Why this book?
- To become acquainted with Thomas Nagel's defense of moral realism.
- To understand the problem of moral relativism and its consequences.
- To examine the meaning of moral progress in human history.
- To learn about one of the important debates in contemporary moral philosophy.
About the book
“Moral Feelings, Moral Reality, and Moral Progress” is a short but dense book by Thomas Nagel on the possibility of moral truth and the meaning of moral progress. In this work, Nagel addresses the question of whether moral judgments are merely expressions of our feelings and preferences, or whether they can point to a reality beyond the mind and social conventions.
The central focus of the book is a defense of the idea that morality cannot be reduced to individual emotions or historical agreements. By examining issues such as slavery and the moral changes of societies, Nagel shows that if no independent moral reality exists, speaking of moral progress would be difficult, or even impossible.
This book continues Nagel's long-standing concerns about rationality, objectivity, and the place of humans in the world. He attempts to preserve the possibility of moral reasoning and to show that human moral feelings can be a form of cognition of values, not merely psychological reactions.
This work is suitable for those interested in moral philosophy, analytic philosophy, and questions concerning the foundations of moral judgment. In this book, the reader encounters one of the most important contemporary defenses of the view that good and bad are something more than human taste and convention.
Summer 1944, a few weeks after the Allied landing in Normandy, a young British Army intelligence officer is left alone with a prisoner; a French Nazi collaborator arrested by the Resistance who has information that could save the lives of dozens of soldiers. The prisoner made an offer: I will tell you everything, on the condition that you guarantee I will be handed over to the British—because he knows if he remains in the hands of the Resistance, he will not be alive by tomorrow. The officer knows such a guarantee is impossible. It would be enough to say, “I promise.” With a few words, the information would be his. He does not say it!