Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong

by J.L. Mackie

An insight into moral skepticism of the 20th century. The author argues that our every-day moral codes are an 'error theory' based on the presumption of moral facts which, he persuasively argues, don't exist. His refutation of such facts is based on their metaphysical 'queerness' and the observation of cultural relativity.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Law, Politics, 20th Century, Theory, Reference

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

John Leslie Mackie was an Australian philosopher, originally from Sydney. He is perhaps best known for his views on meta-ethics, especially his defence of moral skepticism. However, he has also made significant contributions to philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and philosophy of language.

Reviews

[Xander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recently, I decided to delve into meta-ethics, more specifically twentieth century-meta-ethics. With the fear of over-generalizing, up to the twentieth century ethics was pretty straightforward. There were: ethics rooted in metaphysics (Christianity, Kant, Spinoza, etc.); ethics rooted in worldly consequences (hedonism, utilitarianism, etc.); and ethics rooted in common sense (Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, etc.).

But after Kant, philosophy, including ethics, started to hit a brick wall. If all that can be said about ethical principles is that they’re located in a transcendent world and are hence unknowable, then all pursuit of ethics practically stops. There’s simply nothing to talk about anymore. Kant thought he had saved God, the Immortal Soul and Free Will with this transcendental world, but what he actually accomplished was the collapse of fruitful philosophy – in science, but in ethics as well.

This led – again, overly simplifying things – to the pitiful state of philosophy in the nineteenth century. Old sciences progressed spectacularly (physics, chemistry, biology, etc.), while new sciences sprang up in numbers (psychology, sociology, etc.). And in ethics, all that could be concluded from the epoch ‘Plato to Kant’ was that nothing could be said anymore. This led to strange and absurd doctrines like Kierkegaard’s ‘leap of faith’ or to the bitterly empty ‘nihilism’ of a Nietzsche.

The only viable ethical doctrine of the time was utilitarianism, in all its forms, but this was – partly due to its origin in British thinkers like Bentham and Mill – mainly taught in the Anglo-Saxon world. Utilitarianism, while doing away with metaphysical notions and making ethics a philosophical subject again, brought its own set of (new) problems. For example, if ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ is the first principle of ethics, what is happiness? Why is happiness the object and not some other state of mind? And who is included in this greatest number? All fellow citizens? All people? Future generations? The indeterminacies in utilitarianism were a fruitful starting point for new philosophical debates. It isn’t, then, strange, that from this Anglo-Saxon philosophical side there arose a renewed interest in ethics around the turn of the twentieth century.

One answer came from G.E. Moore, who claimed that ethics, ultimately, was rooted in our intuition of ‘Good’. What is Good? is a question that cannot be answered either empirically or analytically, we grasp the notion of ‘Good’ intuitively. The next step is to look what object partake in this intuition. According to Moore, ‘personal affections’ and ‘beautiful objects’. Practical ethics consisted in drawing up a set of rules or guidelines that would increase these two objects in the world -according to Moore, this is the ‘good life’.

But intuitionism is vague, almost as vague as the metaphysical ethics that the intuitionists (including Moore) tried to refute. Another approach to the meta-ethical quest for first principles was that offered by the logical-positivists. Highly inspired by the natural sciences, these scientists-turned-philosophers claimed that not all language is meaningful, and hence that not all statements contain truths or falsehoods. The first step in philosophy should be to draw the line. To do this, they came up with the verifiability criterion for meaning. Since logic can only offer us insights into the knowledge already contained in logical statements (i.e. add nothing new); and since empirical sciences can offer us new knowledge; if a statement can be verified empirically it has meaning. This isn’t the same as claiming this empirical statement is true, but at least it can be verified through experiment and observation.

Ethics, in the logical-positivist view, has no meaning. Through linguistic analysis it can be shown that ethical statements are neither logical statements nor empirical statements, so they contain no knowledge nor meaning. According to A.J. Ayer, ethical statements are simply expressions of emotions – this view is called emotivism. The emotivist perspective on ethics then excludes ethics, again, from the domain of philosophy.

