is sadly sidelined in much of modern discourse: in order to solve the many problems that ail us, we must rediscover our common humanity and insist on its status as our most important (not the only important) policy of preference. We will get there by privileging our capacities for responsible reasoning, compassionate understanding and fair compromise. In the service of this goal, Nagel cautions against two dangers:
"One is the danger of romantic defeatism, which abandons rational theory because it inevitably leaves many problems unsolved. The other is the danger of exclusionary overrationalization, which bars as irrelevant or empty all considerations that cannot be brought within the scope of a general system admitting explicitly defensible conclusions. This yields skewed results by counting only measurable or otherwise precisely describable factors, even when others are in fact relevant. The alternative is to recognize that the legitimate grounds of decision are extremely various and understood to different degrees…The lack of a general theory leads too easily into a false dichotomy: either fall back entirely on the unsystematic intuitive judgment of whoever has to make a decision, or else cook up a unified but artificial system…which will grind out decisions on any problem presented to it." (137, 139)
Our political and social lives are currently riddled with these seductive mentalities. On every issue, we see one side clamoring for the abandonment of reason in service of blind ideology, even as the other zealously applies an oversimplified systemic solution that ignores the true complexity of the problem. Those in the middle must devote ourselves to the calm creation and assiduous defense of common ground.
This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt.
While I applaud this approach and enjoy Nagel’s able writing, I find his arguments to be of inconsistent quality. The essays that explore scientific topics are quite dated and will prove generally unimpressive to anyone familiar with the last few decades of research in experimental psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience. The essay “Panpsychism,” while containing a few nuggets of good sense, is rife with musings that could pass muster in the ’70s but seem laughable now. There are similar problems with the essays that address sexuality, the relationship between biology and ethics, and the mind-body problem.
The obvious exception is “What Is It Like To Be A Bat?”, which remains a landmark statement of why consciousness is such a difficult subject to wrap our heads around. Nagel focuses on the specificity of what it is like to be various kinds of conscious or semi-conscious entities, as well as the intellectual commitments that follow from accepting consciousness as a gradated and pluralistic phenomenon. Even for those who accept a physicalist/materialist account of consciousness and view internal experience as essentially an illusion (which I do), this essay survives as an apt articulation of thorny questions that still tease us today.
The pieces that really shine in this collection are Nagel’s existential and sociopolitical critiques. I am especially impressed with the “The Absurd,” “Moral Luck,” and “The Policy of Preference.” I shall analyze the first two together since I see them as attacking the same set of intellectual queries, and then discuss the third on its own.
“The Absurd” is a terrific expansion of the idea that Albert Camus popularized in his classic essay “An Absurd Reasoning". While Camus posits the absurd as the taunting contrast between the world as we find it and the world as we imagine it might be, Nagel argues that the absurd “derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world, but from a collision within ourselves” (17). This collision arises from our understanding of two opposing viewpoints: (1) from an outside perspective, human life is patently meaningless, and (2) from an internal perspective, we cannot help but take ourselves seriously. This is a clever reinterpretation of Camus’s original conundrum, one that I believe has important consequences for how we should understand free will (or rather, the absence of free will).
Before attempting to cash out that last point, it will be useful to take up Nagel’s views on “moral luck,” which he defines as a situation “Where a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him…as an object of moral judgment” (26). In other words, we become morally lucky if influences outside our control cause events for which we can take (or are granted by others) moral credit, and we become morally unlucky when the opposite is true. Nagel doesn’t shy away from the weighty implications of this, stating clearly that “nothing or almost nothing about what a person does seems to be under his control” (26).
Though it would be a stretch to claim that the issue of free will has been settled since this essay was first written, contemporary research generally concords with this conclusion, indicating that what we usually call free will is merely a placeholder for our incomplete understanding of nature’s causal mechanisms. With a little help from Marvin Minsky, Robert Sapolsky explains:
"The artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky once defined free will as 'internal forces I do not understand.' People intuitively believe in free will, not just because we have this terrible human need for agency but also because most people know next to nothing about those internal forces…Our behaviors are constantly shaped by an array of subterranean forces…that, not that long ago, we didn’t know existed." ( Behave , 603, 605)
The same is true for external forces that enter into our bodies and become themselves internal, subterranean forces (weather, social relationships, nutrients, etc.). As Nagel puts it:
"As the external determinants of what someone has done are gradually exposed, in their effect on consequences, character, and choice itself, it becomes gradually clear that actions are events and people things. Eventually nothing remains that can be ascribed to the responsible self, and we are left with nothing but a portion of the larger sequence of events, which can be deplored or celebrated, but not blamed or praised." (37)
Nagel’s concept of moral luck is a wonderful and humbling way to accept non-agency, and to generate gratitude for whatever moral luck we come across, knowing surely that we did not cause it and therefore do not deserve it. Taking moral luck seriously also prioritizes compassion when dealing with those who are morally unlucky, etiolating arguments that a morally unlucky person deserves a nasty fate as punishment for having executed a series of bad choices that could have been avoided.
Returning now to the absurd, we can see how moral luck interacts with our adolescent but inescapable need to take ourselves seriously. We long for things to matter gravely and crave recognition for bringing about circumstances that are favorable to us and others. But in reality our lives are meaningless and we are rushing downstream, self-reflective but not -controlled passengers riding an endless current of causality that decides moment to moment what we are and where we go. Nagel’s description is better:
"That is the main condition of absurdity––the dragooning of an unconvinced transcendent consciousness into the service of an immanent, limited enterprise like a human life." (22)
So, taking or being given moral credit for actions we are not responsible for (which is every action) is just as absurd as receiving blame for actions we are not responsible for (which is every action). These “actions” are just events, observable transpirings of our dragooned nature, like sunsets or winter storms.
