Bertrand Russell formulated neutral monism by default, unguided by any strong idea of a uniform, monistic world. Apparently he worked under the urge to liberate philosophy from the quarrel between physicalists and idealists. But he did not succeed in defusing the controversy, instead he fanned it with his fresh ideas. He argued that matter was indestructible, that some mental regularities occurred independently of our will, and that they unfold as if guided by natural laws. He claimed that some conscious states were to be interpreted as objective events despite the fact that they were accessible only privately. But the concurrence between physical and mental facts indicated a similarity between the principles that guided them, or pointed to their singular common nature. He did not undertake to defend his unitary theory vigorously and did not claim it was indisputable. Possibly he hoped to find an additional support for his theory some day and this paper responds to this unspoken request.

In his book Mortal Questions (1979) Thomas Nagel discusses four practical moral issues: (1) fear of death, (2) the absurdity of human life, (3) sexual perversion and (4) military massacre. His primary concern is neither to justify moral opprobrium nor to find an appropriate punishment for the culprits. Instead, he wants to clarify motives of those individuals who are not afraid of death, who can deal resolutely with the pointlessness of human life, who are not deeply dismayed by the crudity of some forms of sexual behavior or who refuse to justify whatever forms of military atrocities with higher purposes. He reviews various cases of excessive or deficient moral sensitivity and offers specific, case‑oriented advice on how to deal with them. Nagel favors self‑persuasion in cases of fear of death and argues that the sense of absurd is not much different from skepticism. He proposes to draw a line between private and public aspects of sexual behavior and supports dual evaluation of military activities by distinguishing between the moral value of an act and the moral value of the motives of the actor. He condones no atrocities. These arguments do not add up to constitute a form of moral relativism but, instead, seem to restore intellectual respectability of casuistry.