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Mortal Questions

Thomas Nagel

4.07 · Rating details · 569 ratings · 41 reviews

Questions about our attitudes towards death, sexual behavior, social inequality, war and political power progress to more obviously philosophical problems regarding personal identity, consciousness, freedom and value.

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Paperback, 213 pages

Published June 28th 1991 by Cambridge University Press (first published 1979)

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Jul 19, 2009 Tyler rated it liked it

Recommends it for: Fans of Philosophy

Shelves: philosophy

Fourteen essays in this book tie together the question of how philosophy applies in everyday life. Nagel’s writing drags a bit in places, and not all the essays are of equal interest. The personal nature of the inquiry is the book's main draw and the best reason for reading it. The most helpful approach to this kind of book is to list its topics and give my ratings, as follows:

TOPIC:

Death – A rather short discussion asking why death is thought of as such a bad event. ****

Absurdity – Excell ...more

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Jun 28, 2008 Nick Black rated it really liked it

One of the most probing and worthwhile philosophic disquisitions of the twentieth century.

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Jan 24, 2018 Hossein Gholamie rated it it was amazing

Thomas Nagel began with the most abstract issues and areas in philosophy to reach concrete issues: metaphysics-> epistemoligy,-> philosophy of mind-> Ethics-> political philosophy-> economics.
Thomas Nagel in all areas of philosophy: "metaphysics, epistemology, ethics", and some of the most important branches of philosophy: "philosophy, ethics, philosophy of law, political philosophy, philosophy of mind", has had a huge contribution.
He discusses the most abstract philosophical issues, such as "co ...more

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May 21, 2019 Steve added it

Too hard for me! I understood chunks of it, but there was plenty that whizzed past me. Great topics though. Includes the famous “What is it like to be a bat” essay. I guess I need a “Thomas Nagel for Dummies” book.

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Dec 05, 2019 Daniel Hageman rated it really liked it

Shelves: harris-recommended, owned, general-philosophy

First half of this book is a 3, while the second half is a 5..had I known it'd have a much more interesting finish, I probably would have prioritized reading it a bit more! Nagel's ideas on consciousness, value fragmentation, and the dichotomous issues of objectivity/subjectivity are seemingly timeless, and great food for thought for those that don't fall in the same camp as him on these particular issues. ...more

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Oct 19, 2009 Maggie Roessler added it

Shelves: l-american, f-philosophy, read-2009-10

First time to my knowledge I've seen a philosopher argue that death is really bad and we should be scared of it. And it's a good point about the nature of goodness not being restricted to non-relational properties ascribable to a human at different times. Still, surprising that Nagel would fail to look into the huge variety of other reasons that philosophers have embraced the idea of death.

Which points to a crucial element of Nagel's style. He is arguing with the language of the people, using th First time to my knowledge I've seen a philosopher argue that death is really bad and we should be scared of it. And it's a good point about the nature of goodness not being restricted to non-relational properties ascribable to a human at different times. Still, surprising that Nagel would fail to look into the huge variety of other reasons that philosophers have embraced the idea of death.

Which points to a crucial element of Nagel's style. He is arguing with the language of the people, using the people's definitions of the words at stake. It has a certain charm, a feeling of someone sincerely engaged in questioning their way of life, at first it almost feels Socratic. But then one remembers that Socrates (of early Plato particularly) radically questioned the people's definitions and made them think about the definitions they'd been using. Nagel doesn't fuss over words. Is this appropriate?

Let's look at the second essay, on the Absurd. I was excited to read it, as it draws on Camus' Sisyphus essay, which was one of the first works of "real" (i.e. not Christopher Pike's) philosophy I ever read. And I was really getting pleased, when I read Nagel's argument that we learn our standards of meaning within life, therefore we cannot use the same standards when we step outside of life, in order to look at the big picture. I agree entirely. Life cannot as a whole be meaningless, because meaning is only something generated from within life, and no longer makes sense as a tool with which to judge life as a whole. We pull ourselves out of the individual chain of justifications when we look at the big picture, and may no longer ask for another link on that chain. Sadly, I got the same slap in the face from the ending that I'd gotten before with Camus. We should live our lives with IRONY? Wha? Why? He's just demonstrated that we may not look at our overall struggles as meaningless. So what use do we have for irony? It's just as unjustified within the text as Camus' call to defiance.