So after intuitionism and emotivism, ethics again seemed to be in a tough position. Around the same time, World War II happened and in its aftermath people started to ponder how the atrocities committed by the Germans and Japanese were possible; how masses of average ‘normal’ people could be persuaded by dictators and their elites to do the most horrible deeds. In this mood of the times, ethics seemed to be more and more the subject of scientific study. A few important examples of this Zeitgeist are the Milgram-experiment, the Stanford Prison experiment and the Robbers Cave experiment – these studies all offered an understanding to obeying authority, the influence of role and position on cruel behaviour and in-group conformity/out-group hostility.

Philosophy seemed, for a moment, to be out of the game when it came to ethical questions. (Not to say that philosophers didn’t think or write about ethics in this era, but they simply weren’t that influential anymore.) With Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977), a book written by philosopher J.L. Mackie, the old meta-physical quest was, again, taken up. Mackie is a pragmatic, realistic and nuanced thinker, who offered his own take on the question of ethical first principles.
Mackie’s doctrine can be summarized as follows:

According Mackie, everyday moral reasoning purports to be objective. Morality is deemed, by most people, to be an objective system. But this is false – there is no objective morality. When we study different cultures, or the same culture through time, we discover different moral systems – what is good here or now, can be bad somewhere else or tomorrow. This Mackie calls the ‘argument from relativity’. Also, if values are objective, they would be of a totally different kind than other worldly objects. We perceive world object through our sense apparatus, but what sense of faculty do we perceive moral values with? This Mackie calls the argument from queerness.

So both arguments lead us to the conclusion that ethics is not a study of objective values. Why do we all believe it is, then? Because of the social needs ethical systems fulfil. We objectify values because, in doing this, we transform them into authoritative moral judgements. This objectification of values Mackie calls the ‘error theory’. We believe, erroneously, that values are objective because they are deemed to be so; our belief in the objectivity of values is a fundamental need of human beings.

Alright, but this seems to beg the question. If objective values are errors due to our need for authoritative moral judgements, what explains this need? To answer this question, Mackie falls back on earlier philosophers: (Plato’s) Protagoras, Hobbes, Locke and Hume. These thinkers, although they differ widely in their thoughts on this subject, all claimed that the human condition is not fit, at least not totally, to live in social groups. Each individual is occupied by his own self-interests and this doesn’t make for good cooperation – conflicts and competition will arise. To deal with these problems, mankind invented a system of values that, if believed to objective, would accommodate peaceful relationships between people.

This means that all ethical principles, and the practical prescriptions derived therefrom, contain a high degree of subjectivity. What such an ethical system of values does is to universalize a set of practical principles. Mackie distinguishes between three levels of universalization: (1) values that are independent of situation and person; (2) values that are independent in the sense of (1) plus independent of mental & physical qualities, economic resources and social status; and (3) values that are independent in the sense of (2) plus all actual points of view (such as tastes, ideals, etc.). The end product of this last stage is a system of compromises between different people with different views on how to live a good life.

What Mackie does is claim ethics is, ultimately, a subjective system of values that emerges from our way of life and the conventions we’re familiar with. In other words, moral reasoning and ethical obligations are subjective conventions, which we can choose to follow or not follow. Ethics, then, is a personal decision to act according to the values we share with our contemporary fellow human beings.

But what is the object of this system of values, whether it be objective or subjective? Hobbes saw ethics as a social contract, to end the war of “all against all”. Locke saw it as a social contract as well, partly in the Hobbesian sense, and partly to protect the fruits of labour of all people against usurpation by those in power (i.e. property rights). In broad outlines, Hume agreed with these views. These thinkers, then, saw ethics as the solution to very natural problems: mankind’s biology and society offers problems, of which morality is a partial solution. The other, complementary, solution is offered by law and justice – enforcing morality where morality isn’t prudent to follow. The carrot and the stick, so to speak.

Mackie offers game theory as a vindication of this morality-law-distinction. Game theory predicts that the world is riddled with situations in which it is in the interests of all parties involved to act selfishly, leading to sub-optimal results for everyone. To overcome this plethora of zero-sum-games, people invent a higher power – the law – to enforce a certainty of cooperation. This certainty makes people trust in each other and mitigate conflict and competition.