Lest we should conclude that the only available route from here is a descent into jaded skepticism about the possibility goodness or meaning in life, Nagel comes to our rescue:
"Our absurdity warrants neither that much distress nor that much defiance…I would argue that absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics. Like skepticism in epistomology, it is possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight––the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought…[If] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair." (22-3)
This may seem like an intellectual cop-out to some, but I see it as a genuine “solution” to an unsolvable problem. Accepting our inability to resolve the absurdity of our lives, we can fall back on the assurance that there is nothing boring or simplistic about humans and the world that contains us. Despite our many negative capacities, we are also endowed with capacities for discovery, for euphoria, for growth, for love. The significance of these small miracles and our gratitude for their unnecessary existence need not be tarnished by the reality that we did not and cannot choose them, and their ultimate meaninglessness need not contravene their meaningfulness to our little lives in the here and now.
The last essay I’d like to discuss is one that I wish would rise to public prominence is this time of social and political strife. “The Policy of Preference” is a nuanced and smart examination of how we should attempt to ameliorate some of the deepest divisions that threaten civil society. For us Americans, the most obvious of these are our despicable histories of slavery, racial discrimination, and gender discrimination, the consequences of which have been dire and pervasive in our national narrative, even as the worst results of embedded inequity have attenuated over time.
Nagel delves into the difficult question of whether the act of creating a policy of preference such as affirmative action is compatible with justice. His fair conclusion is that such policies are compatible with justice, but Nagel is careful to acknowledge that policies of preference do not always solve the problems they purport to address, and also that their implementation does not come without significant cost:
"When we try to deal with the inequality in advantages that results from a disparity in qualifications (however produced) between races or sexes, we are up against a feature of the system which at every turn exacts costs and presents obstacles in response to attempts to reduce the inequalities. We must face the possibility that the primary injustice with which we have to contend lies in this feature itself, and that some of the worst aspects of what we now perceive as racial or sexual injustice are merely conspicuous manifestations of the great social injustice of differential reward." (96)
By “differential reward,” Nagel means that human resources are everywhere distributed unfairly due to systems that reward people based on certain qualities (skills, accomplishments, inheritance, nepotism, chance, etc.), each of which is not equally accessible to all members of society. And since any quality that can conceivably bring about a reward obtains solely from moral luck, it becomes clear that any system of differential reward is indefensible. No one deserves anything. The logical next step is to conclude that, in a just society, everyone ought to get a fair piece of what’s available. The struggle to define and distribute a “fair piece” to everyone is of course not easy or uncomplicated, but the crucial point is that the project of just distribution need not by necessity focus on any particular group or groups that have been discriminated against (although there is certainly no prohibition against that). All people are potentially vulnerable to injustice and suffering, depending on circumstance; no one has a monopoly on lousy moral luck.
In our hyper-polarized political climate, I cannot over-stress the importance of this unifying view, which overrides superficial differences in identity without denying their contextual importance. Solving injustice is not about obsessing over what people look like or how they act or speak, but rather about identifying societal systems that allow for and perpetuate occurrences of unfair distribution and doing the hard work of remaking those systems with the help of allies who also want a better world. Critically, the details of how this “better world” will be and the language used to describe it need not align perfectly in order for people from different backgrounds and experiences to cooperate in common cause; dogmatism in this regard is a surefire way to kill coalitions that would prove otherwise capable of affecting widespread change.
All of this brings us to a well-trodden truth that is sadly sidelined in much of modern discourse: in order to solve the many problems that ail us, we must rediscover our common humanity and insist on its status as our most important (not the only important) policy of preference. We will get there by privileging our capacities for responsible reasoning, compassionate understanding and fair compromise. In the service of this goal, Nagel cautions against two dangers:
"One is the danger of romantic defeatism, which abandons rational theory because it inevitably leaves many problems unsolved. The other is the danger of exclusionary overrationalization, which bars as irrelevant or empty all considerations that cannot be brought within the scope of a general system admitting explicitly defensible conclusions. This yields skewed results by counting only measurable or otherwise precisely describable factors, even when others are in fact relevant. The alternative is to recognize that the legitimate grounds of decision are extremely various and understood to different degrees…The lack of a general theory leads too easily into a false dichotomy: either fall back entirely on the unsystematic intuitive judgment of whoever has to make a decision, or else cook up a unified but artificial system…which will grind out decisions on any problem presented to it." (137, 139)
Our political and social lives are currently riddled with these seductive mentalities. On every issue, we see one side clamoring for the abandonment of reason in service of blind ideology, even as the other zealously applies an oversimplified systemic solution that ignores the true complexity of the problem. Those in the middle must devote ourselves to the calm creation and assiduous defense of common ground.
This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt.
April 11, 2022
Since being introduced to Thomas Nagel, I just had to read two of his books in one week. Mortal Questions is a collection of essays from Thomas Nagel that cover a variety of topics such as his classic essays on moral luck and consciousness. Personally, one of my favorite essays from the book was on The Absurd. He also has a bunch of really interesting essays in here on social issues such as equality and how we treat each other. I absolutely love Nagel’s writing and look forward to reading more.
October 10, 2025
first philosophy book i enjoyed :)
November 14, 2017
"Moral Luck" and "What is it like to be a bat?" are oft-cited works in other books i've read, which is why i initially bought this collection. I'm tempted to call them classic or canonical works in the field.
