80 ideas
| 3240 | There is more insight in fundamental perplexity about problems than in their supposed solutions [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Certain forms of perplexity (say about freedom, knowledge and the meaning of life) seem to me to embody more insight than any of the supposed solutions to those problems. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Obviously false solutions won't embody much insight. This sounds good, but I suspect that the insight is in the recognition of the facts which give rise to the perplexity. I can't think of anything in favour of perplexity for its own sake. |
| 3269 | If your life is to be meaningful as part of some large thing, the large thing must be meaningful [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Those seeking to give their lives meaning usually envision a role in something larger than themselves, …but such a role can't confer significance unless that enterprise is itself significant. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3) | |
| A reaction: Which correctly implies that this way of finding meaning for one's life is doomed. |
| 3242 | Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture can't skip it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Can he really mean that a mature culture doesn't need philosophy? |
| 3241 | It seems mad, but the aim of philosophy is to climb outside of our own minds [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We are trying to climb outside of our own minds, an effort that some would regard as insane and that I regard as philosophically fundamental. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It is not only philosophers who do this. It is an essential feature of the mind, and is inherent in the concept of truth. |
| 1489 | Modern philosophy tends to be a theory-constructing extension of science, but there is also problem-solving [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is now dominated by a spirit of theory construction which sees philosophy as continuous with science, but the other problem-centred style is still in existence and it is important to keep it alive. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Philosophical Culture [1995], §6) |
| 22358 | Scientific objectivity lies in inter-subjective testing [Popper] |
| Full Idea: The objectivity of scientific statements lies in the fact that they can be inter-subjectively tested. | |
| From: Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934], p.22), quoted by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 2.4 | |
| A reaction: Does this mean that objectivity is the same as consensus? A bunch of subjective prejudiced fools can reach a consensus. And in the middle of that bunch there can be one person who is objecfive. Sounds wrong. |
| 20989 | Views are objective if they don't rely on a person's character, social position or species [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A view or form of thought is more objective than another if it relies less on the specifics of the individual's makeup and position in the world, or on the character of the particular type of creature he is. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Notice that this defines comparative objectivity, rather than an absolute. I take it that something must be entirely objective to qualify as a 'fact', and so anything about which there is a consensus that it is a fact can be taken as wholly objective. |
| 22354 | Things cause perceptions, properties have other effects, hence we reach a 'view from nowhere' [Nagel, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: First we realise that perceptions are caused by things, second we realise that properties have other effects (as well as causing perceptions), and third we conceive of a thing's true nature without perspectives. That is the 'view from nowhere'. | |
| From: report of Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], p.14) by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 2.1 | |
| A reaction: [My summary of their summary] This is obviously an optimistic view. I''m not sure how he can justify three precise stages, given than animals probably jump straight to the third stage, and engage with the nature's of things. |
| 3248 | Realism invites scepticism because it claims to be objective [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The search for objective knowledge, because of its commitment to realism, cannot refute scepticism and must proceed under its shadow, and scepticism is only a problem because of the realist claims of objectivity. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.1) |
| 4242 | Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Pure, unexplained supervenience is never a solution to a problem but a sign that there is something fundamental we don't know. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Psychophysical Nexus [2000], §III) | |
| A reaction: This seems right. It is not a theory or an explanation, merely the observation of a correlation which will require explanation. Why are they correlated? |
| 3291 | Emergent properties appear at high levels of complexity, but aren't explainable by the lower levels [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The supposition that a diamond or organism should truly have emergent properties is that they appear at certain complex levels of organisation, but are not explainable (even in principle) in terms of any more fundamental properties of the system. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Panpsychism [1979], p.186) |
| 11946 | Propensities are part of a situation, not part of the objects [Popper] |
| Full Idea: Propensities should not be regarded as inherent in an object, such as a die or a penny, but should be regarded as inherent in a situation (of which, of course, the object was part). | |
| From: Karl Popper (A World of Propensities [1993], p.14), quoted by George Molnar - Powers 6.2 | |
| A reaction: Molnar argues against this claim, and I agree with him. We can see why Popper might prefer this relational view, given that powers often only become apparent in unusual relational situations. |
| 12177 | Human artefacts may have essences, in their purposes [Popper] |
| Full Idea: One might adopt the view that certain things of our own making, such as clocks, may well be said to have 'essences', viz. their 'purposes', and what makes them serve these purposes. | |
| From: Karl Popper (Conjectures and Refutations [1963], 3.3 n17) | |
| A reaction: This is from one of the arch-opponents of essentialism. Could we take him on a slippery slope into essences for evolved creatures, or their organs? His argument says admitting an essence for a clock prevents using it for another purpose. |
