NAGEL, Thomas 1937-

PERSONAL: Born July 4, 1937, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia; naturalized U.S. citizen, 1944; son of Walter and Carolyn (Baer) Nagel; married Doris G. Blum, June 19, 1954 (divorced, 1973); married Anne Hollander, June 26, 1979. Education: Cornell University, B.A., 1958; Oxford University, B.Phil., 1960; Harvard University, Ph.D., 1963.

ADDRESSES: Office—New York University School of Law, 418 Vanderbilt, 40 Washington Square, New York, NY 10012. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of California, Berkeley, assistant professor of philosophy, 1963-66; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, assistant professor, 1966-69, associate professor, 1969-72, professor of philosophy, 1972-80; New York University, New York, NY, professor of philosophy, 1980—, chair of department, 1981-86, professor of philosophy and law, 1986—, Fiorello LaGuardia Professor of Law, 2001—. Visiting professor at Rockefeller University, 1973-74, University of Pittsburgh, 1976, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 1977, University of the Witwatersrand, 1982, University of California at Los Angeles, 1986-87, All Souls College, Oxford, 1990. Tanner Lecturer, Stanford University, 1977; Tanner Lecturer, Oxford University, 1979; Howison Lecturer, University of California at Berkeley, 1987; Thalheimer Lecturer, Johns Hopkins University, 1989; John Locke Lecturer, Oxford University, 1990; Hempel Lecturer, Princeton University, 1995; Whitehead Lecturer, Harvard University, 1995; Immanuel Kant Lecturer, Stanford University, 1995; Townsend Lecturer, University of California at Berkeley, 1999.

MEMBER: American Philosophy Association, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, British Academy.

AWARDS, HONORS: Guggenheim fellowship, 1966-67; National Science Foundation fellowship, 1968-70; National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, 1978-79.

WRITINGS:

The Possibility of Altruism, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1970.

(Coeditor) Equality and Preferential Treatment, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1977.

Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1979.

(Coeditor) Marx, Justice, and History, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1980.

(Coeditor) Medicine and Moral Philosophy, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1981.

The View from Nowhere, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1986.

What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1987.

Equality and Partiality, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1991.

Other Minds: Critical Essays, 1969-1994, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1995.

The Last Word, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Liam Murphy) The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Concealment and Exposure: And Other Essays, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Associate editor of Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1971.

SIDELIGHTS: Thomas Nagel is one of the best-known philosophers of his generation. His writings have tackled familiar topics, such as the mind-body problem and religion, as well as pioneering new areas in philosophy, including bioethics and the morality of taxation. As a professor of philosophy, he often address difficult subject matter in his works, but several of his books, including What Does It All Mean? and The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice, are aimed at a general audience. In discussing Nagel's book The View from Nowhere, P. F. Strawson of the New Republic defined Nagel as "an unrepentant realist," who "sees all the many questions he discusses as aspects of a single problem: the problem of how to combine an internal, or subjective view of the world with an external, or objective view that seeks to explain, and where necessary to correct, the former." Recognizing that Nagel consistently examines issues that many thinkers do not attempt, Gilbert Meilaender of the journal First Things wrote that "the questions that concern him are ones that we never simply settle once and for all."

In The Last Word, Nagel forms an argument against subjectivism—the idea that morality is defined by the individual—in favor of objectivism, which is the concept that reality exists outside the human mind and can be observed. Contrary to many popular theorists, from Hume to Kant to the purveyors of postmodernism, Nagel is comfortable in denying that reality is subjective. Furthermore, he asserts that the logic of subjectivists is unintelligible. This belief has made him popular among Christian philosophers. "Nagel argues that there is nothing philosophically presumptuous and certainly nothing arrogant, in simple assertions," wrote Ric Machuga in Christianity Today, who went on to say that few Christian readers "will dispute the seriousness of what is at stake." Ruth Lessl Shively of the American Political Science Review analyzed this point further, noting that "Nagel connects the appeal of subjectivism to a 'fear of religion' that preys upon modern intellectuals, himself included." Shively concluded that "Nagel's argument is impressive.... It provides a necessary challenge to the often uncritical privileging of subjectivism that pervades the discipline and calls attention to the many ways in which this tendency . . . undermines our ability to engage fruitfully in argument with others."

In The Myth of Ownership, Nagel and coauthor Liam Murphy join a tumultuous debate by applying philosophical thought to the concept of federal taxation. At the heart of their thesis are questions regarding personal and social obligations as well as liberty. One primary assertion the authors make is that it is wrong to consider gross income as belonging solely to the person who earned it. In that mindset, the government becomes an evil force that takes away someone's money. Nagel argues that only after-tax income belongs to the individual; pre-tax income is "morally insignificant," and an erroneous point from which to argue the justice of taxes. Government is necessary to prevent anarchy. Social chaos would make all income irrelevant, so only after the needs of the government are accounted for can individuals claim entitlement to their wages.