It’s all well to say ethics is a device that people use to objectify shared values and enforce cooperation on the self and others, but this doesn’t offer us clues to how such a system of shared values would look like. In the second part of the book, Mackie occupies himself with concretely filling in this system of ethics. To do this, he studies consequentialism and deontology.

Consequentialism claims that the results of our actions are the yardstick with which to measure the goodness of our actions. But this makes consequentialist thinking, such as utilitarianism, highly flexible and indeterminate. Utilitarianism, for example, prescribes rules as guidelines for how to act in everyday life. “The greatest happiness of the greatest number” is deemed to be the ethical principle; in real life we should then calculate how much a set of alternative actions will contribute to the greatest happiness and then pick the one option that increases happiness the most. But this rather begs the question “whose happiness?”

Consequentialism isn’t able to tell us how to incorporate the potential happiness of other people or future generations – for example, if I can increase the happiness of one person by sacrificing ten innocent people ot a higher level then otherwise would be possible, should I do this? Also, how do I measure this (what’s happiness? With what do I establish this?) and how I can function normally throughout the day without bogging down in endless ‘ethical calculations’. Utility calculus simply isn’t realistic and it, ultimately, leads to the absurd notion that a technological device (such as a pill) that would artificially keep us happy all the time should be developed. But we all feel that this takes away our freedom of choice, which is a key component of happiness.

Deontology, on the other hand, negates these problems. It lays down absolute ethical principles to establish our ends, and tells us to carefully to evaluate the consequences of the means we pick to obtain the established ends. Deontology is an ethics of means and ends. For example, Kant claimed we should never treat people merely as means but always also as ends – if I use the services of an office clerk, I should not only use him as a means to obtain my end (receiving a form) but always also as an autonomous human being (i.e. respect his person).

This is, intuitively, a much more ethical approach than utilitarianism, but it offers its own problems. For one, once the absolute principles are established the practical guidelines are, almost by definition, rigid and inflexible. Any absolutist claim of ethics stifles human individuality.

Mackie tries to square the circle and synthesize his own ethical system from both consequentialism and deontology. According to him, we should (1) establish absolute principles with regard to ends; (2) establish nearly absolute principle with regard to means; and (3) thus allowing some weight to secondary, unforeseen, effects of the means we choose. In other words: Mackie wants to tell us what ends a ‘good life’ is supposed to be composed of, and leave us some room for how to obtain this ‘good life’. In general, the more a consequence of a chosen means can be foreseen by a person, the more a person is morally responsible for the effects of this consequence.

Now we can see what Mackie is trying to do. He wants to establish a ‘first order morality’ which sketches the broad outlines of ethics; and then develop a ‘second order morality’ – a moral and judicial device – which fills in more concretely the ethical do’s and don’ts.

Mackie’s first order morality is summed up as Thomas Jefferson’s contribution to the US Declaration of Independence: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The pursuit of happiness as an absolute principle of ethics acknowledges human selfishness and our limited sympathies for others. Egoism and prudence aren’t suppressed (such as under religious morality) or downplayed (such as under Kant’s deontology). This, in short, is the abstract ethical framework in which Mackie has to operate.

Mackie is a realist and (rightly) sees humanity not as simply a collection of individuals. Any individual is not occupied solely with himself. Any individual is part of various social groups – the family, the workplace, the city, the nation, etc. – and is partially dependent of members of all these other groups for his own happiness. Acting purely out of self-interest might be a fruitful short-term strategy, but in the long-term this will have disastrous effects. According to Mackie, each individual is located in multiple social circles – some intersecting, some not. This is a metaphoric way of claiming that society consists of cooperation, competition and conflict. Each individual partakes in all these three situations in his various groups and to various degrees.

