Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.
Thomas NagelRead
Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip on the idea that it has been done and that we can judge the doer and not just the happening.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the distinction between actions and their consequences, urging us to focus on the doer rather than just the act itself.
In this quote, Thomas Nagel reflects on how perceiving an action simply as an occurrence can detach us from understanding the intention behind it. When we recognize an action as just something that happens, we may overlook the moral implications of the person who carried it out, leading to a failure in our ability to judge the doer's character and decisions critically.
In practice
During a discussion about accountability in a workplace, this quote can provoke thought about judging colleagues' actions fairly.
Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.
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.
It is prima facie highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are supposed to abandon this naïve response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by some examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true.
There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.
Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.
The external view [of agency] forces itself on us at the same time that we resist it. One way this occurs is through the gradual erosion of what we do by the subtraction of what happens.
Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.
Death accompanies us at every step and enables us to use those moments when life smiles at us to feel more deeply the sweetness of life. The more certain the end, the more tempting the minute.
A person's faith can collapse almost overnight if she failed over the years to listen patiently to her own doubts, which should only be discarded after long reflection.
My object in life is not simply to make money for myself or to spend it on myself in dressing or running around in an automobile, but I love to use a part of what I make in trying to help others.
But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.
OLD, adj. In that stage of usefulness which is not inconsistent with general inefficiency, as an "old man". Discredited by lapse of time and offensive to the popular taste, as an "old" book.
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