| 5451 | Popper felt that ancient essentialism was a bar to progress [Popper, by Mautner] |
| Full Idea: Karl Popper vehemently rejected the essentialism which underpins Plato and Aristotle, taking it to be a major obstacle to political, moral and scientific progress. | |
| From: report of Karl Popper (Open Society and Its Enemies:Hegel and Marx [1945]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.179 | |
| A reaction: This makes Popper sound like an existentialist, which seems unlikely. Modern essentialism would say the opposite about science - that hunting for external imposed laws is a red herring, and we should try to understand essences. |
| 3249 | Modern science depends on the distinction between primary and secondary qualities [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between primary and secondary qualities is the precondition for the development of modern physics and chemistry. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.3) |
| 22429 | We achieve objectivity by dropping secondary qualities, to focus on structural primary qualities [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: At the end [of the three stages of objectivity] the secondary qualities drop out of our picture of the external world, and the underlyiing primary qualities such as shape, size, weight, and motion are thought of structurally. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], II) | |
| A reaction: This is the orthodox view for realists about the external world, and I largely agree. The only problem I see is that secondary qualities contain information, such as the colour of rotting fruit - but then colour is not an essential feature of rot. |
| 3296 | Sense-data are a false objectification of what is essentially subjective [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The private object or sense datum view is an instance of the false objectification of what is essentially subjective. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.207) |
| 3247 | Epistemology is centrally about what we should believe, not the definition of knowledge [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The central problem of epistemology is what to believe and how to justify one's beliefs, not the impersonal problem of whether my beliefs can be said to be knowledge. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.1) | |
| A reaction: Wrong. The question of whether what one has is 'knowledge' is not impersonal at all - it is having the social status of a knower or expert. |
| 3271 | We can't control our own beliefs [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Our beliefs are always due to factors outside of our control. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Moral Luck [1976], p.27) |
| 3270 | Justifications come to an end when we want them to [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Justifications come to an end when we are content to have them end. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §3) | |
| A reaction: This is the correct account, with the vital proviso that where justification comes to an end is usually a social matter. Robinson Crusoe doesn't care whether he 'knows' - he just acts on his beliefs. |
| 3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing. | |
| From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1 |
| 3252 | Scepticism is based on ideas which scepticism makes impossible [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The sceptic reaches scepticism through thoughts that scepticism makes unthinkable. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.6) |
| 1490 | You would have to be very morally lazy to ignore criticisms of your own culture [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: One would have to be very morally lazy to be unconcerned with the possibility that the prevailing morality of one's culture had something fundamentally wrong with it. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (MacIntyre versus the Enlightenment [1988], 203) |
| 18284 | Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper] |
| Full Idea: Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one. | |
| From: Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws' | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead. |
| 22188 | Give Nobel Prizes for really good refutations? [Gorham on Popper] |
| Full Idea: Popper implies that we should be giving Nobel Prizes to scientists who use severe tests to show us what the world is not like! | |
| From: comment on Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934]) by Geoffrey Gorham - Philosophy of Science 2 | |
| A reaction: A lovely simple point. The refuters are important members of the scientific team, but not the leaders. |
| 7780 | Falsification is the criterion of demarcation between science and non-science [Popper, by Magee] |
| Full Idea: According to Popper, falsification is the criterion of demarcation between science and non-science. | |
| From: report of Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934]) by Bryan Magee - Popper Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: If I propose something which might be falsified in a hundred years, is it science NOW? Suppose my theory appeared to be falsifiable, but (after much effort) it turned out not to be? Suppose I just see a pattern (like quark theory) in a set of facts? |
| 16830 | We don't only reject hypotheses because we have falsified them [Lipton on Popper] |
| Full Idea: Popper's mistake is to hold that disconfirmation and elimination work exclusively through refutation. | |
| From: comment on Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934]) by Peter Lipton - Inference to the Best Explanation (2nd) 05 'Explanation' | |
| A reaction: The point is that we reject hypotheses even if they have not actually been refuted, on the grounds that they don't give a good explanation. I agree entirely with Lipton. |
| 6794 | If falsification requires logical inconsistency, then probabilistic statements can't be falsified [Bird on Popper] |
| Full Idea: In Popper's sense of the word 'falsify', whereby an observation statement falsifies a hypothesis only by being logically inconsistent with it, nothing can ever falsify a probabilistic or statistical hypothesis, which is therefore unscientific. | |
| From: comment on Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934]) by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: In general, no prediction can be falsified until the events occur. This seems to be Aristotle's 'sea fight' problem (Idea 1703). |