Any second order morality that is founded on the pursuit of happiness has to mitigate conflict and competition and promote a healthy amount of cooperation. Rights acknowledge egoism to a certain point, but also limit it in significant ways. So when John Locke claims property rights are the principle of ethics, he fails to make clear distinctions. It might very well be that I have right to possess the fruits of my labour, but these fruits are not totally due to my own labour. First, any product, ultimately, is tied to nature, which is a common good. Second, my labour is only possible when others create tools for me, offer me a place to work in, or start a company that I can then enter as employee. Third, the value of the fruits of my labour comes about through the interplay of society: the free market necessitates buyers and sellers. So Locke overlooks our dependency on our fellow human beings to (literally) create value and this is simply fallacious.

To summarize Mackie’s ethics: the absolute ethical principle, or the end of ethics, is the individual pursuit of happiness. Morality and law constitute the restraints on our freedom of choice to obtain this end. Within this playing field, we are free to choose the means to obtain our happiness. This subjective system of values acknowledges our innate egoism, our calculating prudence and our innate dispositions; it also acknowledges our need to function in social groups and the need to mitigate zero-sum games (i.e. conflict and competition). Anyone who can participate in this social game offers some part of his freedom of choice how to obtain happiness to let society function properly and peacefully. This morality is then extended, voluntarily, to people who cannot participate in this social game, as well as to animals.

Some practical consequences of Mackie’s ethics are the lack of an absolute right to life (e.g. abortion and euthanasia are allowed); war and revolution are allowed in certain cases; moral responsibility should be established along moral and judicial lines (i.e. determine the degree of intentionality of an act, directly or though negligence); leaves room for determinist and indeterminist views on our biological and psychological functioning. Also, this system of values is very nuanced on the domains of liberty (adjudication between rival claims of freedom); truth (prudence determines whether to tell the truth); agreements (the importance of moral devices to prevent conflict); and virtue (combination of conventions, personal ideas of what’s good and the use of reason). Finally, this view on ‘the good life’ stresses the need for compromises, and where these are unobtainable, the need for ‘live and let live.’

I think Mackie’s claims in Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong are the only way to go in the modern world. But not only this, I think his view on the matter is the truthful one. Religious people like to claim morality is rooted in the existence of God, but this makes morality nothing but the compliance to a dictator – benevolent or otherwise. Science simply shows morality to be a biological characteristic of sentient beings, which comes in different degrees. For example, there are many animal species that live in groups and have developed altruistic rules to help fellows in need and to feel bad about perceived injustices. Also, science shows human morality to be partially a social construct – vindicating Hobbes, Locke and Hume. Human cultures have al established rules to live by and devices to enforce these rules if necessary. And science also shows the human need for personal freedom and development. Mackie’s system of subjective values is, as far as I can tell (which is very limited), the only realistic and effective means to foster cooperation and allow for competition and conflict, while mitigating their excesses. Any ethics should acknowledge morality on the three levels mentioned: biology, culture, individual.

I also view his critique on consequentialism and deontology to be spot on. Both systems of thinking are flawed and lead to absurd consequences. Consequentialism is “an ethics of fantasy” while deontology is “moral absolutism.” In short, I am extremely impressed by Mackie’s attempt to establish a humane, realistic and pragmatic system of values that averts all the problems of earlier systems.

The only question (for me) that is still open, is a crucial one. Mackie claims that ethics should be founded on an absolute principle (pursuit of happiness) and the means to obtain this end should be nearly absolute (i.e. morality and law tell us what we can’t do). The rest is up to us. But he doesn’t answer the metaphysical question, which G.E. Moore called ‘the open question argument’, is happiness truly good? In other words: why should we pursue happiness in the first place?

But this question seems to be so trivial that it isn’t really a valid one. We all want to be happy right? And my happiness is something different from yours, so we leave room for both of us to pursue it the way we want. Maybe the key lesson from this book is that this meta-ethical question-begging simply is unproductive and meaningless; that we should rather focus on ethics as a moral device with its particular function of managing cooperation, conflict and competition.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book you have to reflect on. Essentially Mackie argues that morality cannot be objective and is subjective. The book is structured in three parts with 10 chapters.

The first part examines the status of ethics.