While critics were intrigued by the ideas Nagel and Murphy present, some recognized flaws in their argument that are bound to aggravate some readers. David Cay Johnston of the New York Times Book Review, for example, said that "Murphy and Nagel offer ideas that would improve the national debate over how we should tax ourselves," but they "ignore the morality of tax enforcement and its role in tax justice" and pay "too little attention to the role of taxes in creating wealth." Johnston, nevertheless sympathetic to the authors' arguments, concluded that, "unhappily," their "reasoned suggestions . . . will be drowned out in the din of mindless anti-tax sound bites."

For the novice philosopher, Nagel's Other Minds: Critical Essays, 1969-1994 presents an overview of many of the author's ideas. The collection of twenty-two essays focuses on two issues that interest Nagel: the philosophy of the mind and political philosophy. Though some of the works were written for readers well-versed in current issues of philosophy, Robert Pasnau of the Review of Metaphysics said that "Nagel writes clearly and with a certain flair," and that several chapters "make ideal introductions for a nonspecialist."

Equality and Partiality is a "clear, sometimes subtle and elegant book," according to Barry R. Gross of Society. The work concerns social and economic constructs of contemporary life, which Nagel says do not work because people do not agree on the roles individuals must play in a society. Moreover, liberalism and even capitalism are failures, he says, because of the "immorally vast inequities of wealth and power between citizens," explained Gross. However, Nagel also believes that because there is no agreement on how individuals must function in order to benefit the whole, it is understandable and acceptable that individuals act according to their vested interests. Even democracy is suspect in Nagel's view, which he calls "the enemy of comprehensive equality." In its place, Nagel proposes a type of classless egalitarianism in which "we do not have rights to every penny in our possession, but to the resources that we need to shape a life of our own in accordance with our own values," summarized Michael Walzer in the New Republic.

Even as Nagel rejects liberalism, capitalism, and utopianism, he also does not recommend socialism or Marxism. In praising the book, Gross concluded that "Equality and Partiality will repay its reader. It deals philosophically with important problems but, unlike much of contemporary philosophy, it is well written and relatively non-technical." Other critics agreed. Walzer called Nagel "one of the most interesting American philosophers. He is highly intelligent, sharply analytical, thoroughly clearheaded."

A Times Literary Supplement reviewer called The Possibility of Altruism "a book for philosophers, or at least for those with enough interest in the subject to work at it fairly hard; for its argument is intricate and sometimes hard to follow, and Mr. Nagel does not make many concessions. But it is an excellent, and even an important, book."

In a review of Mortal Questions for the New York Times Book Review, Jonathan Lear wrote that "Mr. Nagel's approach is reminiscent of Hume's argument that although on reflection we can see that many of our beliefs lack foundation we are nevertheless unable to give them up. What response can there be to Hume's analysis of the human condition? 'Be a philosopher,' Hume enjoined, 'but amidst all your philosophy be still a man.' Mr. Nagel's awareness that a philosophical being remains a man is what makes this collection of essays so compelling."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Nagel, Thomas, Equality and Partiality, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1991.

PERIODICALS

American Political Science Review, March, 1998, Ruth Lessl Shively, review of The Last Word, p. 208.

Choice, November, 1995, review of The View from Nowhere, p. 411.

Christianity Today, November 16, 1998, Ric Machuga, review of The Last Word, p. 89.

Commonweal, January 30, 1998, review of The Last Word, p. 22.

First Things, June, 1999, Gilbert Meilaender, review of The Last Word, p. 45.

Guardian Weekly, April 30, 1995, review of What Does It All Mean?, p. 28.

Library Journal, February 1, 1986, review of The View from Nowhere, p. 83; October 1, 1987, review of What Does It All Mean?, p. 96.

New Republic, October 27, 1986, P. F. Strawson, review of The View from Nowhere, p. 44; February 17, 1992, Michael Walzer, review of Equality and Partiality, p. 30.

New York Review of Books, March 5, 1981, review of Mortal Questions, p. 37; November 19, 1998, review of The Last Word, p. 40.

New York Times Book Review, July 22, 1979, review of Mortal Questions, p. 6; February 23, 1986, review of The View from Nowhere, p. 14; April 21, 2002, David Cay Johnston, "You Can't Take It with You," p. 23.

Observer (London), April 21, 1991, review of Mortal Questions, p. 61.

Publishers Weekly, August 21, 1987, review of What Does It All Mean?, p. 60.

Review of Metaphysics, September, 1997, Robert Pasnau, review of Other Minds: Critical Essays, 1969-1994, p. 166.

Society, January-February, 1993, Barry R. Gross, review of Equality and Partiality, p. 94.

Times Literary Supplement, May 21, 1970; January 4, 1980, review of Mortal Questions, p. 19; September 5, 1986, review of The View from Nowhere, p. 962; February 21, 1992, review of Equality and Partiality, p. 11; December 5, 1997, review of The Last Word, p. 3.

Wall Street Journal, December 9, 1987, review of What Does It All Mean?, p. 36.*