| 6795 | When Popper gets in difficulties, he quietly uses induction to help out [Bird on Popper] |
| Full Idea: It is a feature of Popper's philosophy that when the going gets tough, induction is quietly called upon to help out. | |
| From: comment on Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934]) by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: This appears to be the central reason for the decline in Popper's reputation as the saviour of science. It would certainly seem absurd to say that you know nothing when you have lots of verification but not a glimmer of falsification. |
| 3856 | Good theories have empirical content, explain a lot, and are not falsified [Popper, by Newton-Smith] |
| Full Idea: Popper's principles are roughly that one theory is superior to another if it has greater empirical content, if it can account for the successes of the first theory, and if it has not been falsified (unlike the first theory). | |
| From: report of Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934]) by W.H. Newton-Smith - The Rationality of Science I.6 |
| 7779 | There is no such thing as induction [Popper, by Magee] |
| Full Idea: According to Popper, induction is a dispensable concept, a myth. It does not exist. There is no such thing. | |
| From: report of Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934]) by Bryan Magee - Popper Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This is a nice bold summary of the Popper view - that falsification is the underlying rational activity which we mistakenly think is verification by repeated observations. Put like this, Popper seems to be wrong. We obviously learn from experiences. |
| 3860 | Science cannot be shown to be rational if induction is rejected [Newton-Smith on Popper] |
| Full Idea: If Popper follows Hume in abandoning induction, there is no way in which he can justify the claims that there is growth of scientific knowledge and that science is a rational activity. | |
| From: comment on Karl Popper (The Logic of Scientific Discovery [1934]) by W.H. Newton-Smith - The Rationality of Science III.3 |
| 3251 | Observed regularities are only predictable if we assume hidden necessity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Observed regularities provide reason to believe that they will be repeated only to the extent that they provide evidence of hidden necessary connections, which hold timelessly. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], V.5) |
| 12176 | Science does not aim at ultimate explanations [Popper] |
| Full Idea: I contest the essentialist doctrine that science aims at ultimate explanations, one which cannot be further explained, and which is in no need of any further explanation. | |
| From: Karl Popper (Conjectures and Refutations [1963], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: If explanations are causal, this seems to a plea for an infinite regress of causes, which is an odd thing to espouse. Are the explanations verbal descriptions or things in the world. There can be no perfect descriptions, but there may be ultimate things. |
| 3295 | Inner v outer brings astonishment that we are a particular person [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The problem of reconciling the objective and subjective points of view takes its purest form in a sense of incredulity that one should be anyone in particular. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.206) | |
| A reaction: Nice observation. This idea has always struck me forcibly, and seems to be one of those basic intuitions which motivates philosophy, and yet the subject has almost nothing to say about it. Of course you are you, or you wouldn't be amazed by it… |
| 2957 | Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood] |
| Full Idea: Nagel argues (because of brain bisection experiments) that we should jettison our commonsense assumption that the unity of consciousness is an all-or-nothing affair. | |
| From: report of Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971]) by Michael Lockwood - Mind, Brain and the Quantum p.84 | |
| A reaction: It seems wrong to call it 'commonsense'. It is an assumption that precedes any judgement, but if you rapidly grasp that your mind is in your brain, it becomes common sense that you can cut lumps out of your mind. |
| 3286 | An organism is conscious if and only if there is something it is like to be that organism [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: An organism only has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (What is it like to be a bat? [1974], p.166) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to argue with this, but one should push on and ask what features of its consciousness make it such that there is a 'what it is like'. What is it like to have a subconscious mind, or be deeply asleep, or drive while daydreaming? |
| 3285 | We may be unable to abandon personal identity, even when split-brains have undermined it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: As a result of the evidence of split-brains, it is possible that the ordinary, simple idea of a single person will come to seem quaint some day, …but we may be unable to abandon the idea, no matter what we discover. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Brain Bisection and Unity of Consciousness [1971], p.164) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what grounds you can have for a claim that we can't abandon our current view of selves, even when the new reality will be utterly different. Rather conservative? I would expect future concepts to roughly match future reality. |
| 3293 | If you assert that we have an ego, you can still ask if that future ego will be me [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysical ego, if it is a continuing individual with its identity over time, is just one more thing about which the same problem can be raised - will that ego still be me? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.200) | |
| A reaction: You can worry too much about some philosophical questions. If it is me now, and it has continuing individual identity over time, I'm not going to lose sleep over the possibility that it might nevertheless somehow cease to be me. I'm overrated. |
| 3244 | Personal identity cannot be fully known a priori [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The full conditions of personal identity cannot be extracted from the concept of a person at all: they cannot be arrived at a priori. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.2) | |
| A reaction: However, if you turn to experience to get the hang of what a person is, it is virtually impossible to disentangle the essentials from the accidental features of being a person. How essential are memories or reasoning or hopes or understandings or plans? |