The Subjectivity of Values which he concludes:

‘Moral scepticism, the denial of objective moral values, is not to be confused with any of several first order normative views, or with any linguistic or conceptual analysis. Indeed, ordinary moral judgements involve a claim to objectivity which both non-cognitive and naturalist analyses fail to capture. Moral scepticism must therefore, take the form of error theory, admitting that a belief in objective values is built into ordinary moral thought and language, but holding that this belief is false. ‘

The following chapters cover The Meaning of Good. Obligations and Reasons ending with Universalization.

The second part investigates there content of ethics with chapters on the object of morality, utilitarianism, Consequentialism and Deontology and ending with elements of a practical morality. Mackie outlines a first order moral system where he bases it around rule utilitarianism.

Part 3 is on Frontiers of Ethics with the two final chapters covering determinism, responsibility and choices as well as religion, law and politics.

Is he correct that morality is subjective with no means of measuring it objectively. Instead we prescribe morals to fit our desires within legal, religious, social and economic frameworks that allow us to live cooperatively and competitively. I do not know the answer but the book does challenge your perceptions about morality.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this medium length, but relatively dense, book, Mackie sketches out the main areas and debates of moral philosophy while also criticising and arguing for his own particular ethical system. The book is well structured and written, as well as straightforward to read. I think the value of this work lies in the discussion of the popular debates and various critiques offered and rebutted. However I find some of Mackie's own conclusions somewhat unconvincing.

In fairness, moral philosophy is my least favourite area of philosophy as I find it somewhat secondary to metaphysics/epistemology etc. It seems backwards to argue for an ethical system without having it firmly rooted in a metaphysical/epistemological foundation.

Not to say Mackie doesn't discuss moral epistemology. It's just that he begins from a standpoint of ethical epistemology alone and I think that puts me off.

[Renée · Rating 4 out of 5]

J.L. Mackie is one of those philosophers that I've been fond of since my first encounter with his work. I've read his Miracle of Theism a few times for philosophy of religion-related escapades, and now I've finally tackled his Ethics. I must say that I am definitely impressed, and also inclined to agree with Mackie on many of his points. His error theory is rather well-known, and although some philosophers are quite dismissive of it, I find it a very interesting theory. If you're interested in ethics, especially metaethics, then I'd definitely recommend it!

[Richard Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mackie's book provides some interesting arguments for the overall thesis that there are no objective values in Ethics, but that we can and should invent a consistent and commonly shared set of ethical principles (hence the sub-title inventing right and wrong) - i.e. this shared basis has no objective truth outside of the minds of human beings, but that does not mean we cannot have a common approach.

This took me some time to get into the swing of Mackie's writing style, but once you do this is an interesting and thought provoking book.

Re-read Oct 2020: I might have been slightly more generous on my grading if this had been my first read, but for now I've left it as originally reviewed. Mackie makes some clear arguments for Error Theory, especially his famous argument from queerness. Still, the style I find a little trying at time. Sometimes I think he is trying to write an academic book, and sometimes (as the Penguin cover would suggest), something more mass market. The combination does not always work well. Still, style aside a good and useful ethics book.

[Anuj Apte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good defense of moral skepticism that also outlines how ethics arose and can be shaped for furthering flourishing of humans by enhancing co-operation. Although, the remarks in the second half of the book they are a great spring board into issues such as determinism and its implication for moral responsibility (further discussed by authors such as Denett), evolutionary perspective on rise of ethical dispositions and the intersection of political and moral philosophy. Another great aspect is the idea that rules akin to deontology can arise out of rational egoism/ utilitarianism as a means to create heuristics that can simplify behavior given the uncertainty in the information that leads to decision and the outcomes that can arise as a consequence.

[Álvaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5(+). It feels wrong to give such a foundational book a mediocre score like this, but I feel like the discussion loses a lot of steam given its shaky foundations. Mackie thinks of objective moral value as vaguely suspicious, gets rid of it, and, after a (fairly interesting) discussion on the linguistic analysis of normative terms, goes on to simply opine on what a non-objective morality should look like. Though his opinions are reasonable, the arguments are barebones and he glosses over many difficult debates with remarkable comfort. At any rate, Mackie is a good writer and a smart man, and the book in general reads very well.