This lesson about when you can use what words (such as in the second essay, "justification" and "meaning") is throughout the book not taken seriously enough. There is a problem with using work-a-day definitions for philosophic thought, words understood according to their use in certain normal situations are plucked out of their context and made in this innocent form to take part in exotic dances. Naturally, this method leads to mixed up conclusions - unexpected, yet no more rigourous for all that. We're struck by an embarassingly clear example in the essay on Sexual Perversion, written in 1969. The conclusions do not hold and are ridiculously dated. Philosophic truths should exercise a permanent claim on our attention, and not become silly artifacts after a mere forty years. Yet, this is only possible when we examine the concepts we're using. If you take them out of the mouths of those conversing under entirely other circumstances, you end up with stiff nonsense. ...more

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Jan 24, 2019 Matthew Ting added it

Tried using this as a broad introduction to philosophy. Too dense / abstractly written for me to really get into. Now I get why everyone who read the New Yorker likes philosophy so much...

Maybe this is one I try again later in life when I'm a more sophisticated and wise guy ...more

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Feb 10, 2018 Miles rated it liked it · review of another edition

The title of Thomas Nagel’s Mortal Questions may appear to promise a set of inquiries with reachable termination points, but in fact the opposite is true. This collection of short essays explores a slew of multifaceted and often-insouble problems surrounding the nature of human society and experiential life that Nagel pondered during the 1970s. Nagel is nobly driven to confront issues that are “multiple, complex, often cloudy, and mixed up with many others,” and to plumb the intellectual depths ...more

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Jul 05, 2016 Jeff rated it really liked it

Shelves: deep-thought

"Moral Luck" and "What is it like to be a bat?" are oft-cited works in other books i've read, which is why i initially bought this collection. I'm tempted to call them classic or canonical works in the field.

"Death", ironically(?) the first essay, was a crucial ingredient in Todd May's book on the same topic and with the same title, so i read it 3 times. It also influences my reaction to books such as Jason Shiga's Demon series of graphic novels.

"Subjective and Objective" closes the collection a ...more

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Sep 09, 2009 Rob Koch rated it liked it

This was really not my cup of tea. I was expecting it to be more interesting or perhaps relevant to questions that I've had on the subject that I've posed to myself. I would say in general that the book was too dry/technical. I'm the last person who would fault something for being excessive in this way, but somehow Thomas Nagel managed to achieve that criticism from me. It's also possible that this wasn't really meant to be a point of entry to his work or for people unfamiliar with this field of ...more

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Feb 21, 2009 Eric Witchey added it

Thought provoking philosophical considerations. A bit of a slog to get through, but worth it -- especially if you have someone with whom to discuss the material.

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Jul 14, 2010 Mike rated it it was amazing

One of my favorite philosophy books, covering topics such as animal consciousness, panpsychism, death, value judgments, and others.

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Nov 18, 2010 Nick marked it as maybe-read

Recommended by Julia Galef on 10/24/10 Rationally Speaking podcast.

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May 17, 2020 Dunigan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A thought-provoking collection of 14 relatively short (~15 page) essays by philosopher Thomas Nagel focusing on topics like death, consciousness, and ethics. Some of the essays were too arcane for me and are probably only of interest to people who have actually studied philosophy. However, a few of the essays make the collection well worth the price of admission, and even if you aren't going to read the entire collection, I'd suggest reading a few them on their own.
In particular, I'd suggest rea A thought-provoking collection of 14 relatively short (~15 page) essays by philosopher Thomas Nagel focusing on topics like death, consciousness, and ethics. Some of the essays were too arcane for me and are probably only of interest to people who have actually studied philosophy. However, a few of the essays make the collection well worth the price of admission, and even if you aren't going to read the entire collection, I'd suggest reading a few them on their own.
In particular, I'd suggest reading Nagel's essays titled "Death," "The Absurd," and "Moral Luck."

"Death" is an essay about whether or not death in itself is a bad thing. In Nagel's own words: "I want to ask whether death in itself is an evil; and how great an evil, and of what kind, it might be."
An excerpt from this essay that I like:
"Think of how an ordinary individual sweats over his appearance, his health, his sex life, his emotional honesty, his social utility, his self-knowledge, the quality of his ties with family, colleagues, and friends, how well he does his job, whether he understands the world and what is going on in it. Leading a human life is a full-time occupation, to which everyone devotes decades of intense concern."

"The Absurd" is an essay about Camus' concept of the absurdity of life. There is a lot of thought provoking discussion here. For example,
"What we say to convey the absurdity of our lives often has to do with space or time: we are tiny specks in the infinite vastness of the universe; our lives are mere instants even on a geological time scale, let alone a cosmic one; we will all be dead any minute. But of course none of these evident facts can be what makes life absurd, if it is absurd. For suppose we lived for ever; would not a life that is absurd if it lasts seventy years be infinitely absurd if it lasted through eternity? And if our lives are absurd given our present size, why would they be any less absurd if we filled the universe (either because we were larger or because the universe was smaller)? Reflection on our minuteness and brevity appears to be intimately connected with the sense that life is meaningless; but it is not clear what the connection is."

