Death explores the debate concerning the nature of death itself: is death a bad thing? Nagel explores this question by formulating 2 distinct hypotheses. The first of these is the postion that death deprives us of life‚ which is the only thing (or state) we have‚ which would make death a certain evil. The other position holds that death is merely the cessation of all awareness and‚ consequently‚ existence. Nagel discusses the conditions of position one‚ saying that life may not be the accumulation
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Nagel believes that we are ridiculous creatures in the sense that we can’t prove without a doubt that our projects or goals are valuable. We can’t prove that our pursuits and goals have any value due to the existence of a gap that separates how we perceive a situation and the actual reality of the given situation. By noticing that we are absurd in this sense‚ we can approach our pursuits and goals with a more spirited attitude in that we think that our pursuits and goals are valuable in order to
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opinions about the rationality of theistic belief: unfriendly atheism‚ indifferent atheism‚ and friendly atheism (307). All three positions maintain their atheism by not believing in a supremely good‚ omnipotent‚ omniscient‚ eternal being (308). The first and most extreme of these varieties of atheism‚ unfriendly atheism‚ is the position that theistic belief is not rationally justified (312-13). The second variety of atheism‚ indifferent atheism‚ is the lack of an opinion concerning the rationality of
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unless we changed our structure. And even then‚ we would not be able to explain what is it about being a bat by being a bat ourselves. As noted by Nagel (436): ‘I want to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat. Yet if I try to imagine this‚ I am restricted to the resources of my own mind‚ and those resources are inadequate to the task. I cannot perform it either by imagining additions to my present
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Atheism vs. Theism The most wanted thing in the world is happiness. We work so hard in order to create or maintain it‚ so much so that it’s counterproductive. Does practicing a religion create happiness? Why is lack of religion associated with condemnation while certain attitudes believe anyone not associated with them is inferior? Religion is ultimately blinding people to their own world. By saying one knows the “ultimate” truth stops the search in the first place. People become static‚ people
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you have just made was the best possible decision for you to make? An agent ’s relationship between responsibility and his decisions in life are affected by the alternative choices that were not taken as well as the choices that were made. Thomas Nagel believes that an agent ’s autonomy is always being threatened by the possibility of a viewpoint that is more objective than his own. His view on responsibility is such that in order to place responsibility on an agent‚ sufficient reflection about alternative
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Through out the life and times of Thomas Nagel‚ has contributed to a wide spectrum of philosophical topics in ethical theory‚ moral psychology‚ applied ethics‚ and political theory‚ as well as to metaphysics and epistemology. According to the Platonic Myth‚ Nagel States “The thing we can do which comes closest to getting outside of ourselves is to form a detached idea of the world that includes us‚ and includes our possession of that conception as part of what it enables us to understand about
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Moral Luck Through Moral Luck‚ Nagel discusses the problem of moral luck and the conflict that arises between the common practice and intuition that most of society believes in regarding morality. Throughout his essay‚ Nagel defines intuition and the phenomenon of moral luck and claims that‚ despite having this intuition‚ people often make moral judgments about people based on factors that are beyond their control (for example‚ a drunk driver who kills a child). Nagel claims that the problem of moral
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Atheism "Atheist" redirects here. For other uses‚ see Atheist (disambiguation). Part of a series on Atheism Concepts Antitheism Atheism and religion Criticism of atheism Implicit and explicit atheism Negative and positive atheism History History of atheism New Atheism State atheism Arguments for atheism Arguments against God’s existence Argument from free will Argument from inconsistent revelations Argument from nonbelief Argument from poor design Atheist’s Wager Fate of the unlearned
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Chris Scanlan Atheism The problem Atheists have with Theists and the premise of God‚ a Being who is all good‚ omniscient‚ omnipotent and eternal‚ is that they believe that since science and the world cannot prove that such a being exists and since life seems to sustain itself without any external help‚ then this Being probably does not exists nor can this Being ever be proven to exist. This method of thinking stems directly from a belief‚ not that science is god‚ but more that mankind is a self-sufficient
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