[Ian Gere · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 - A very compelling and thorough argument for moral skepticism and cultural relativism. However, I found that Mackie’s anti-realist approach is too pessimistic for understanding morality. While the cultural relativist argument is tempting to follow, I still think there’s more to the autonomy of ethics.

[Cooper Ackerly · Rating 3 out of 5]

In fairness to Mackie (or, at any rate, an interpretation of Mackie), were I not a non-naturalist moral realist I would probably be an error theorist.

[Daniel Hageman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was pretty torn between giving this 4 vs 5 stars, as there’s such a surplus of material that I have stark disagreements with, but overall can’t deny that Mackie confirms himself as one of the most intellectually credible philosophers of this past century in his persuasive arguments. If you want the ‘best arguments’ in support of the idea that moral claims do not have objective truth value, this is probably your cup of tea.

However, while one might be inclined to say that Mackie is ‘technically correct’, he is correct in a manner that seems trivial compared to what most people are talking/caring about when they discuss the nature of moral claims. If taking the pertinent terms as defined by Mackie, I would be sympathetic to his concluding ontological claims, but would be less interested in the subject area as a whole. So, I’m tempted to say my disagreements are perhaps of a more linguistic nature with respect to ‘objectivity’.

Mackie opens in declaration that not only do moral values not objectively exist, but nor do any values whatsoever (beauty, loyalty, etc.). While I think it serves little (or likely negative) utility to claim that that there is not truth value to claims made about the beauty of something, I do understand why such confusion arises, given that the it only makes sense to speak of the value/beauty of something as contingent upon the experience of the agent that values it. Yet, this sort of claim does not seem to unique to beauty, or moral claims, for that matter. What if we asked the same about gravity, which seems inseparable from matter? Ought we say that gravity doesn’t objectively exist, because it wouldn’t exist without matter? Or more directly analogous, would emotions, justice, loyalty, etc. not objectively exist since each wouldn’t be coherent without human subjective experience? Or how about legal laws, which exist insofar as they a relevant to the interactions between agents? Even the most basic descriptive claim, about a physical object existing or the structure of a given chemical compound, is latent with value judgements, including such as those of logical consistency, the veracity of our empirical senses, etc, all of which undergird these most basic claims, but which we yet accept as objectively true. No claim, whether evaluative or descriptive, seems able to escape such pervasive reliance on underlying values, and Mackie doesn’t seem distinguish why moral claims are categorically different from all others, aside from the obvious but irrelevant point that there is disagreement about its definition and implementation.

Nonetheless, Mackie delivers other insights about normative ethics, the relevance of theistic claims, and even a unique take on the free will debate, that make this polemic piece a necessity for any serious moral philosopher (or wannabe philosophers, obviously). Definitely give it a read if you want to challenge your moral realism, or to give yourself better arguments for your already incorrect view of non-cognitivism ;)

[VII · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first phrase of this book is “[t]here are no objective values”. The next few sentences describe likely reactions: “not merely false but pernicious”, “trivial truth, almost too obvious to be worth mentioning” and “meaningless or empty”. My reaction was almost identical to the second, (minus the “almost”). I find books on ethics extremely boring and this one was no exception, although it was probably one of the drier ones. It's not “wrong”, but if you accept the first statement it just becomes glorified policy making.

I certainly blame one of my professors for this. He advertised the first part as “consistent moral relativism”, probably implying that there aren't many consistent ones. These guys, Mackie almost included (but ok, not really), still live by the dream of consistent universalization and of logic being able to provide clean guidelines. Mackie does provide a system that in practice would avoid it, although his description of it is exactly that. But anyway, I 'll just write a few things about the first part then, which is the basically the argument that supports the first statement; the others parts build his non-realist ethics that I don't care enough to mention.

Mackie describes two levels. The first concerns our moral practices or our discussion about it. The second level (the meta-ethical one) talks of the those practices, for example asking what kind of entities they are or how they interact with each other. That capitalism is evil is a first order statement, that there are no evil things is a second order statement and that's consistent because “evil” is just a normative description.