Also, a highlight of this essay is when Nagel calls Camus' conclusions romantic and self-pitying: "Camus – not on uniformly good grounds – rejects suicide and the other solutions he regards as escapist. What he recommends is defiance or scorn. We can salvage our dignity, he appears to believe, by shaking a fist at the world which is deaf to our pleas, and continuing to live in spite of it. This will not make our lives un-absurd, but it will lend them a certain nobility. This seems to me romantic and slightly self-pitying. Our absurdity warrants neither that much distress nor that much defiance. At the risk of falling into romanticism by a different route, I would argue that absurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics. Like skepticism in epistemology, it is possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight – the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought. [.....] If there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair."

"Moral Luck" is an essay on the concept moral luck, which in itself is a very interesting concept that most would benefit from being exposed to. In Nagel's words, "Where a significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment, it can be called moral luck. Such luck can be good or bad." If you're only going to read one of these essays, I think this one would give you the most bang for you buck. ...more

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Mar 20, 2017 Andrei Khrapavitski rated it it was amazing

This is a second book by Thomas Nagel I've read, first being "Last Word," which I liked a lot and would recommend to anyone fallen under the influence of postmodern denial of objectivity. "Mortal Questions" didn't disappoint, too. I'd read some of the essays collected here previously and was familiar with some of Nagel's claims, but it was great to go back to these texts and learn firsthand about his philosophy. The interesting thing about this book is that many of the "mortal questions" Nagel p This is a second book by Thomas Nagel I've read, first being "Last Word," which I liked a lot and would recommend to anyone fallen under the influence of postmodern denial of objectivity. "Mortal Questions" didn't disappoint, too. I'd read some of the essays collected here previously and was familiar with some of Nagel's claims, but it was great to go back to these texts and learn firsthand about his philosophy. The interesting thing about this book is that many of the "mortal questions" Nagel poses are approached in a very consistent way but left without conclusive answers. Readers are left to ponder upon the big questions of philosophy and morality.

The book was first published in 1979, the year when I was born. Most of these questions are still unresolved, even though some of Nagel's views are challenged by new developments in neuroscience and other philosophers. Especially convincing criticism can be found in works of Derek Parfit, a brilliant philosopher whose groundbreaking books I can't recommend enough.

I found "Death," the first essay in the book, particularly striking. Obvious as the conclusions may be if you ask pretty much anyone these days, it's interesting to read a philosopher carefully exploring the subject and proving why death is actually a bad thing.

"Absurd," a second essay explores the meaning of life, its minuteness and brevity. Here Nagel reiterates some of the ideas expressed by existentialists, this part of the book might seem to be less original for that reason. But Nagel's position is well-argued.

The third essay, "Moral Luck," is a must read. I think everyone should read it or, at least, be aware of what moral luck was. Here's a Wikipedia article about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_luck.

There are other interesting essays in this book. For instance, "War and Massacre" collides utilitarian ethics with absolutism, "Ruthlessness in Public Life" explores the challenges of public and individual morality, "Equality" summarizes the problems of achieving equality and how it comes into conflict with utility and rights, "Panpsychism" challenges panpsychism (the view that consciousness, mind or soul is a universal and primordial feature of all things.

Nagel's controversial and often quoted "What is it like to be a bat?" shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in consciousness. The preceding chapter "Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness" is another interesting piece, but somewhat outdated, I think.

"Subjective and Objective" is the concluding chapter and one of the strongest, in my opinion. This is where we get to the problem of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. We should aim for objectivity, but this is a hard nut to crack. As Nagel claims, "Even on a consequentialist view, what one should do will depend on what one is in a position to do, and on the relative desirability of the possible outcomes. Nevertheless, the consequentialist judgment that one should do something is essentially the judgment that it would be best if one did it - that it ought to happen . The right thing to do is to turn oneself as far as possible into an instrument for the realization of what is best sub specie aeternitatis." But "life is always the life of a particular person, and cannot be lived sub specie aeternitatis." The coexistence of these conflicting points of view (objective and subjective) is not just a practically necessary illusion but an irreducible fact of life, Nagel concludes. Nagel explores this topic further in his following book "View from Nowhere."

I like Nagel's early writings. However, I find some of his claims made here and elsewhere dubious. But then most of us never come to think about these challenging questions, let alone attempt to answer them. ...more

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Jan 03, 2021 Max rated it it was amazing

Mortal Questions, if I understand correctly, is more a series of works than it is a work in itself, and this is apparent both in its subject matter and in its wildly unequal quality. Nagel's discussion of such topics as Death and morality are incredible, but he has an entire thing about why affirmative action is obviously bad but not like, so bad, and it's weird to read such a dumb take next to so many thoughtful ones.

