Inventing right and wrong: can a man who holds that all moral judgements are false go on to do first-order ethics?

J. L. Mackie, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

Yes, and it is the point of the book. That morality is not discovered does not mean it is not needed. It is a device human beings have made because sympathies are limited and resources are short, and a device can be well or badly made. The second-order verdict tells you what kind of thing you are doing when you argue about liberty or promise-keeping. It does not excuse you from the argument.1234

Sources

  1. 'Your corn is ripe today; mine will be so tomorrow. It is profitable for us both that I should labour with you today, and that you should aid me tomorrow. I have no kindness for you, and know you have as little for me.
    Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong, p. 108
  2. 'Our sense of justice," whether it is just yours and mine, or that of some much larger group, has no authority over those who dissent from its recommendations or even over us if we are inclined to change our minds. But if there is no objective moral truth to be discovered, is there nothing left to do but to describe our sense of justice? At least we can look at the matter in another way.
    Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong, pp. 103–104
  3. Consequently each Party will have a double. reason for fulfilling his side of the bargain: the fear of punishment for breaking it, and the expectation of benefits from keeping it, because the fulfilment by the other parties of their sides of the bargain is fairly well assured by the same motives.
    Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong, p. 107
  4. And surely this. The object of the exercise is to reduce the likelihe of a certain kind of evil being brought about by a pattern two-agent performances of which A's action followed by! response to it is an instance.
    Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong, p. 160

Where the argument is made

  • Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Preface on the first-order and second-order distinction, and Parts II-III: ch. 5 on the object of morality, ch. 8 on the elements of a practical morality, ch. 9 on determinism and responsibility, ch. 10 on the frontiers of ethics

How the argument was received

Widely thought to be the weak joint in the position, and defended by very few.