| 3245 | The question of whether a future experience will be mine presupposes personal identity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The identity of the self must have some sort of objectivity, otherwise the subjective question whether a future experience will be mine or not will be contentless. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit circular and question-begging. If there is no objective self, then the question of whether a future experience will be mine would be a misconceived question. I sympathise with Nagel's attempt to show how personal identity is a priori. |
| 3246 | I can't even conceive of my brain being split in two [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to think of myself as being identical with my brain. If my brain is to be split, with one half miserable and the other half euphoric, my expectations can take no form, as my idea of myself doesn't allow for divisibility. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], III.4) | |
| A reaction: Nagel is trying to imply that there is some sort of conceptual impossibility here, but it may just be very difficult. I can think about my lovely lunch while doing my miserable job. Does Nagel want to hang on to a unified thing which doesn't exist? |
| 3292 | The most difficult problem of free will is saying what the problem is [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The most difficult problem of free will is saying what the problem is. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.198) |
| 3288 | Can we describe our experiences to zombies? [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The goal of an objective phenomenology would be to describe, at least in part, the subjective character of experiences in a form comprehensible to beings incapable of having those experiences. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (What is it like to be a bat? [1974], p.179) | |
| A reaction: This seems a bizarre expectation. We can already explain visual experience to the blind up to a point, but no one is dreaming of an "objective phenomenology" which will give blind people total understanding, just by reading about it in braille. |
| 4883 | Nagel's title creates an impenetrable mystery, by ignoring a bat's ways that may not be "like" anything [Dennett on Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Nagel's title invites us to ignore all the different ways in which bats might accomplish their cunning feats without its "being like" anything for them. We create an impenetrable mystery for ourselves if we assume that Nagel's title makes sense. | |
| From: comment on Thomas Nagel (What is it like to be a bat? [1974]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Kinds of Minds Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: This could well be correct about bats, but the question applies to humans as well, and we can't deny that "what it is like" is a feature of some creatures' realities. On the fringes of our own consciousness there are mental events that are "like" nothing. |
| 3287 | We can't be objective about experience [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible only from one point of view, then any shift to greater objectivity does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us further away from it. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (What is it like to be a bat? [1974], p.174) | |
| A reaction: We can, however, talk to one another about our subjectivity, and compare notes, and such 'inter-subjectivity' may be one approach to objectivity. We must concede Nagel's point, but we also miss something about a stone if we must remain outside of it. |
| 4989 | Physicalism should explain how subjective experience is possible, but not 'what it is like' [Kirk,R on Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A physicalist account of conscious experience must explain how it is possible for a physical system to be a conscious subject, but not 'what it is like' for some organism. | |
| From: comment on Thomas Nagel (What is it like to be a bat? [1974]) by Robert Kirk - Mind and Body §4.2 | |
| A reaction: You can't entirely evade Nagel's challenge. We are trying to discover the 'neural correlate of consciousness', which will explain why we are conscious, but we also want to know why we experience green for one wavelength, and red for another. |
| 4001 | The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses as well as its actual ones [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses, true and false, not only its actual ones. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (What Does It All Mean? [1987], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: It has always seemed to me that meaning is not use, because you can't use it if it hasn't already got a meaning. What use is a meaningless word? |
| 6479 | Noninterference requires justification as much as interference does [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Noninterference requires justification as much as interference does. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality and Partiality [1991], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced by this, as a simple rule. If I spend my whole life doing just the minimum for my own survival, I don't see why I should have to justify that, and I don't see a state is obliged to justify it either. |
| 6450 | Morality must be motivating, and not because of pre-moral motives [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: My own view is that moral justification must be capable of motivating, but not in virtue of reliance on pre-moral motives. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality and Partiality [1991], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This may well be the core and essence of Kantian moral theory. I'm inclined to think of it as 'Kant's dream', which is of ultra-rational beings who are driven by pure rationality as a motivator. People who fit this bill tend to be academics. |
| 3284 | There is no one theory of how to act (or what to believe) [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: 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. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Fragmentation of Value [1977], p.135) | |
| A reaction: Depends on your level of generality. Values and virtues are general guides which should be brought to every action, with 'higher' values guiding choice of what is relevant. |
