Thomas Nagel

A short introduction to philosophy.

Our brave new world of simulated reality, mind-altering drugs, scans which predict what decision we make before we are conscious of making it, suicide commando atrocity chic, direct control of mechanism via brain waves, AI friends for the elderly, quantum cats, chemical castration, ethical arguments from sociobiology, Dubai city … bring philosophical problems from the realm of musing to an intense interface with reality.

This little book makes only limited appeal to the richer possibilities of illustrating philosophical questions. For example the average reader will at least have heard of quantum mechanics. Why does a discussion of consciousness / free will still posit a mechanistic world operating to deterministic rules? Modern physics begins with observables, not with little billiard balls colliding with each other. “Physical reality” is a non-starter.

The chapter on Right and Wrong was most interesting to me. He picks apart the different possibilities of founding morals. The judging of others’ actions as right or wrong is unavoidable by humans, consistency demands some reason for a person to do the right thing. These questions never much interested me before. Nagel’s simple steps forward lead quickly into quagmires of thought.

There is no suggestion that anything other than diligence and pedestrian commonsense are needed to approach these questions. That’s not bad as a methodology, but it’s not true.