"Death", ironically(?) the first essay, was a crucial ingredient in Todd May's book on the same topic and with the same title, so i read it 3 times. It also influences my reaction to books such as Jason Shiga's Demon series of graphic novels.
"Subjective and Objective" closes the collection and probably was my favorite. It alludes to the fact that Nagel wants to write a larger piece on the subject, which i'm virtually certain is The View from Nowhere, a book i've attempted to read more than once, each time with the same pittance of understanding as the previous one. The essay makes me want to give it yet another try even though i'll probably fail yet again. I will try to remember to seek out smarter people than i who have written about the essay and about the book in ways that i can understand so that eventually i'll be capable of translating Nagel's words into something i'll retain.
"The Absurd" opened my eyes to this concept. I'd poo-poohed it as just another nihilism but maybe i finally get what Camus et al were going for.
"Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness" adds to the handful of mind-related essays and books i've read in the past ~18months, especially Parfit's Reasons and Persons.
"Panpsychism": i was excited to read this one, as i hoped it'd make this concept seem less ridiculous, but i can't recall much. Reading it was like trying to pick up 7 peeled mangoes simultaneously.
All the unnamed essays didn't rise to the level of "interested" for me. Even though several of them were ostensibly about moral philosophy, i just couldn't get into them.
I might be done with philosophy books for the year *sigh* though i really want to officially finish reading On What Matters (vols 1&2) just to move it onto my list of Great Accomplishments.
"Death", ironically(?) the first essay, was a crucial ingredient in Todd May's book on the same topic and with the same title, so i read it 3 times. It also influences my reaction to books such as Jason Shiga's Demon series of graphic novels.
"Subjective and Objective" closes the collection and probably was my favorite. It alludes to the fact that Nagel wants to write a larger piece on the subject, which i'm virtually certain is The View from Nowhere, a book i've attempted to read more than once, each time with the same pittance of understanding as the previous one. The essay makes me want to give it yet another try even though i'll probably fail yet again. I will try to remember to seek out smarter people than i who have written about the essay and about the book in ways that i can understand so that eventually i'll be capable of translating Nagel's words into something i'll retain.
"The Absurd" opened my eyes to this concept. I'd poo-poohed it as just another nihilism but maybe i finally get what Camus et al were going for.
"Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness" adds to the handful of mind-related essays and books i've read in the past ~18months, especially Parfit's Reasons and Persons.
"Panpsychism": i was excited to read this one, as i hoped it'd make this concept seem less ridiculous, but i can't recall much. Reading it was like trying to pick up 7 peeled mangoes simultaneously.
All the unnamed essays didn't rise to the level of "interested" for me. Even though several of them were ostensibly about moral philosophy, i just couldn't get into them.
I might be done with philosophy books for the year *sigh* though i really want to officially finish reading On What Matters (vols 1&2) just to move it onto my list of Great Accomplishments.
January 17, 2010
This was really not my cup of tea. I was expecting it to be more interesting or perhaps relevant to questions that I've had on the subject that I've posed to myself. I would say in general that the book was too dry/technical. I'm the last person who would fault something for being excessive in this way, but somehow Thomas Nagel managed to achieve that criticism from me. It's also possible that this wasn't really meant to be a point of entry to his work or for people unfamiliar with this field of inquiry. In any case, I'll have to read the last couple of essays in the future if I ever determine it's necessary to return.
October 16, 2024
A SERIES OF ESSAYS BY THE WELL-KNOWN PHILOSOPHER
Thomas Nagel (born 1937) is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. He has written many other books, such as 'What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy,' 'The View From Nowhere,' 'Equality and Partiality,' 'The Possibility of Altruism,' 'The Last Word,' etc.
[NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 215-page paperback edition.]
He wrote in the Preface to this 1979 book, “My own philosophical sympathies and antipathies are easily stated. I believe one should trust problems over solutions, intuition over arguments, and pluralistic discord over systematic harmony. Simplicity and elegance are never reasons to think that a philosophical theory is true: on the contrary, they are usually grounds for thinking it false… It is always reasonable in philosophy to have great respect for the intuitive sense of an unsolved problem, because in philosophy our methods are always themselves in question, and this is one way of being prepared to abandon them at any point.
