Nagel, Thomas (1937–)

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NAGEL, THOMAS
(1937–)

Thomas Nagel has contributed to a wide spectrum of philosophical topics in ethical theory, moral psychology, applied ethics, and political theory, as well as to metaphysics and epistemology. His work is distinguished by its breadth, clarity, and acumen.

While there is not a single, narrowly defined theme running through all his work, Nagel has persistently engaged the problem of reconciling an objective view of reality with one's subjective, individual experience as a person. In his magisterial work, The View from Nowhere, Nagel writes: "This book is about a single problem: how to combine the perspective of a particular person inside the world with an objective view of that same world, the person and his viewpoint included. It is a problem that faces every creature with the impulse and the capacity to transcend its particular point of view and to conceive of the world as a whole" (1986, p. 3). Nagel's defense of the legitimacy of both one's subjective perspective and an objective, nonindividual point of view, has been part of Nagel's resistance to philosophies that do away with either. So, in several books and many articles, Nagel has authored an influential critique of forms of physicalism that eliminate or do not take seriously the reality of subjective experience, and he has also been highly critical of philosophies that give way to skepticism because they grant excessive authority to subjectivity.

The Possibility of Altruism, his first book, argues that in an individual's recognition of goods and ills for him or herself over time, there is an implicit recognition of the goods and ills that face other individuals. "In accepting goals or reasons myself I attach objective value to certain circumstances, not just value for myself" (1970, p. 85). In later work, Nagel refines the conviction that ethical and political theory needs to be comprehensively impartial and only comprised of agent-neutral reasons; these reasons are comprised of "what everyone ought to value, independently of its relation to himself" (1991, p. 40). Nagel allows that there is some tension between such an agent–neutral perspective and some of the values that have their place in specific, personal contexts. Nagel advocates an egalitarian social ideal (1991), while also recognizing that some goods are private and should be concealed from public surveillance and control (2002). Nagel's concern for the integrity of the individual pits him against overriding social engineering.

In philosophy of mind, Nagel is widely known for his essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" (first published in Philosophical Review 1974, pp. 435–450, reprinted in Mortal Questions and widely anthologized). In this essay, Nagel identifies subjective, phenomenal experience as the central problem facing contemporary physicalism. He contends that a fully developed neurobiological, functional, materialist account of the human body would still leave out subjective experience (what it is like experientially to be conscious and undergo experiences), just as a fully developed neurobiological, functional, materialist account of a bat would still leave out what it is like to be a bat. In What Does It All Mean? Nagel employs the thought experiment of an inverted spectrum and other inverted sensations to exhibit the apparent contingency of the relationship between conscious, experiential states and functionalist, materialist ones. These are cases when the physicalist account of seeing some color or experiencing some taste is inverted, so that while the physicalist would conclude that one is having some taste, when it turns out one is having a quite different one. In The View from Nowhere, Other Minds, and elsewhere, Nagel opposes all philosophies of mind that fail to recognize the reality of subjective, lived experience.

Although Nagel's defense of the reality of phenomenal experiences and the apparent contingency of the mental-physical relation has seemed to some to lend credence to at least a modified form of dualism, Nagel himself holds that dualism can be avoided by developing a conceptual revision of one's current concept of the physical world and subjective experience. While philosophers do not yet possess this new world view, Nagel urges that future philosophical work be focused on conceiving of a single natural world that incorporates what one now sees as objective physical states and one's internal, mental subjectivity.

In his short book, The Last Word, Nagel offers an impassioned defense of reason as a reliable mode of inquiry, not subject to the objections of relativists, postmodernists, or contemporary pragmatists like Richard Rorty:

Reason … can serve as a court of appeal not only against the received opinions and habits of our community but also against the peculiarities of our personal perspective. It is something each individual can find within himself, but at the same time it has universal authority. Reason provides, mysteriously, a way of distancing oneself from common opinion and received practices. … Whoever appeals to reason purports to discover a source of authority within himself that is not merely personal, or societal, but universal—and that should also persuade others who are willing to listen to it.
(1997, pp. 2–3)

Nagel acknowledges the many ways in which one's reasoning may be impaired, but he nonetheless maintains the necessity of making recourse to reason in order to correct, however gradually, such impairments.

Nagel received a BA from Cornell University in 1958, a PhB from Oxford in 1960, and his PhD from Harvard in 1963. He has held academic appointments at the University of California at Berkeley, Princeton University, and New York University where he was appointed as University Professor in 2002. In addition to his specialized philosophical writing, Nagel has written on practical political and moral problems. For example, he has argued for a highly restricted account of when and how a just war may be engaged.