What's really cool about Nagel though (and the reason my philosophy book club* ...more

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Feb 09, 2021 Christina rated it liked it

Always fun but also extremely challenging and frustrating to read philosophy. This is no beginner’s intro to philosophy and I definitely but off more than I can chew.

The essays on war and massacre, the fragmentation of value, and the subjective objective were my favourites.

War and massacre because I’m a utilitarian/consequentialist and Nagel wrote a convincing argument against utilitarianism and for absolutism. I’

The fragmentation of value was excellent because it’s so applicable (like many of ...more

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Jul 29, 2020 The Bean of rated it liked it

Some quotes:

~~ the absurd results "by the collision between the seriousness with which we take our lives and the perpetual possibility of regarding everything about which we are serious as arbitrary, or open to doubt" Pg. 13

"A person can be morally responsible only for what he does; but what he does results from a great deal that he does not do; therefore he is not morally responsible for what he is and is not morally responsible for. (This is not a contradiction, but a paradox)" Pg. 34

"The inc ...more

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Jul 06, 2020 Katherine Gibson rated it liked it

This book is quite good - there's loads of supported citations in each chapter arguing for or against whichever topic the author writes about, though I gave it three stars due to the density of his writing.

As a novice turning into an amateur about learning and practicing philosophy, there were many heavy sentences I could not connect with immediately. I regard it as an advanced book for someone who may have achieved a B.A. in Philosophy, so the terminology might be more suited to academics. I di ...more

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Sep 24, 2019 Feriyal rated it really liked it

I got introduced to “Moral questions” through Very Bad Wizards podcast, and Nagel’s discussions especially around absurdity, moral lucks & sexual perversion are really fascinating to me. But unfortunately, the language of the book, specially in the latest essays gets completely hard to understand. Isn’t this the author responsibility to make the content of the book more accessible to the readers?

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Aug 31, 2020 Alex Bejan rated it liked it · review of another edition

While the title of the book and the essays would lead you to believe that this is an approachable book, if you’re not a phylosophy major better skip it. It’s pretty difficult to read and the lack of examples (with a few exceptions) make it more of a grind than a pleasurable and insightful experience.

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Jan 19, 2018 Ivan Pretorius rated it liked it

One of the relatively few contemporary philosophers who not only addresses important subjects of general intellectual interest (the fear of death, the attractions of sex, the influence of luck upon personality, etc.) but writes very intelligently about them.

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Nov 28, 2016 Jon Rossetti rated it it was amazing

Perfect for anyone looking for clear, concise philosophical arguments with some exploration of overlooked philosophical absurdities.

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Jan 22, 2018 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Great book exploring various philosophical topics like consciousness, objectivity, and justice.

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Feb 11, 2018 David Jones rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Am influential book. A collection of (readable) essays that immediately became a must-read. It includes the landmark, 'What is it like to be a bat'. ...more

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May 25, 2018 Tim Gorichanaz rated it really liked it

An inspiring collection of essays on challenging topics.

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Mar 02, 2020 Jawdan Truckey rated it it was amazing

Piercing and well reasoned philosophical inquiry into wide-ranging topics. Favourite essays: What is it like to be a bat?, Moral Luck, Death, Panpsychism.

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Aug 08, 2020 André de Lannoy Tavares rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-others

A bit more complex than I expected, especially initial and last chapters

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Sep 11, 2018 Seabeast rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

In Mortal Questions Nagel tackles many great philosophical issues, and he does it in a very concise and readable style.

This collection of essays from the eminent american philosopher Thomas Nagel is at times enthralling and profound, at other times (though not often) dull and uninteresting. Thankfully, a great majority of what is to be found within the pages of this book piqued my own interests, and reading through them felt like a worthwhile effort. In my opinion, What is it like to be a bat? w ...more

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Jan 18, 2018 Billie Pritchett rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: life-and-death, thomas-nagel

Mortal Questions by Thomas Nagel is a great, easily-readable collection of essays about topics that relate to what it means to be human. A few highlights: there's an essay on the fear of death, whether we should fear it, another essay on why life so often feels absurd, and another essay about where our values come from, and if there's any real system underlying our values. Great little collection. ...more

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About Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel

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Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher, currently University Professor and Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, where he has taught since 1980. His main areas of philosophical interest are philosophy of mind, political philosophy and ethics. He is well-known for his critique of reductionist accounts of the mind in his essay "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?" (1974), and for his con ...more

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“It is often remarked that nothing we do now will matter in a million years. But if that is true, then by the same token, nothing that will be the case in a million years matters now. In particular, it does not matter now that in million years nothing we do now will matter.” — 17 likes

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