| 3257 | Total objectivity can't see value, but it sees many people with values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A purely objective view has no way of knowing whether anything has any value, but actually its data include the appearance of value to individuals with particular perspectives, including oneself. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that a very objective assessment of someone's health is an obvious revelation of value, irrespective of anyone's particular perspective. |
| 3265 | We don't worry about the time before we were born the way we worry about death [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: We do not regard the period before we were born in the same way that we regard the prospect of death. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a challenge to Epicurus, who said death is no worse than pre-birth. This idea may be true of the situation immediately post-death, but a thousand years from now it is hard to distinguish them. |
| 3263 | If our own life lacks meaning, devotion to others won't give it meaning [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If no one's life has any meaning in itself, how can it acquire meaning through devotion to the meaningless lives of others? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.2) | |
| A reaction: This is one of the paradoxes of compassion. The other is that the virtue requires other people to be in need of help, which can't be a desirable situation. |
| 3256 | Pain doesn't have a further property of badness; it gives a reason for its avoidance [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The objective badness of pain is not some mysterious further property that all pains have, but just the fact that there is reason for anyone capable of viewing the world objectively to want it to stop. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably all pains (e.g. of grief and of toothache) have something in common, to qualify as pains. It must be more than being disliked, because we can dislike a food. |
| 3272 | Moral luck can arise in character, preconditions, actual circumstances, and outcome [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Moral luck involves one's character, the antecedent circumstances of the act, the actual circumstances of the act, and the outcome of the act. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Moral Luck [1976], p.28) | |
| A reaction: Meaning, I take it, that there can be luck in any one of those four. A neat slicing up that doesn't quite fit the real world, where things flow. Helpful, though. |
| 6447 | Game theory misses out the motivation arising from the impersonal standpoint [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: I do not favour the route taken by Hobbes's modern descendants, using game theory, since I believe the impersonal standpoint makes an essential contribution to individual motivation which must be addressed by any ethically acceptable theory. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality and Partiality [1991], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: The assumption of self-seeking at the core of game theory seems very bizarre, and leads to moral approval of free riders. Nagel offers the best response, which is the Kantian impersonal view. Nagel may be optimistic about motivation, though. |
| 3261 | Something may be 'rational' either because it is required or because it is acceptable [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: "Rational" may mean rationally required or rationally acceptable | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], X.4) |
| 3258 | If cockroaches can't think about their actions, they have no duties [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If cockroaches cannot think about what they should do, there is nothing they should do. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.3) |
| 3264 | We should see others' viewpoints, but not lose touch with our own values [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: One should occupy a position far enough outside your own life to reduce the importance of the difference between yourself and other people, yet not so far outside that all human values vanish in a nihilistic blackout (i.e.aim for a form of humility). | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], XI.2) |
| 3282 | The general form of moral reasoning is putting yourself in other people's shoes [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: I believe the general form of moral reasoning is to put yourself in other people's shoes. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality [1977], §9) |
| 3294 | As far as possible we should become instruments to realise what is best from an eternal point of view [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The right thing to do is to turn oneself as far as possible into an instrument for the realisation of what is best 'sub specie aeternitatis'. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Subjective and Objective [1979], p.204) |
| 3254 | If we can decide how to live after stepping outside of ourselves, we have the basis of a moral theory [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If we can make judgements about how we should live even after stepping outside of ourselves, they will provide the material for moral theory. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.1) |
| 6446 | In ethics we abstract from our identity, but not from our humanity [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: In pursuit of the kind of objectivity needed in the physical sciences, we abstract even from our humanity; but nothing further than abstraction from our identity (that is, who we are) enters into ethical theory. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality and Partiality [1991], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: The 'brief' summary of this boils down to a nice and interesting slogan. It epitomises the modern Kantian approach to ethics. But compare Idea 4122, from Bernard Williams. |
| 6477 | I can only universalise a maxim if everyone else could also universalise it [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: It is implicit in the categorical imperative that I can will that everyone should adopt as a maxim only what everyone else can also will that everyone should adopt as a maxim. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality and Partiality [1991], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice move, because it shifts the theory away from a highly individualistic Cartesian view of morality towards the idea that morality is a community activity. |
