Thomas+Nagel

Thomas Nagel July 4 th  1937 - Present

= Biography : =

=
Thomas Nagel was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia (modern-day [|Serbia]) on July 4, 1937. He went to Cornell University where he received his BA (in 1958). After receiving his BA at Cornell University, Nagel recieved a BPhil (Bachelor of Philosophy) from the University of Oxford in 1960. The last school that he attended as a student was Harvard University where he got his PhD (in 1963). At Harvard, he worked with John Rawls who was his PhD supervisor. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University and then he settled in New York. Thomas Nagel specializes in Political Philosophy, Ethics, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Mind. Nagel began to publish Philosophy at the age of twenty two. Some of his published work includes books like //What Does It All Mean// and //The Possibility of Altruism.// His “reductionists accounts of the mind” are well-known, which is basically taking trying to understand the nature of complex things by breaking them down and trying to understand parts of it. His book What Is It Like To Be a Bat is all about these approach. Over the years Nagel has received numerous awards such as the Rolf Schock Prize, the Balzan prize and the Doctor of Letters from Oxford. Nagel is a part of many organizations such as the American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the British Academy. Today he teaches at the New York University Department of Philosophy. One of his colleagues actually happens to be one of his previous students. He is a professor of law and philosophy for the University. =====

= Views: = Thomas Nagel is mostly known for his[| philosophy of the mind], ethics, and political philosophy. He also addresses the problem of free will, but only indirectly, when giving a detention of determinism, and also speaks on finding moral responsible agents. Throughout all the problems he addresses he always uses the "reductionists account on the mind" as a method of solving these problems. Following are some views on certain problems :

= Justice: =

Thomas Nagel's view on justice is simply that life is unfair and people have unequal opportunities in the world. In the reading "What does it all mean -Justice" Thomas Nagel asks the question, "Is it fair that some people are born rich and some people are born poor? If it’s unfair, should anything be done about it?" Nagel also mentions key differences in one's ability to succeed in life. One is a controversial political issue, which addresses the inequalities in socioeconomic class that a person is born into. For example, being born rich or being born poor. The other issue is a difference in natural talents or abilities. Thomas Nagel believes that inequalities resulting from either of these causes are unfair, and that it is clearly unjust when a socioeconomic system results in some people living under significant material and social disadvantages through no fault of their own.

= Desert: = Thomas Nagel looks at one’s disadvantages as bad luck or unfair and believes that people cannot be held responsible for their suffering because it is not their fault if they are born ordinary or lack certain talents or abilities. We cannot control what is given to us regardless of whether we deserve it or not. But what is it to deserve? Nagel states, “ The two main sources of undeserved inequalities are strong differences in socioeconomic classes and natural abilities or talents which are demanded.” Whether we know it or not these specific talents and abilities are vital to being successful especially in such a burdensome world. The fact of the mater is without these talents we are considered “unequal”. Nagel argues that we definitely do not deserve to lack certain talents because then we will lack in opportunity.

= Entitlement = W hat does it mean to be entitled to something? Entitlement is often confused with desert, another philosophical idea. Entitlement is dictated by set rules. For example, if you work at a job, you are entitled to a paycheck. It was written down in your contract and they have to give it to you. Desert is something different. It is the direct result from your work. Today, a lot of people say that they deserve something when they really are only entitled to it. Tom Nagel does not agree with the generalized statements made by Nozick about entitlement. Nozick’s “intuition” is that “each person is entitled to his talents and abilities and to whatever he can make, get, or buy with his own efforts, with the help of others, or with plain luck.” To Nagel this makes it seem as though everyone is “entitled to whatever he ends up with as a result of the indefinite repetition of this process, over how many generations.” Basically this means that anything that you have you are entitled to, even if you in no way helped to make it. According to this description, you could be entitled to a dinosaur bone as long as you have it now. Nagel does not like this description of entitlement put on a large scale. He is fine with it being “results for small-scale individual transactions” not in the context that Nozick uses it.

