Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.
Thomas NagelRead
I'm not sure I understand how responsibility for our choices makes sense if they are not determined.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the relationship between choice and determinism, questioning how we can be held responsible for choices if they are not predetermined.
In this quote, Thomas Nagel explores the complex interplay between free will and determinism, highlighting a philosophical dilemma: if our choices are genuinely free and not predetermined, how do we reconcile this freedom with the concept of moral responsibility? This thought raises important questions about accountability, the nature of choice, and the philosophical implications of believing in a non-deterministic universe, suggesting that understanding our agency is essential to judging our actions and decisions.
Themes
ResponsibilityChoicesDeterminismFree WillPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about ethics and moral responsibility in a philosophy class.
More from Thomas Nagel
All quotes →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.
Thomas NagelRead
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.
Thomas NagelRead
There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.
Thomas NagelRead
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.
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.
Thomas NagelRead
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