He provides two arguments against moral realism, one from relativism and another from queerness. The first is obvious, different cultures and all that, while the second is basically the fact that these entities, if they existed would be truly strange and unlike anything else that exists in the world. The problem for me is not so much that of existence, but of their other property, that of compelling people to recognize them and act based upon them. I don't know why nobody mentions this more often (Mackie almost does, but less bluntly) but even if ethical values were standing in front of us in flesh, it would still be simply a naturalistic fallacy if someone asked us to follow them. They have to have some kind of ability that provides recognition of some kind of ultimate Good that cuts through all of other “goods” built in into them to do what people asked them to do and that's just absurd.

[Jeff Liu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts of the book were pretty dense, especially Part I, which is arguably the most important section. Thankfully, the book becomes easier to understand later on.

Part 1 discusses Mackie's views on metaethics (or second order morality). Here is where he proposes his most famous contribution to metaethics: error theory. Mackie writes that there are no objective moral values, and thus any first order moral statement we make is false. His two arguments for this is the argument from relativity and the argument from queerness. These two arguments are seriously worth considering if you believe in objective morality.

Part 2 goes through the three main branches of normative ethics: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Mackie goes through the pros and cons of each normative ethical system, and derives his system of morality from a combination of all three.

Part 3 discusses the relationship between morality and other topics in philosophy such as freewill, god, and politics.

Although I like the book as a whole, only part 1 can be considered groundbreaking and novel. The other parts mostly just rehash past arguments and discussions relating to the subject of the chapter.

[Andrej Virdzek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is highly valued by people whose opinion I respect, so I was quite surprised by me being a) completely bored and b) completely in disbelief about how long can one talk about an argument from queerness.

We live in the 21st (Mackie in 20th) century. It seems obvious, that if you start talking about the objective existence of "goodness" and you think of other things that are being, at least, by most believed to exist, "Goodness" seems queer. That this was written like an "argument" from "queerness" you may find revealing only after being schooled in philosophy for far too long. Anybody could tell you that. Is it an "aeroplane"? No. Is it a molecule of "oxygen"? No. Is it a "brain"? No. Is it a "colour"? No. Is it a "force"? No.

It is a thing that you cannot see in your experience, and nobody can, also the science cannot find it, and is completely order without it, it is either a property or a self-standing thing which does exist somewhere behind the world, but is also causally inert, it makes some actions worthy of pursuing and praise and some not.
Well, seems at least odd, but because the argument is presented in britain, it is queer.

And, btw, after we have "established" this argument, we still have not repudiated anything. Ethics give me a break.

Do not get me started on the "argument from relativity". I do not want to say that it is Mackie's fault, maybe it is the scholasticism of this period of philosophy, but this can hardly be a "classic" of philosophical thinking, rather a "report of the times".

Three stars for Mackie writing clearly and also for some of the pushing away of linguistic arguments in ethics.

[Bertbarber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever academic study but hard to slog through what often felt like padded out waffle; likely a text book set for students I would think.
Seemed endlessly repetitive to me at times where ultimately much of what was concluded just felt like common sense. Also felt the arc of the script had no particular logic, or perhaps I missed it. A clearer description of what lies ahead would have helped me make sense of it. Sentences were long and often complicated, filled with double negations and mind bending non-conclusions, at least it felt that way!
Some background knowledge of social, political, and philosophical thinkers is essential.
Where it related theory to real life problems found in society it woke me up a little more.

[Lukas op de Beke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I now realize why metaethics courses only assign the first chapter of Mackie's book, if they assign it at all. That is because this chapter contains his famous arguments from queerness and relativity as well as a succinct account of his error theory as a theory of moral anti-realism. The rest of the book, while providing unintentionally a helpful overview of the history of metaethics and normative ethics, is a bit of a slog. It was unclear to me, in fact, what Mackie's positively argues the role of ethics consists in, though he seeks to construct some kind of consequentialist (non-utilitarian) theory.

[Sam L · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quintessential argument for moral anti-realism, and a staple in the curriculum of meta-ethics. Part one is the most famous, where Mackie rejects the existence of objective ethics. Part two is dedicated to synthesizing a new, non-objective morality out of the classic theories of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics. Part three then applies this newley-constructed ethical framework to modern philosophical controversies (or, at least issues that *were* modern when the book was written).