"What ties these views about philosophical practice together is the assumption that to create understanding, philosophy must CONVINCE. That means it must produce or destroy belief, rather than merely provide us with a consistent set of things to say. And belief, unlike utterance, should not be under the control of the will, however motivated. It should be involuntary.” (Pg. x-xi)
He continues, “These essays… are held together by an interest in the point of view of individual human life and the problem of its relation to more impersonal conceptions of reality… The same concern with the place of subjectivity in an objective world motivates the essays on philosophy of mind… and others. It has been at the center of my interests since I began to think about philosophy, determining the problems I work on and the kind of understanding I want to reach. Some of these essays were written while the United States was engaged in a criminal war, criminally conducted…” (Pg. xii)
He suggests, “Given the limitations on human action, it is naïve to suppose that there is a solution to every moral problem to which the world can face us. We have always known that the world is a bad place. It appears that it may be an evil place as well.” (Pg. 74)
He begins an essay with the statement, “The great modern crimes are public crimes… The judgments I am presupposing are controversial: not everyone agrees that American policy during the Vietnam War was criminal. But even those who do think so may find it hard to attach the crimes to the criminals, in virtue of the official role in which they were committed. Few old anti-war demonstrators would feel more than mildly uncomfortable about meeting one of these distinguished figures, unless it was just because we were unaccustomed to personal contact with anyone as powerful as the president of the World Bank.” (Pg. 76)
He asserts, “If someone with an income of $2000 a year trains a gun on someone with an income of $100,000 a year and makes him hand over his wallet, that is robbery. If the federal government withholds a portion of the second person’s salary … and gives some of it to the first person in the form of welfare payments, food stamps, or free health care, that is taxation. In the first case it is (in my opinion) an impermissible use of coercive means to achieve a worthwhile end. In the second case, the means are legitimate, because they are impersonally imposed by an institution designed to promote certain results. Such general methods of distribution are preferable to theft as a form of private initiative and also to individual charity.” (Pg. 88)
He argues, “For a defender of rights, the respects in which each person is inviolable present a direct and independent limit to what any other person may do to him. There is no single combination of viewpoints which yields a common goal for everyone, but each of us must limit our actions to a range that is not unacceptable to anyone else in certain respects. Typically, the range of what may be done because it violates no rights is rather large.” (Pg. 115)
He observes, “To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe. Such progress as we have made in the systematic justification and criticism of beliefs has not come mostly from general principles of reasoning but from the understanding of particular areas, marked out by the different sciences, by history, by mathematics. These vary in exactness, and large areas of belief are left out of the scope of any theory. These must be governed by common sense and ordinary, prescientific reasoning.” (Pg. 135)
In his famous essay, “What is it like to be a bat?”, he points out: “Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless. The most important and characteristic feature of conscious mental phenomena is very poorly understood. Most reductionist theories do not even try to explain it. And careful examination will show that no currently available concept of reduction is applicable to it. Perhaps a new theoretical form can be devised for the purpose, but such a solution, if it exists, lies in the distant intellectual future.” (Pg. 166)
This book contains some of Nagel’s most interesting essays, and will be very helpful for anyone studying his philosophy.
Thomas Nagel (born 1937) is an American philosopher, currently University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. He has written many other books, such as 'What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy,' 'The View From Nowhere,' 'Equality and Partiality,' 'The Possibility of Altruism,' 'The Last Word,' etc.
[NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 215-page paperback edition.]
He wrote in the Preface to this 1979 book, “My own philosophical sympathies and antipathies are easily stated. I believe one should trust problems over solutions, intuition over arguments, and pluralistic discord over systematic harmony. Simplicity and elegance are never reasons to think that a philosophical theory is true: on the contrary, they are usually grounds for thinking it false… It is always reasonable in philosophy to have great respect for the intuitive sense of an unsolved problem, because in philosophy our methods are always themselves in question, and this is one way of being prepared to abandon them at any point.
"What ties these views about philosophical practice together is the assumption that to create understanding, philosophy must CONVINCE. That means it must produce or destroy belief, rather than merely provide us with a consistent set of things to say. And belief, unlike utterance, should not be under the control of the will, however motivated. It should be involuntary.” (Pg. x-xi)
He continues, “These essays… are held together by an interest in the point of view of individual human life and the problem of its relation to more impersonal conceptions of reality… The same concern with the place of subjectivity in an objective world motivates the essays on philosophy of mind… and others. It has been at the center of my interests since I began to think about philosophy, determining the problems I work on and the kind of understanding I want to reach. Some of these essays were written while the United States was engaged in a criminal war, criminally conducted…” (Pg. xii)
He suggests, “Given the limitations on human action, it is naïve to suppose that there is a solution to every moral problem to which the world can face us. We have always known that the world is a bad place. It appears that it may be an evil place as well.” (Pg. 74)
He begins an essay with the statement, “The great modern crimes are public crimes… The judgments I am presupposing are controversial: not everyone agrees that American policy during the Vietnam War was criminal. But even those who do think so may find it hard to attach the crimes to the criminals, in virtue of the official role in which they were committed. Few old anti-war demonstrators would feel more than mildly uncomfortable about meeting one of these distinguished figures, unless it was just because we were unaccustomed to personal contact with anyone as powerful as the president of the World Bank.” (Pg. 76)
He asserts, “If someone with an income of $2000 a year trains a gun on someone with an income of $100,000 a year and makes him hand over his wallet, that is robbery. If the federal government withholds a portion of the second person’s salary … and gives some of it to the first person in the form of welfare payments, food stamps, or free health care, that is taxation. In the first case it is (in my opinion) an impermissible use of coercive means to achieve a worthwhile end. In the second case, the means are legitimate, because they are impersonally imposed by an institution designed to promote certain results. Such general methods of distribution are preferable to theft as a form of private initiative and also to individual charity.” (Pg. 88)
He argues, “For a defender of rights, the respects in which each person is inviolable present a direct and independent limit to what any other person may do to him. There is no single combination of viewpoints which yields a common goal for everyone, but each of us must limit our actions to a range that is not unacceptable to anyone else in certain respects. Typically, the range of what may be done because it violates no rights is rather large.” (Pg. 115)
He observes, “To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe. Such progress as we have made in the systematic justification and criticism of beliefs has not come mostly from general principles of reasoning but from the understanding of particular areas, marked out by the different sciences, by history, by mathematics. These vary in exactness, and large areas of belief are left out of the scope of any theory. These must be governed by common sense and ordinary, prescientific reasoning.” (Pg. 135)
In his famous essay, “What is it like to be a bat?”, he points out: “Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless. The most important and characteristic feature of conscious mental phenomena is very poorly understood. Most reductionist theories do not even try to explain it. And careful examination will show that no currently available concept of reduction is applicable to it. Perhaps a new theoretical form can be devised for the purpose, but such a solution, if it exists, lies in the distant intellectual future.” (Pg. 166)
This book contains some of Nagel’s most interesting essays, and will be very helpful for anyone studying his philosophy.