=Role Of Government = In society there are many injustices. Some are created by chance, for example a child born to a rich family and another to a poor. The children did not choose there families it was by chance. Others are created by society. For example, the fact that you must have a degree in order to earn a high paying job. Nagel believes that it is the governments responsibilities to remove theses inequalities and provide a fair chance of success for everyone. John Nagel described that John Rawls theory of justice was not demanding enough. He said that John Rawls redressed the problem of inequalities but did not aim to remove them. On matters of government and privacy most people believe that the government has no business  in peoples personal, non-market  transactions.However, Nagel believes that a good government makes "a flourishing personal life possible, just as as much as civil society ." This means that the government is in peoples personal lives for the better, not to be intruding. However there is a point where some private transactions are not important and society must take note. = Taxes: = Thomas Nagel believes that [|taxes] should be thought of as something for the good of the society. In a book written by Thomas Nagel and Liam Murphy(//[|The Myth of Ownership : Taxes and Justice//]),// they say, “The position we take is this: Tax policy should be evaluated in light of a broader concern for social justice in the society as a whole.” This shows that Tom Nagel could be for or against taxes, depending on if they will help society. They later go on to say,”this does not include any requirement of respect for natural property rights. ” What Nagel and Murphy mean from that statement is that they are not thinking about your ownership of the money at the moment. In another writing, Nagel and Murphy believe, “that there is no market without government and no government without taxes.” Later they say, “it is logically impossibly for people to have any kind of entitlement to their pretax income.” Nagel believes that you need taxes for the market to work, and you do not own your paycheck until the government has taken your taxes out of it. So Nagel’s view on taxes is that they are necessary for the type of government and society that we have now to work properly.



=**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 24px; text-indent: 0.5in;">According To Thomas Nagel. **=

= Significance Of The Philosopher: =

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In my opinion, Thomas Nagel was a brilliant philosopher. I agree with him 100% on some of his ideas, like how the market and the government are both run by taxes. He said, “there is no market without government and no government without taxes.” That statement makes sense to me because a government is funded by the people who pay taxes. That is how the government is able to pay for roads, public schools, federal buildings, etc. Without this money coming from taxes we would not have a government or at least not a strong one. Without the government, we would not have a very stable market and economy. There would be no government bailouts into the stock market and the insurance companies. Our economy would be in a constant state turmoil. One of the people that we, Thomas Nagel, don’t agree with is Robert Nozick. He believes in a utopia where nobody pays taxes and everyone gets what they make. He (Nozick) said that money is time and labor and that he owns his own labor. Then when he gets taxed and is forced to give his money to the government, he feels like they are taking his labor which equals forced labor or in other words slavery. To Nagel, that was crazy. Taxes help everyone in the long term and even right off. The government could not survive without taxes and in no way are taxes a form of slavery. The point of view that Tom Nagel has is very important. Not only does he keep the crazy Robert Nozick in check but he makes sure that people hear that there is more than one side to the argument. On the topic of taxes, most all of the world now agrees with Nagel and tax their citizens. That is how it has been done for a long time now and it works well. Tom Nagel’s views on justice also give us an insight as to why some people are able to live in a nice house and have good warm winter clothes while others have to suffer out in the cold because their parents were not as well off economically. His view is that there are just some inequalities that were are born with such as our socioeconomic class, natural talents, family, etc. All of these are out of our control but they still help people all over world understand why they were, for example born to Chinese parents and not to American parents. Nagel’s ideas are pretty well known, even to people who have not taken philosophy. Tom Nagel is definitely one of the most influential philosophers of the 21st century.

=Works Cited :=

//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">"Thomas Nagel Biography." // Biography Base Home //. Web. 11 Dec. 2010.// <span style="color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">[|<http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Nagel_Thomas.html>.]

//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">"NYU Philosophy Nagel, Thomas." // New York University Department of Philosophy //. Web. 11 Dec. 2010. [|<http://philosophy.as.nyu.edu/object/thomasnagel>.]//

//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">Photograph. // CONSCIOUSNESS, BRAIN AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD //. Max Velmans. Web. 11 Dec. 2010. [|<http://cogprints.org/238/1/Image13.gif>].//

What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction To Philosophy //. 1987. Photograph.// Angus & Robertson //. Web. 11 Dec. 2010.//<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">[|<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism>.]

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">Wenar, Leif. Web. 11 Dec. 2010. <[]>.

//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">"About The Academy." // Welcome to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences //. American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2010. Web. 14 Dec. 2010. <@http://www.amacad.org/default.aspx>.//

//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">Nagel, Thomas, and Liam B. Murphy. "The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice." // Google Books //. 2002. Web. 14 Dec. 2010. [Nagel Role of Government&pg=PA232#v=onepage&q&f=false].

Nagel, Thomas. “  //Other Minds: critical essays, 1969-1994.”// Google Books. Google. Web. 12 December 2010. < [] >