Recently read Nagel's 'The Possibility of Altruism'1, and what struck me throughout is how Kantian it sounded. I'll first summarize Nagel's argument, and then try and contrast it with Kant's.
Nagel starts by defending the view that reason can motivate our actions. Hume famously argued that “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions”2 - ie reason on its own cannot motivate us, but can only help us to obtain what we happen to desire. Nagel's first counter-example is prudence, taking an action now based on an envisioned future desire, eg going grocery shopping even if you're not hungry. Being hungry is obviously motivating. We can then through reason, identify with that future, hungry person. This identification is fundamental to being a person - it'd be very hard to imagine someone who couldn't identify with their future self. Therefore, prudential actions are motivated by reason, rather than any present desire.
Nagel then moves on to morality. Take three statements:
I don't want to be robbed
People don't want to be robbed
I shouldn't rob
The first statement is a straightforward subjective, desire. The second, a reasoned, universalized, objective version. If I agree that (2) follows from (1), and (1) can obviously motivate action, then (2) must be capable of creating a motivation, which I can phrase as (3).
The first question is why must I go from (1) to (2)? Why should I reason? We can imagine Arendt's description of evil as a refusal to think (eg post). There are serious philosophers who argue that we are under no obligation to reason in this way (see post). Nagel argues that being able to identify with your future self or with other people is so “basic to human nature” [p146] that it’d be hard to imagine a person who could consciously deny it. And, FWIW, I also can't imagine being unable to see the world impartially.
All of our personal judgements, including first-person psychological claims, commit us to corresponding impersonal judgements about the same circumstances, viewed impersonally. [p106]
The harder question is why should I go from (2) to (3)? I can see that other people don't want to be robbed - but why must other people's desire create a motivation for me? The case of prudence seems very different. In both cases, we connect a subjective desire with an objective perspective, and allow that objective perspective to create a motivation. But it's much easier for me to be motivated by my future self-desires, since I know that they are really my desires. My reasoned judgement borrows it's power from my own selfishness. In contrast, I know I’ll never actually be in someone else's shoes.
Nagel's primary argument is that when we go from (1) to (2), we are not just universalizing the belief, but also the motivational content. If you agree that (1) is sufficient to motivate action, how can (2) not be? Take as an example 'X has reason to do Y', and 'I am X'. Nagel argues it'd be odd to say that the first part has no motivational power, until we add the second, trivial part.
… the motivational content of ethical judgements must be present in their impersonal as well as their personal versions. It is not enough merely to be able to say of others, on impersonal grounds, what they should do. One must be able to mean by it what they mean when they make the same assertions. [p109]
Nagel recognizes the limitation of this argument. His last line of defense is to note his goal is only to establish the “possibility” of altruism [p145] and explain how we could be susceptible [p124] to motivation by objective reasons. It is not impossible to deny that (2) or (3) follow from (1). But doing so means denying the ability to see the world objectively, an ability which is fundamental to being a person:
… scepticism about the validity of that central class of moral reasons connected with altruism depends not just on the rejection of certain desires or sentiments, but on the abandonment of fundamental forms of practical reasoning and the conception of oneself to which they are related. [p143]
To me, this sounds a lot like Kantianism. Both Nagel and Kant argue we are motivated to a universalized, golden rulish morality based on objective principles determined through reason. Nagel even occasionally uses the phrase ‘a priori’ and ‘metaphysics’.
Is Nagel a closet Kantian or is there a substantial difference? The biggest contrast that I see, is that Nagel tends to connect desire with reason, describing altruism as the transformation of our subjective desires into objective principles3. Kant instead emphasizes the distinction between reasons associated with desire and pure reason.
… a principle which is based only on the subjective susceptibility to a pleasure or displeasure (which is never known except emperically and cannot be valid in the same form for all rational beings) cannot function as a law even to the subject posessing this susceptibility, because it lacks objective necessity, which must be known a priori (CPrR p21-24).
Kant's statement of morality, the Categorical Imperative (CI), he believes to be a priori, discoverable purely through reason without any desire at all - act only in a way that you could will be a universal law.
As already noted, Kant and Nagel end up at mostly the same place. We can think of the CI as the ‘form’ of morality, knowable through pure reason. But attempts to be a moral person and apply the CI will depend on subjective experiences5. Kant says it’s universal and necessary that a person will recognize the truth of the CI, which sounds very similar to Nagel’s claim that it’s fundamental that a person will recognize the truth of objective reasons that correspond to subjective reasons. There isn’t much gap between the CI and the predisposition to move from (1) to (2).
Kant anticipates the idea that something like morality could arise by a universalized subjectivity, which sounds similar to Nagel’s conception (CPrR p26). We could all agree to act on what makes us all happy. But Kant rejects this foundation for morality, describing it as “contingent” rather than “necessary”, even though he admits this sounds like “hairsplitting”6. Any motivation grounded in subjectivity is hypothetical - you should do x in order to get y. But you can always follow that up with why should I care about y? In Nagel’s case - why should I care about rejecting something (that you claim is) fundamental to human nature? Kant wants to establish morality as categorical, something that simply must be done, without condition. By grounding morality in a necessary, a priori law of reason, Kant’s getting as close to bedrock as we’re capable of.
Does this matter? Nagel grounds morality in the subjective desire you know you have. It’s a little less mysterious, and a little less wonderous (I’ve tried to explain). Kant hopes that by grounding morality in pure reason it will be a little harder to shrug off. It seems to me that Nagel’s view has some of the same drawbacks of Kant, without the advantages.
But, as Kant said, this is hairsplitting, and I’m not all that confident that Nagel and Kant really are on different strands of that split. But that on its own is the strangeness I wanted to write about - why did Nagel not just say how his views contrasted? Kant looms over the whole book. Parhaps I missed it or misunderstood7. But it makes me worry - is Kantianism not cool anymore?
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Nagel, Thomas. The Possibility of Altruism. United States, Princeton University Press, 1978.
Hume, David. Treatise on Human Nature
I’m not sure Nagel would agree, but see for example - “The proper form of objectification depends on the nature of the subjective reasons with which one begins” p129 - ie Nagel pictures that objective reasons “begin” as subjective reasons, which I do think is a contrast with Kant.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of practical reason. Singapore, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993.
Yes, there's the other sense of the CI where Kant claims immorality is logically contradictory (see eg post), and it’s interesting, but IMO it doesn’t get you very far. Nagel at one point claims his morality would also reject non-universalizable preferences as “self-contradictory” (p135), though it’s not obvious to me how this fits with the rest of Nagel’s argument.
And if Kant thinks it’s hairsplitting…
I’m dumb as shit.