Read
February 21, 2009Thought provoking philosophical considerations. A bit of a slog to get through, but worth it -- especially if you have someone with whom to discuss the material.
August 14, 2010
One of my favorite philosophy books, covering topics such as animal consciousness, panpsychism, death, value judgments, and others.
maybe-read
November 19, 2010Recommended by Julia Galef on 10/24/10 Rationally Speaking podcast.
August 14, 2019
ترجمه ی بسیار بد.
May 17, 2020
A thought-provoking collection of 14 relatively short (~15 page) essays by philosopher Thomas Nagel focusing on topics like death, consciousness, and ethics. Some of the essays were too arcane for me and are probably only of interest to people who have actually studied philosophy. However, a few of the essays make the collection well worth the price of admission, and even if you aren't going to read the entire collection, I'd suggest reading a few them on their own.
In particular, I'd suggest reading Nagel's essays titled "Death," "The Absurd," and "Moral Luck."
"Death" is an essay about whether or not death in itself is a bad thing. In Nagel's own words: "I want to ask whether death in itself is an evil; and how great an evil, and of what kind, it might be."
An excerpt from this essay that I like:
"Think of how an ordinary individual sweats over his appearance, his health, his sex life, his emotional honesty, his social utility, his self-knowledge, the quality of his ties with family, colleagues, and friends, how well he does his job, whether he understands the world and what is going on in it. Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern."
"The Absurd" is an essay about Camus' concept of the absurdity of life. There is a lot of thought provoking discussion here. For example,
"What we say to convey the absurdity of our lives often has to do with space or time: we are tiny specks in the infinite vastness of the universe; our lives are mere instants even on a geological time scale, let alone a cosmic one; we will all be dead any minute. But of course none of these evident facts can be what makes life absurd, if it is absurd. For suppose we lived for ever; would not a life that is absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitely absurd if it lasted through eternity? And if our lives are absurd given our present size, why would they be any less absurd if we filled the universe (either because we were larger or because the universe was smaller)? Reflection on our minuteness and brevity appears to be intimately connected with the sense that life is meaningless; but it is not clear what the connection is."
Also, a highlight of this essay is when Nagel calls Camus' conclusions romantic and self-pitying: "Camus – not on uniformly good grounds – rejects suicide and the other solutions he regards as escapist. What he recommends is defiance or scorn. We can salvage our dignity, he appears to believe, by shaking a fist at the world which is deaf to our pleas, and continuing to live in spite of it. This will not make our lives un-absurd, but it will lend them a certain nobility. This seems to me romantic and slightly self-pitying. Our absurdity warrants neither that much distress nor that much defiance. At the risk of falling into romanticism by a different route, I would argue that absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics. Like skepticism in epistemology, it is possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight – the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought. [.....] If there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair."
"Moral Luck" is an essay on the concept moral luck, which in itself is a very interesting concept that most would benefit from being exposed to. In Nagel's words, "Where a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment, it can be called moral luck. Such luck can be good or bad." If you're only going to read one of these essays, I think this one would give you the most bang for you buck.
In particular, I'd suggest reading Nagel's essays titled "Death," "The Absurd," and "Moral Luck."
"Death" is an essay about whether or not death in itself is a bad thing. In Nagel's own words: "I want to ask whether death in itself is an evil; and how great an evil, and of what kind, it might be."
An excerpt from this essay that I like:
"Think of how an ordinary individual sweats over his appearance, his health, his sex life, his emotional honesty, his social utility, his self-knowledge, the quality of his ties with family, colleagues, and friends, how well he does his job, whether he understands the world and what is going on in it. Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern."
"The Absurd" is an essay about Camus' concept of the absurdity of life. There is a lot of thought provoking discussion here. For example,
"What we say to convey the absurdity of our lives often has to do with space or time: we are tiny specks in the infinite vastness of the universe; our lives are mere instants even on a geological time scale, let alone a cosmic one; we will all be dead any minute. But of course none of these evident facts can be what makes life absurd, if it is absurd. For suppose we lived for ever; would not a life that is absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitely absurd if it lasted through eternity? And if our lives are absurd given our present size, why would they be any less absurd if we filled the universe (either because we were larger or because the universe was smaller)? Reflection on our minuteness and brevity appears to be intimately connected with the sense that life is meaningless; but it is not clear what the connection is."
Also, a highlight of this essay is when Nagel calls Camus' conclusions romantic and self-pitying: "Camus – not on uniformly good grounds – rejects suicide and the other solutions he regards as escapist. What he recommends is defiance or scorn. We can salvage our dignity, he appears to believe, by shaking a fist at the world which is deaf to our pleas, and continuing to live in spite of it. This will not make our lives un-absurd, but it will lend them a certain nobility. This seems to me romantic and slightly self-pitying. Our absurdity warrants neither that much distress nor that much defiance. At the risk of falling into romanticism by a different route, I would argue that absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics. Like skepticism in epistemology, it is possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight – the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought. [.....] If there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair."
"Moral Luck" is an essay on the concept moral luck, which in itself is a very interesting concept that most would benefit from being exposed to. In Nagel's words, "Where a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment, it can be called moral luck. Such luck can be good or bad." If you're only going to read one of these essays, I think this one would give you the most bang for you buck.
