Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong

It might be read as an introduction to Ethics, but it isn't one. It is rather one of the most important works in 20th century ethics. Mackie's book was revolutionary since being the first one to combine anti-realism (no objectively prescriptive values in the world) with cognitivism (the meaning of ethical statements can be true or false). Most of the previous anti-realists were anti-realists mostly implicitly, only because of being non-cognitivsts. Mackie has a different view which in my opinion is much more closer to the truth. The book also contains his error theory (people have a disposition to see their value judgments as objective). While the reviewer cdtreyer as the mainstream tradition have concentrated on Mackie's error theory I think it is much less important than the denial of the objective values and the justification of the role of morality in quasi-contractual terms. Mackie's views on positive morality are justified by quasi-contractual (he discusses Plato's Protagoras, Hobbes and Hume) means and would combine very well with evolutionary perspectives. The discussion on the content of normative views is just a brief sketch, but this isn't really what this book is about anyway. Anyone who claims that the contents of the first part of the book undermine the contents of the second should read chapter 5 again and again and again. That there are no objective values in the world does not mean that there can't be right or wrong - it simply must be (or rather already has largely been) invented and constructed. If you are interested in ethics you simply need to read this small, but important book which, while not being an introduction is still quite simple and very elegantly written. Besides the main content you will also get to read a great discussion on the meaning of the good (in debate with the classical Geach-Hare discussion found in Philippa Foot's "Theories of Ethics"), discussion on the is-ought problem and its flawed Searlean solution (also found in Foots collection), a chapter on univerzalisability of moral judgments (contra Hare) and on the frontiers of ethics: voluntary actions, determinism, law, politics, religion.

The first chapter of Mackie's Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong is the locus classicus for error theories in contemporary meta-ethics. There he argues that ordinary moral discourse and thought involve an assumption that there are what he calls "objective values," and that this assumption is false. Consequently, ordinary moral thought and language are infected by an error that precludes any ordinary moral claims and thoughts from being true. Mackie first argues for a cognitivist interpretation of moral language. In other words, he argues that ordinary moral claims purport to describe facts about the world. In particular, ordinary moral language and thought purport to describe facts about objective moral values. What are objective moral values? They have two defining characteristics: (i) mind-independent existence (think of how chairs, trees, people, and electrons exist), and (ii) "intrinsic and categorical prescriptivity": that is, they are such that the mere apprehension of them will motivate a person to act in a certain way. The former characteristic is the source of their objectivity; the latter is the source of their normativity.But, he claims, we have good reason to think that no such things exist. Mackie's fundamental worry about these putative objective values is that these things are especially "queer," that they are unlike any other things we have good reason to think exist. As I understand Mackie, underlying his worries about the queerness of these putative entities is his perception of a tension in their nature. He appears to believe that the objectivity of these putative entities is in tension with their intrinsic and categorical action-guidingness. That is, it is unclear to Mackie how something that exists as a mind-independent part of reality could have the sort of influence on human behavior that these objective values are supposed to have. It is unclear how something could be both objective and normative. The things that scientists study and that we encounter in the everyday world simply don't have this sort of categorical action-guidingness built into them. So, given the naturalistic conception of the world that Mackie favors, we have good a posteriori reasons to doubt the existence of objective moral values.But, if Mackie is correct about the nature of ordinary moral thought and language, this commits us to regarding ordinary moral thought and language as involving a very fundamental sort of error, an error of presupposing that objective moral values exist. Mackie then completes his error theory by providing an explanation of our tendency to make this error, to mistakenly suppose that ordinary moral thought and language involve our successfully coming to know about the sorts of things he claims don't exist.Mackie's book doesn't end here, however. Indeed, this is only the first chapter, and Mackie goes on to cover a wide range of territory in normative ethics and meta-ethics, along with a few issues in metaphys

The startling thing is that this book even needs to be written.There are no objective moral facts -- if you think otherwise,then name one. Whatever you name, I deny it (I can safelydo this without knowing what you name, since I deny allpurported objective moral facts). What argument can you musterthat it IS an objective moral fact? Any valid argument mustbe based on some other objective moral fact, which I in turndeny. I may well agree with this or that moral statement,but that's simply a matter of subjective views. Some moralstatements might be agreed to by every subjective human beingon the planet -- that does not make them objective. This isquite different from such objective facts as that the sun rosethis morning -- this is not a question that is open todeliberation, or opinion. One has no choice but to agreewith the raw facts of observation; they are forced upon us ina way that is not true of any moral claim.

Mackie wants to convince us that objective values are not "part of the fabric of the universe." In other words, there are no moral claims that are objectively true, and no moral rules that are objectively binding on us. He gives three arguments in support of this claim. He argues that the best explanation for the diversity of ethical beliefs is that there is no matter of fact that some of us are getting right, while others are getting it wrong. He argues that the very existence of objective values is "queer" (by which he means "weird"), because they would have to have some strange sort of "intrinsic prescriptivity." And he argues that knowledge of objective values, if there were any, would require some strange, inexplicable form of moral intuition.I personally am unconvinced by Mackie's arguments. For example, why should our ethical disagreements lead us to believe that there are no ethical facts? People disagree about lots of things that are objective if anything is (e.g., whether UFO's are space aliens). However, this is clearly one of the paradigmatic statements and defenses of "moral anti-realism." For an alternative perspective to Mackie's, one might read Thomas Nagel's _The View from Nowhere_ (especially the chapters on ethics and value), or Alasdair MacIntyre's _After Virtue_.

Not only was this book enlightening on the topic of ethics, but (unlike many philosophy studies) it was interesting and easy to understand! Mackie's writing style is straight forward and his thoughts and descriptions are ingenious. No wonder this is not the first printing of this book! I was particularly impressed with his definition of the attributive adjective 'good' and the manner in which he distinguished the common term 'good' from the moral term 'good'. Also excellent is his discussion of 'ought' concerning Hume's Law. The only reason I give this book a rating of four stars (as opposed to five) is that, in philosophy, there is always a better theory yet to be published. I strongly recommend this book.