[Harry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I essentially agree with moral error theory as put forward here by Mackie - that when people say “this is wrong” they are making a propositional statement and that these statements are all false because there is no such property as wrong/right or evil/good. I have to admit to skimming the the latter portion of the book which is dedicated to Mackie first showing that a secular, non-objective morality is still perfectly possible, and on what grounds we might decide on the content of that morality. I was just more interested in the critique than in the building.

[Leland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too exciting. Mackie takes the Nietzschean line with morality and then proposes a form of utilitarianism as a practical way forward. A strength of this book is that Mackie is very good at explaining the relationship between ethics and meta-ethics. Upon reading it you'll likely be able to situate your own views better when it comes to squirrely debates. A weakness if that if you've covered these topics before he does not really say anything new or interesting.

[Calvin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucid, groundbreaking book that is an absolute must-read for philosophers generally and ethicists in particular. There are some who think philosophy never makes any progress, and there is plenty of evidence in favor of that claim. But Mackie's work, and the branch of meta-ethics he inspired, represents a strong counter. Mackie puts ethics itself under the analytical microscope and produces deep insights into the human mind and the shared cultural phenomenon of morality.

[Holden Snyder · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a wonderful description of moral error theory, but Mackie too often makes odd inductive leaps and poor judgments. that doesn't mean his theory isn't interesting, or even that it isn't correct, but this book doesn't possess the polished rhetoric of other works concerning moral subjectivity such as the ever-popular Genealogy of Morals from Nietzsche.

[Moss]

I read this for the introduction (first 60ish pages) which is Mackie’s core argument. After that section I skimmed/skipped the rest of the book which was a general introduction to a handful of concepts. His argument is decent. Without much knowledge about error theory this was a nice place to start.

[Jacob Lenoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chock full of good ideas, but takes a while to work through

[Robertcaister · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable read in which JL Mackie hammers home the subjective nature of Morals and Laws and that making societies rules and standards is the responsibility of people and society.

[Marcus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The leading account of a massively influential and plausible meta-ethics: error theory.

[Bry Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hospitalised and my home was destroyed. This was among the books lost. I enjoyed what I read, but I won't replace it.

[Kel · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are no objective values, or so the book makes the case for. A startling, and somewhat absurd proposition given the central nature of moral thought to our actions as humans. But JL Mackie makes a very persuasive case that not only how we talk about morality is wrong, but there can be no reconciliation between moral truth and nature as we know it. It's a lofty challenge, but Mackie is up to the task. The arguments from relativity and from queerness are still at force today.

What makes the book important, however, is that after spending time making the case for error theory, much of the book is then an exploration of the utility of moral language - what moral language aims at, how existing moral systems of thought fare, and then finally the must read chapter on the elements of practical morality.

Whatever one's opinion on morality, metaphysics, and what it means to lead the good life, Mackie's book should give a clearer understanding of the field. He writes forcefully, he writes with great insight, but most of all he writes with clarity - a work that is meant to be understood by professional and layman alike.

[Mattia Mazzetti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opera illuminante

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is no objective, absolute morality. I agree with that. Humans make up moral rules. However, where Mackie gets things wrong is that he assumes we can't talk about morality if it isn't objective or if it doesn't involve categorical imperatives. I think we can. It just depends on how you think about morality. I see it as something humans construct and some groups have confused us to indoctrinate people to believe in a very rigid, absolute morality. The book has some useful points in response to a very specific conception of morality. For information about origins of morality and a better account of what morality is, I recommend Patricia Churchland's book Conscience: The Origins of Moral Intuition.

[Brandt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book and Mackie's critique style is fluid and leaves you to wonder exactly what he (Mackie) believes. It has some very strong arguments in it that will force you to look critically at the idea that Morals can be objective. His superior argument for the subjectivity of morals, and the introduction of the "Argument from Queerness" is sure to have you questioning anything being absolute. It is very "heady" and will require reading over and over again just to grasp some of the basic concepts.

[Hollis Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring and obscure.