March 20, 2017
This is a second book by Thomas Nagel I've read, first being "Last Word," which I liked a lot and would recommend to anyone fallen under the influence of postmodern denial of objectivity. "Mortal Questions" didn't disappoint, too. I'd read some of the essays collected here previously and was familiar with some of Nagel's claims, but it was great to go back to these texts and learn firsthand about his philosophy. The interesting thing about this book is that many of the "mortal questions" Nagel poses are approached in a very consistent way but left without conclusive answers. Readers are left to ponder upon the big questions of philosophy and morality.
The book was first published in 1979, the year when I was born. Most of these questions are still unresolved, even though some of Nagel's views are challenged by new developments in neuroscience and other philosophers. Especially convincing criticism can be found in works of Derek Parfit, a brilliant philosopher whose groundbreaking books I can't recommend enough.
I found "Death," the first essay in the book, particularly striking. Obvious as the conclusions may be if you ask pretty much anyone these days, it's interesting to read a philosopher carefully exploring the subject and proving why death is actually a bad thing.
"Absurd," a second essay explores the meaning of life, its minuteness and brevity. Here Nagel reiterates some of the ideas expressed by existentialists, this part of the book might seem to be less original for that reason. But Nagel's position is well-argued.
The third essay, "Moral Luck," is a must read. I think everyone should read it or, at least, be aware of what moral luck was. Here's a Wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck.
There are other interesting essays in this book. For instance, "War and Massacre" collides utilitarian ethics with absolutism, "Ruthlessness in Public Life" explores the challenges of public and individual morality, "Equality" summarizes the problems of achieving equality and how it comes into conflict with utility and rights, "Panpsychism" challenges panpsychism (the view that consciousness, mind or soul is a universal and primordial feature of all things.
Nagel's controversial and often quoted "What is it like to be a bat?" shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in consciousness. The preceding chapter "Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness" is another interesting piece, but somewhat outdated, I think.
"Subjective and Objective" is the concluding chapter and one of the strongest, in my opinion. This is where we get to the problem of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. We should aim for objectivity, but this is a hard nut to crack. As Nagel claims, "Even on a consequentialist view, what one should do will depend on what one is in a position to do, and on the relative desirability of the possible outcomes. Nevertheless, the consequentialist judgment that one should do something is essentially the judgment that it would be best if one did it - that it ought to happen . The right thing to do is to turn oneself as far as possible into an instrument for the realization of what is best sub specie aeternitatis." But "life is always the life of a particular person, and cannot be lived sub specie aeternitatis." The coexistence of these conflicting points of view (objective and subjective) is not just a practically necessary illusion but an irreducible fact of life, Nagel concludes. Nagel explores this topic further in his following book "View from Nowhere."
I like Nagel's early writings. However, I find some of his claims made here and elsewhere dubious. But then most of us never come to think about these challenging questions, let alone attempt to answer them.
The book was first published in 1979, the year when I was born. Most of these questions are still unresolved, even though some of Nagel's views are challenged by new developments in neuroscience and other philosophers. Especially convincing criticism can be found in works of Derek Parfit, a brilliant philosopher whose groundbreaking books I can't recommend enough.
I found "Death," the first essay in the book, particularly striking. Obvious as the conclusions may be if you ask pretty much anyone these days, it's interesting to read a philosopher carefully exploring the subject and proving why death is actually a bad thing.
"Absurd," a second essay explores the meaning of life, its minuteness and brevity. Here Nagel reiterates some of the ideas expressed by existentialists, this part of the book might seem to be less original for that reason. But Nagel's position is well-argued.
The third essay, "Moral Luck," is a must read. I think everyone should read it or, at least, be aware of what moral luck was. Here's a Wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck.
There are other interesting essays in this book. For instance, "War and Massacre" collides utilitarian ethics with absolutism, "Ruthlessness in Public Life" explores the challenges of public and individual morality, "Equality" summarizes the problems of achieving equality and how it comes into conflict with utility and rights, "Panpsychism" challenges panpsychism (the view that consciousness, mind or soul is a universal and primordial feature of all things.
Nagel's controversial and often quoted "What is it like to be a bat?" shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in consciousness. The preceding chapter "Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness" is another interesting piece, but somewhat outdated, I think.
"Subjective and Objective" is the concluding chapter and one of the strongest, in my opinion. This is where we get to the problem of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. We should aim for objectivity, but this is a hard nut to crack. As Nagel claims, "Even on a consequentialist view, what one should do will depend on what one is in a position to do, and on the relative desirability of the possible outcomes. Nevertheless, the consequentialist judgment that one should do something is essentially the judgment that it would be best if one did it - that it ought to happen . The right thing to do is to turn oneself as far as possible into an instrument for the realization of what is best sub specie aeternitatis." But "life is always the life of a particular person, and cannot be lived sub specie aeternitatis." The coexistence of these conflicting points of view (objective and subjective) is not just a practically necessary illusion but an irreducible fact of life, Nagel concludes. Nagel explores this topic further in his following book "View from Nowhere."
I like Nagel's early writings. However, I find some of his claims made here and elsewhere dubious. But then most of us never come to think about these challenging questions, let alone attempt to answer them.
February 26, 2024
I actually expected NOT to like this book.
I read some Nagel while in college long, long ago. A very short book, and then his article on death, which is actually the first essay in this collection. I don't remember how I felt about the short book, which means I probably didn't have much of a reaction one way or the other. I thought the article on death was awful.
I recently read another book that referenced Nagel repeatedly. I didn't like that book, either, and the references to Nagel were typically in support of arguments that I thought were weak. But I wanted to refresh myself, so I picked up a copy of this book at the used book shop.
I started off with a very critical, skeptical mind.
