J. L. Mackie

1917-1981 · Australian · Metaethics, philosophy of religion, metaphysics of causation, philosophical logic

There are no objective values.

John Leslie Mackie was born in Sydney in 1917 and came to Oxford in 1963, where he was a Fellow of University College until his death in 1981. He wrote with a plainness rare in analytic philosophy: short sentences, no apparatus he could avoid, an argument you could see all the way through. He is remembered for two claims that most philosophers think are wrong and nobody has managed to dispose of.

Topics J. L. Mackie addresses

• the error theory
• there are no objective values
• objective prescriptivity
• the argument from queerness
• the argument from relativity
• the objectification of attitudes
• second-order and first-order ethics
• morality as invention
• the object of morality
• limited sympathies and limited resources
• evil and omnipotence
• the inconsistent triad
• the paradox of omnipotence
• the free will defence
• transworld depravity
• the failure of theodicy
• the miracle of theism
• arguments to the best explanation
• the cumulative case for theism
• the no-maximality counter-argument
• natural histories of religion
• Pascal's wager
• the will to believe
• fides quaerens intellectum

Questions to put to J. L. Mackie

The Error Theory and Objective Prescriptivity

• What do you mean when you say there are no objective values?
• What is objective prescriptivity, and why do you think ordinary moral judgements claim it?
• How is your view different from emotivism or prescriptivism?
• Can you walk me through the argument from queerness?
• How does the argument from relativity support your error theory?
• What do you mean by the objectification of attitudes?

Inventing Right and Wrong

• If all moral judgements are false, how can you go on to do first-order ethics?
• What do you mean when you say morality is a human invention?
• How do limited sympathies and limited resources explain the need for morality?
• What makes one invented morality better or worse than another?
• How should we think about liberty or promise-keeping once we've dropped the idea of objective values?

Evil and Omnipotence

• Can you explain the inconsistent triad and why it's a problem for theism?
• What's wrong with the free will defence as a response to the problem of evil?
• How does Plantinga's transworld depravity fail to rescue the free will defence?
• What is the paradox of omnipotence?
• Why do you think no adequate theodicy has been offered?

The Miracle of Theism

• Why do you call your book on God's existence The Miracle of Theism?
• How should we approach the question of God's existence as a matter of argument to the best explanation?
• Does the cumulative case for theism succeed even if individual arguments fail?
• What's your assessment of Pascal's wager and the will to believe?
• How do you respond to the claim that faith doesn't need rational justification?

Causation and the INUS Condition

• What is an INUS condition, and how does it explain causation?
• How does your regularity theory avoid appealing to necessary connections between events?
• What do you mean by the causal field?
• How does your account handle singular causal statements like 'the short circuit caused the fire'?
• Why did you spend so much time working through Hume's view of causation?

Converse with J. L. Mackie on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in J. L. Mackie's own writing, cited to the page.