Bats … present a range of activity and a sensory apparatus so different from ours that the problem I want to pose is exceptionally vivid (though it c… - Thomas Nagel

Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.

To look for a single general theory of how to decide the right thing to do is like looking for a single theory of how to decide what to believe.

[A]bsurdity is one of the most human things about us: a manifestation of our most advanced and interesting characteristics. … [I]t is possible only because we possess a certain kind of insight — the capacity to transcend ourselves in thought.<p>If a sense of the absurd is a way of perceiving our true situation (even though the situation is not absurd until the perception arises), then what reason can we have to resent or escape it? … [I]t results from the ability to understand our human limitations. It need not be a matter of agony unless we make it so. Nor need it evoke a defiant contempt of fate that allows us to feel brave or proud. Such dramatics even if carried on in private, betray a failure to appreciate the cosmic unimportance of the situation. If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.