"Common sense doesn't have the last word in……" — 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 first word: it should be examined before it is discarded."
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Thomas Nagel
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42 Quotes by Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel has 42 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems hopeless.
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Reason is universal because no attempted challenge to its results can avoid appealing to reason in the end-by claiming, for…
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I conceive ethics as a branch of psychology.
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equally real at all stages of his life; specifically, the fact that a particular stage is present cannot be regarded…
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To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for…
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A theory of motivation is defective if it renders intelligible behaviour which is not intelligible.
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A person may be greedy, envious, cowardly, cold, ungenerous, unkind, vain, or conceited, but behave perfectly by a monumental act…
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The inclusion of consequences in the conception of what we have done is an acknowledgement that we are parts of…
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Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip…
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The external view [of agency] forces itself on us at the same time that we resist it. One way this…
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There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality.
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The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an…
See all 42 quotes by Thomas Nagel »
More Action Quotes
This quote is filed under Action Quotes,
one of 8,300 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
— Hannah Arendt
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Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then…
— Hannah Arendt
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Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.
— Hannah Arendt
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Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.
— Hannah Arendt
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All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
— Aristotle
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Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate…
— Aristotle
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Well begun is half done.
— Aristotle
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A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole…
— Aristotle
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Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
— Aristotle
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We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
— Aristotle
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Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for…
— Aristotle
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What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition…
— Aristotle
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