The first article, the one on death, was exactly like I remembered it from 30 or so years ago. Weak. Irritating.
I kept reading, had my pencil out to underline all the awful arguments in each chapter, but as I went going the essays actually got better. I found myself drawn into a number of them. Some I agreed with, some had me looking at things in different ways, some I thought were a little off base but they were still quite interesting.
I was very pleasantly surprised.
The collection covers a variety of philosophical questions, mostly around ethics and theories of mind/consciousness.
The ethical stuff was a lot of fun to read. He presents a sort of utilitarianism combined with other ethical theories, "guard rails" of a type, which I found fascinating.
The mind stuff was extremely interesting.
The writing is often dry. Academic writing for journals. I hate that. The really great philosophers didn't write for journals, they didn't use jargon and formulas to win praise from peers, they wrote for people. But I get it, he's stuck with it, and he manages to present good ideas in spite of the numbness of the writing style.
My only other real criticism is his tendency to view white, Western, European thought as the default thinking on any subject. This stuff was written in the late 60s and throughout the 70s and so I understand that thinking was a bit different, but it's disappointing to see him write on subjects like death or mind or ethics and make general statements as to how "people" conceive of these things without seeming to realize that there are long, rich traditions that have looked at these topics very differently and have a lot to say. His sense that "nonexistence" has always been understood by humans as an evil is funny, given thousands of years of Buddhism striving toward getting off the wheel of existence and such. His writing would be richer if he was informed a bit by other perspectives. And it's not like those perspectives weren't starting to spill into the mainstream by the 60s and 70s.
Still, good book, very glad that I revisited his work.
I read some Nagel while in college long, long ago. A very short book, and then his article on death, which is actually the first essay in this collection. I don't remember how I felt about the short book, which means I probably didn't have much of a reaction one way or the other. I thought the article on death was awful.
I recently read another book that referenced Nagel repeatedly. I didn't like that book, either, and the references to Nagel were typically in support of arguments that I thought were weak. But I wanted to refresh myself, so I picked up a copy of this book at the used book shop.
I started off with a very critical, skeptical mind.
The first article, the one on death, was exactly like I remembered it from 30 or so years ago. Weak. Irritating.
I kept reading, had my pencil out to underline all the awful arguments in each chapter, but as I went going the essays actually got better. I found myself drawn into a number of them. Some I agreed with, some had me looking at things in different ways, some I thought were a little off base but they were still quite interesting.
I was very pleasantly surprised.
The collection covers a variety of philosophical questions, mostly around ethics and theories of mind/consciousness.
The ethical stuff was a lot of fun to read. He presents a sort of utilitarianism combined with other ethical theories, "guard rails" of a type, which I found fascinating.
The mind stuff was extremely interesting.
The writing is often dry. Academic writing for journals. I hate that. The really great philosophers didn't write for journals, they didn't use jargon and formulas to win praise from peers, they wrote for people. But I get it, he's stuck with it, and he manages to present good ideas in spite of the numbness of the writing style.
My only other real criticism is his tendency to view white, Western, European thought as the default thinking on any subject. This stuff was written in the late 60s and throughout the 70s and so I understand that thinking was a bit different, but it's disappointing to see him write on subjects like death or mind or ethics and make general statements as to how "people" conceive of these things without seeming to realize that there are long, rich traditions that have looked at these topics very differently and have a lot to say. His sense that "nonexistence" has always been understood by humans as an evil is funny, given thousands of years of Buddhism striving toward getting off the wheel of existence and such. His writing would be richer if he was informed a bit by other perspectives. And it's not like those perspectives weren't starting to spill into the mainstream by the 60s and 70s.
Still, good book, very glad that I revisited his work.
June 29, 2025
„Mortal Questions“ contains several essays over quite a range of topics. They are not really related to each other which makes it possible to read only some of them that arose one‘s interest.
Some of them are quite political. Nagel criticizes the policy of the US government during the Vietnam war as well as a pure utilitarian view of ethics in that regard. He shows quite convincingly that there have to be some absolutist limitations on action regardless of their outcome. Otherwise, a utilitarian might always argue in a certain situation that some means are required in order to prevent greater harm. Truman, for instance, might argue that to throw an atomic bomb on Nagasaki is his moral obligation since he thereby prevents way greater harm which might result out of the war continuing. The same one might apply to the present situation with Palastine and Israel. Besides the fact, that even an utilitarian worthy of his name might acknowledge a miscalculation, if the self defense of a state implies ethnic cleansing without considerable resistance. However, the negation of absolutist limitations on action offers a comfortable narrative for any agent may it be a state or a person to warrant their behavior in terms of them preventing some greater harm. That‘s probably one reason why absolutist limitations constitutionalized in international law which many people today unfortunately tend to forget.
However, Nagel not only criticizes utilitarian aspects but also some counterintuitive aspects of Kantian theory in the chapter „Moral Luck“. There are many determinants besides our will having an influence on the moral judgement of others. A person driving way to fast on the highway will probably be judged harsher by society, if he kills a pedestrian suddenly walking over the street, than when he does not just because he happens to have the luck that no one is walking over the street in this moment.
There are also essays addressing topics like „death“, „absurdity“ and „sexual perversion“. Nagel refutes arguments often given for the absurdity of life, for instance, that life is absurd because we are so small and life is so short. That argument would imply that were we not small and mortal, life wouldn‘t be absurd. Nevertheless, life still is absurd but rather due to the discrepancy between the seriousness with which we regard it and the seeming arbitrariness. What also is absurd is Nagel‘s refutation of reductionism only to make a claim for panpsychism in order to solve the mind-body problem with a way more irrational theory. Nagel‘s argument that life in general is worth living regardless of it‘s contents just because it has a content also doesn‘t seem convincing regardless of one‘s perspective. There might be many people choosing non existence over the life of the Voltaire‘s Candid I don‘t think Nagel‘s argument would convince them.
