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. His work is distinguished by its breadth, clarity, and acumen.

While there is not a single, narrowly defined theme running through all his work, Nagel has persistently engaged the problem of reconciling an objective view of reality with one's subjective, individual experience as a person. In his magisterial work, The View from Nowhere, Nagel writes: "This book is about a single problem: how to combine the perspective of a particular person inside the world with an objective view of that same world, the person and his viewpoint included. It is a problem that faces every creature with the impulse and the capacity to transcend its particular point of view and to conceive of the world as...