| 3255 | We find new motives by discovering reasons for action different from our preexisting motives [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: There are reasons for action, and we must discover them instead of deriving them from our preexisting motives - and in that way we can acquire new motives superior to the old. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], VIII.1) |
| 3262 | Utilitarianism is too demanding [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarianism is too demanding. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The View from Nowhere [1986], X.5) |
| 3268 | If a small brief life is absurd, then so is a long and large one [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: If life is absurd because it only lasts seventy years, wouldn't it be infinitely absurd if it lasted for eternity? And if we are absurd because we are small, would we be any less absurd if we filled the universe? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (The Absurd [1971], §1) |
| 3278 | An egalitarian system must give priority to those with the worst prospects in life [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: What makes a system egalitarian is the priority it gives to the claims of those whose overall life prospects put them at the bottom. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality [1977], §6) |
| 6448 | A legitimate system is one accepted as both impartial and reasonably partial [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: A legitimate system is one which reconciles the two universal principles of impartiality and reasonable partiality so that no one can object that his interests are not being accorded sufficient weight or that the demands on him are excessive. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality and Partiality [1991], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems an appealing principle, and a nice attempt at stating the core of Kantian liberalism. It is obviously influenced by Scanlon's contractualist view, in the idea that 'no one can object', because everyone sees the justification. |
| 3277 | In judging disputes, should we use one standard, or those of each individual? [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: In assessing equality of claims, it must be decided whether to use a single, objective standard, or whether interests should be ranked by the person's own estimation. Also should they balance momentary or long-term needs? | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality [1977], §6) |
| 3281 | The ideal of acceptability to each individual underlies the appeal to equality [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The ideal of acceptability to each individual underlies the appeal to equality. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality [1977], §8) |
| 3275 | Equality was once opposed to aristocracy, but now it opposes public utility and individual rights [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Egalitarianism was once opposed to aristocratic values, but now it is opposed by adherents of two non-aristocratic values: utility (increase benefit, even if unequally) and individual rights (which redistribution violates). | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality [1977], §2) |
| 6478 | Democracy is opposed to equality, if the poor are not a majority [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: As things are, democracy is the enemy of comprehensive equality, once the poor cease to be a majority. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality and Partiality [1991], Ch.9) | |
| A reaction: This is obvious once you think about it, but it is well worth saying, because it is tempting to think that we live in an 'equal' society, merely because we are equal in things such as voting rights and equality before the law. |
| 3274 | Equality can either be defended as good for society, or as good for individual rights [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The communitarian defence of equality says it is good for society as a whole, whereas the individualistic defence defends equality as a correct distributive principle. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality [1977], §2) |
| 3273 | Equality nowadays is seen as political, social, legal and economic [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Contemporary political debate recognises four types of equality: political, social, legal and economic. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality [1977], §1) | |
| A reaction: Meaning equality of 1) power and influence, 2) status and respect, 3) rights and justice, 4) wealth. |
| 3276 | A morality of rights is very minimal, leaving a lot of human life without restrictions or duties [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The morality of rights tends to be a limited, even minimal, morality. It leaves a great deal of human life ungoverned by moral restrictions or requirements. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Equality [1977], §5) |
| 3290 | Given the nature of heat and of water, it is literally impossible for water not to boil at the right heat [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: Given what heat is and what water is, it is literally impossible for water to be heated beyond a certain point at normal atmospheric pressure without boiling. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (Panpsychism [1979], p.186) |
| 12175 | Galilean science aimed at true essences, as the ultimate explanations [Popper] |
| Full Idea: The third of the Galilean doctrines of science is that the best, the truly scientific theories, describe the 'essences' or the 'essential natures' of things - the realities which lie behind the appearances. They are ultimate explanations. | |
| From: Karl Popper (Conjectures and Refutations [1963], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the seventeenth century doctrine which was undermined by Humeanism, and hence despised by Popper, but is now making a comeback, with a new account of essence and necessity. |
| 12179 | Essentialist views of science prevent further questions from being raised [Popper] |
| Full Idea: The essentialist view of Newton (due to Roger Cotes) ...prevented fruitful questions from being raised, such as, 'What is the cause of gravity?' or 'Can we deduce Newton's theory from a more general independent theory?' | |
| From: Karl Popper (Conjectures and Refutations [1963], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: This is Popper's main (and only) objection to essentialism - that it is committed to ultimate explanations, and smugly terminates science when it thinks it has found them. This does not strike me as a problem with scientific essentialism. |