---
title: "1 Moral Judgments Quotes By Thomas Nagel"
description: "1 Moral Judgments quotes by Thomas Nagel. Plus more from Thomas Nagel and more Moral Judgments sayings from other authors."
image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b12/thomas-nagel-9440_counterarguments_in-every-area-of-thought-we-must-rely-ul_1188890.jpg"
---

> [“In every area of thought we must rely ultimately on our judgments, tested by reflection, subject to correction by the counterarguments of others, modified by the imagination and by comparison with alternatives. Antirealism is always a conjectural possibility: the question…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/in-every-area-of-thought-we-must-rely-ultimately-on-our-judgments/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

[Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b12/thomas-nagel-9440_counterarguments_in-every-area-of-thought-we-must-rely-ul_1188890.jpg)

## More by Thomas Nagel

> [every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/every-subjective-phenomenon-is-essentially-connected-with-a-single/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [Reason is universal because no attempted challenge to its results can avoid appealing to reason in the end-by claiming, for example, that what was…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/reason-is-universal-because-no-attempted-challenge-to-its-results-can/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [“A comprehensively reductive conception is favored by the belief that the propensity for the development of organisms with a subjective view must have been…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/a-comprehensively-reductive-conception-is-favored-by-the-belief-that/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/a-theory-of-motivation-is-defective-if-it-renders-intelligible/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [It isn't just that I don't believe in God, and naturally, hope there is no God. I don't want there to be a God;…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/it-isn-t-just-that-i-don-t-believe-in-god-and-naturally-hope-there-is/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [What is it like to be a bat? What is it like for a bat to be a bat?](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bat-what-is-it-like-for-a-bat-to-be-a-bat/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/to-look-for-a-single-general-theory-of-how-to-decide-the-right-thing/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [“In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/in-speaking-of-the-fear-of-religion-i-don-t-mean-to-refer-to-the/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [Philosophy is the childhood of the intellect, and a culture that tries to skip it will never grow up.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/philosophy-is-the-childhood-of-the-intellect-and-a-culture-that-tries/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [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…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/common-sense-doesn-t-have-the-last-word-in-ethics-or-anywhere-else/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [“I am drawn to a fourth alternative, natural teleology, or teleological bias, as an account of the existence of the biological possibilities on which…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/i-am-drawn-to-a-fourth-alternative-natural-teleology-or-teleological/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [“The existence of consciousness is both one of the most familiar and one of the most astounding things about the world. No conception of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/the-existence-of-consciousness-is-both-one-of-the-most-familiar-and/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [“Are there any alternatives? Well, there is the hypothesis that this universe is not unique, but that all possible universes exist, and we find…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/are-there-any-alternatives-well-there-is-the-hypothesis-that-this/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [If we tried to rely entirely on reason, and pressed it hard, our lives and beliefs would collapse - a form of madness that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/if-we-tried-to-rely-entirely-on-reason-and-pressed-it-hard-our-lives/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

> [Eventually, I believe, current attempts to understand the mind by analogy with man-made computers that can perform superbly some of the same external tasks…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/thomas-nagel/eventually-i-believe-current-attempts-to-understand-the-mind-by/)

[Thomas Nagel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/thomas-nagel/)

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                        "text": "“In every area of thought we must rely ultimately on our judgments, tested by reflection, subject to correction by the counterarguments of others, modified by the imagination and by comparison with alternatives. Antirealism is always a conjectural possibility: the question can always be posed, whether there is anything more to truth in a certain domain than our tendency to reach certain conclusions in this way, perhaps in convergence with others. Sometimes, as with grammar or etiquette, the answer is no. For that reason the intuitive conviction that a particular domain, like the physical world, or mathematics, or morality, or aesthetics, is one in which our judgments are attempts to respond to a kind of truth that is independent of them may be impossible to establish decisively. Yet it may be very robust all the same, and not unjustified. To be sure, there are competing subjectivist explanations of the appearance of mind-independence in the truth of moral and other value judgments. One of the things a sophisticated subjectivism allows us to say when we judge that infanticide is wrong is that it would be wrong even if none of us thought so, even though that second judgment too is still ultimately grounded in our responses. However, I find those quasi-realist, expressivist accounts of the ground of objectivity in moral judgments no more plausible than the subjectivist account of simpler value judgments. These epicycles are of the same kind as the original proposal: they deny that value judgments can be true in their own right, and this does not accord with what I believe to be the best overall understanding of our thought about value. There is no crucial experiment that will establish or refute realism about value. One ground for rejecting it, the type used by Hume, is simply question-begging: if it is supposed that objective moral truths can exist only if they are like other kinds of facts--physical, psychological, or logical--then it is clear that there aren't any. But the failure of this argument doesn't prove that there are objective moral truths. Positive support for realism can come only from the fruitfulness of evaluative and moral thought in producing results, including corrections of beliefs formerly widely held and the development of new and improved methods and arguments over time. The realist interpretation of what we are doing in thinking about these things can carry conviction only if it is a better account than the subjectivist or social-constructivist alternatives, and that is always going to be a comparative question and a matter of judgment, as it is about any other domain, whether it be mathematics or science or history or aesthetics.”",
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