Some of them are quite political. Nagel criticizes the policy of the US government during the Vietnam war as well as a pure utilitarian view of ethics in that regard. He shows quite convincingly that there have to be some absolutist limitations on action regardless of their outcome. Otherwise, a utilitarian might always argue in a certain situation that some means are required in order to prevent greater harm. Truman, for instance, might argue that to throw an atomic bomb on Nagasaki is his moral obligation since he thereby prevents way greater harm which might result out of the war continuing. The same one might apply to the present situation with Palastine and Israel. Besides the fact, that even an utilitarian worthy of his name might acknowledge a miscalculation, if the self defense of a state implies ethnic cleansing without considerable resistance. However, the negation of absolutist limitations on action offers a comfortable narrative for any agent may it be a state or a person to warrant their behavior in terms of them preventing some greater harm. That‘s probably one reason why absolutist limitations constitutionalized in international law which many people today unfortunately tend to forget.
However, Nagel not only criticizes utilitarian aspects but also some counterintuitive aspects of Kantian theory in the chapter „Moral Luck“. There are many determinants besides our will having an influence on the moral judgement of others. A person driving way to fast on the highway will probably be judged harsher by society, if he kills a pedestrian suddenly walking over the street, than when he does not just because he happens to have the luck that no one is walking over the street in this moment.
There are also essays addressing topics like „death“, „absurdity“ and „sexual perversion“. Nagel refutes arguments often given for the absurdity of life, for instance, that life is absurd because we are so small and life is so short. That argument would imply that were we not small and mortal, life wouldn‘t be absurd. Nevertheless, life still is absurd but rather due to the discrepancy between the seriousness with which we regard it and the seeming arbitrariness. What also is absurd is Nagel‘s refutation of reductionism only to make a claim for panpsychism in order to solve the mind-body problem with a way more irrational theory. Nagel‘s argument that life in general is worth living regardless of it‘s contents just because it has a content also doesn‘t seem convincing regardless of one‘s perspective. There might be many people choosing non existence over the life of the Voltaire‘s Candid I don‘t think Nagel‘s argument would convince them.
November 4, 2024
3/5, Wasn’t For Me.
Mortal Questions was definitely interesting, but not my type of read. If you are looking to get into Philosophy, I wouldn’t recommend it, which is where I found myself when I bought the book. The author, Thomas Nagel, uses unfamiliar words and phrases like “egalitarianism”, “absolutist positions”, and “meritocratic conception” with no context or introduction, only with the expectation that you are already familiar with this vocabulary. From the use of speech like these (and many more for that matter), I’m near certain that this is, by no means, an entry level philosophy book. If you have read entry level philosophic readings before and you are looking to challenge yourself, this might be for you. Mortal Questions will make you question sexuality, absurdity, and equality. If you are just getting into philosophy, I’d recommend Simon Blackburn's Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, because it’s more beginner friendly and still dives deep into human essential questions. Nagel’s writing style was quite difficult to understand for me, and after speaking to others who have read this book for themselves, I've learned that they found it challenging as well. I felt as if I zoned out every other paragraph because of the complicated wording, which had me frustratingly rereading paragraphs over and over. However, there were definitely some parts I understood quite well, and were overwhelmingly interesting. For example, I felt passionately about his essay towards corruption in the national government. Nagel believed that politicians and police become corrupt after they’re granted power due to the self realization that they're at the top of the chain of command. He stated that they’re almost never held accountable, from ancient times to modern. That immediately made me wonder what inhumane crimes presidents, kings, and other leaders have committed just ‘because they can’ and received no backlash for. Mortal Questions is full of ideas that will make you wonder, but they’re phrased in ways that are confusing, wordy, and challenging.
Mortal Questions was definitely interesting, but not my type of read. If you are looking to get into Philosophy, I wouldn’t recommend it, which is where I found myself when I bought the book. The author, Thomas Nagel, uses unfamiliar words and phrases like “egalitarianism”, “absolutist positions”, and “meritocratic conception” with no context or introduction, only with the expectation that you are already familiar with this vocabulary. From the use of speech like these (and many more for that matter), I’m near certain that this is, by no means, an entry level philosophy book. If you have read entry level philosophic readings before and you are looking to challenge yourself, this might be for you. Mortal Questions will make you question sexuality, absurdity, and equality. If you are just getting into philosophy, I’d recommend Simon Blackburn's Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, because it’s more beginner friendly and still dives deep into human essential questions. Nagel’s writing style was quite difficult to understand for me, and after speaking to others who have read this book for themselves, I've learned that they found it challenging as well. I felt as if I zoned out every other paragraph because of the complicated wording, which had me frustratingly rereading paragraphs over and over. However, there were definitely some parts I understood quite well, and were overwhelmingly interesting. For example, I felt passionately about his essay towards corruption in the national government. Nagel believed that politicians and police become corrupt after they’re granted power due to the self realization that they're at the top of the chain of command. He stated that they’re almost never held accountable, from ancient times to modern. That immediately made me wonder what inhumane crimes presidents, kings, and other leaders have committed just ‘because they can’ and received no backlash for. Mortal Questions is full of ideas that will make you wonder, but they’re phrased in ways that are confusing, wordy, and challenging.
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