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Summary JL Mackie - Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong
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Notes on JL Mackie's error theory in Chapter One of 'Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong'
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J.L. Mackie - Ethics: Inventing Right and WrongChapter One: The Subjectivity of Values
Moral scepticism
● There are no objective values (e.g. goodness, rightness, duty, obligation, and also
aesthetic values)
○ this is a second order view of morality; a view of the status and nature of
moral values and valuing
■ it is distinct and independent from a first order rejection
of morality
■ it does not deny the difference between e.g. cowardice
and bravery, but merely their (objective) difference in value
Subjectivism
● This view of moral scepticism is equivalent to a form of second order moral subjectivism
○ the thesis is both negative and ontological; it is a denial of the existence
of a certain class of things
■ this is distinct from linguistic or conceptual forms of
subjectivism e.g. prescriptivism, although such forms generally presuppose this
moral scepticism
The multiplicity of second order qustions
● There are different types of second order moral questions - ontological, conceptual,
linguistic etc
○ linguistic types are imperialist, and seek to conflate concept and fact
■ it is claimed that by discovering the meaning of moral
terms, we can discover what e.g. goodness is
● this is false: we cannot understand
perception by knowing what ‘see’ and ‘hear’ mean
● in the case of colours, popular usage
treats them as real and existent, but enquiry shows them to be simply a
relationship between light and object
○ there is a discrepancy
between meaning and the nature of the object
Is objectivity a real issue?
● R.M. Hare claims he doesn’t understand what is meant by ‘the objectivity of values’
○ imagine a world with objective values, and one without. in both worlds
subjective belief is identical; they differ only in objective value. is there any difference
between the two? Hare says no
■ but there is a difference: in the first there is something to
back up subjective concern, and in the other there is not
■ also, if objective values validated subjective concern,
then we could acquire subjective concern simply by finding something out. this
is not the case in the second world
● There is a difference between objectivity of value and intersubjective values, or simply
universalizable values
○ presumably objective values would be universal, but the converse does
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