Skip to content

Ethics increases the range of what it is about ourselves that we can will—extending it from our actions to the motives and character traits and dispositions from which they arise. We want to be able to will the sources of our actions down to the very bottom.

— Thomas Nagel The View From Nowhere (1986)

Another quote →

More quotes by Thomas Nagel

Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern.

Mortal Questions (1979)

Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.

The View From Nowhere (1986)

Consciousness is what makes the mind–body problem really intractable.

What is it like to be a bat? (1974)

I should not really object to dying if it were not followed by death.

Mortal Questions (1979)

Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.

Concealment and Exposure and Other Essays (1998)

All Thomas Nagel quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Nagel (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.