Thomas Nagel Quotes About Psychology

Quotes about: Psychology

• 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 Nagel

  Believe, Psychology, Looks

  Thomas Nagel (1991). “Mortal Questions : Canto”, p.135, Cambridge University Press

• A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.

  Thomas Nagel

  Motivation, Psychology, Behaviour

  Thomas Nagel (2016). “The Possibility of Altruism”, p.34, Princeton University Press

• A person may be greedy, envious, cowardly, cold, ungenerous, unkind, vain, or conceited, but behave perfectly by a monumental act of the will.

  Thomas Nagel

  Conceited, Psychology, May

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mortal Questions”, p.32, Cambridge University Press

• The inclusion of consequences in the conception of what we have done is an acknowledgement that we are parts of the world, but the paradoxical character of moral luck which emerges from this acknowledgement shows that we are unable to operate with such a view, for it leaves us with no one to be.

  Thomas Nagel

  Character, Views, Psychology

  Thomas Nagel (2012). “Mortal Questions”, p.38, Cambridge University Press

• 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 Nagel

  Ideas, Judging, Psychology

  Thomas Nagel (1991). “Mortal Questions : Canto”, p.38, Cambridge University Press

• 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.

  Thomas Nagel

  Agency, Erosion, Views

  Thomas Nagel (1991). “Mortal Questions : Canto”, p.38, Cambridge University Press

• I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.

  Thomas Nagel

  Psychology, Branches, Action

  Thomas Nagel (2016). “The Possibility of Altruism”, p.3, Princeton University Press

• Common sense doesn't have the last word in ethics or anywhere else, but it has, as J. L. Austin said about ordinary language, the first word: it should be examined before it is discarded.

  Thomas Nagel

  Common Sense, Psychology, Ordinary

  Thomas Nagel (1989). “The View From Nowhere”, p.166, Oxford University Press

• equally real at all stages of his life; specifically, the fact that a particular stage is present cannot be regarded as conferring on it any special status.

  Thomas Nagel

  Real, Psychology, Special

  Thomas Nagel (2016). “The Possibility of Altruism”, p.60, Princeton University Press

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