Analysis Of The Authority Of Ethics By Philosopher J. L. Mackie

To be both a historically and academically recognized philosopher, one must author a theory about philosophy that is sufficiently distinct in either the conclusion or application from existing philosophical texts. Philosopher J. L. Mackie, known chiefly for his metaethical theory on the ubiquitous truth of moral judgements called error theory, managed to accomplish just that. However, in striving to create a metaethical theory that diverges from non-cognitivists and distinguishes itself from other cognitivist theories, his conclusion ends up being more inflammatory than intellectually sound. Mackie ultimately sought to explore what he named "the apparent authority of ethics" (Mackie, 552), which is to say where the truth value of moral judgments

Indeed, Mackie recognizes that moral judgments exist as a phenomenon even if their truth value is false. In rejecting the objectification of morals, instead he argues that our understanding of morality would be "simpler and more comprehensible[...] if we could replace the moral quality with some sort of subjective response" (Mackie, 556). In place of ascribing non-natural attributes to actions and things in our lives, such as the fungus ascribed to be foul previously mentioned, we can instead recognize our desire to ascribe foulness is an expression of our attitudes. In the same way, instead of ascribing wrongness or rightness to a situation, our moral values indicate to us our attitudes, rather than an objective truth. Mackie posits that "our central and basic moral judgements represent social demands" in addition to socialized rules from the communities we grow up within (Mackie, 557). Mackies goes to great length to acknowledge one's hypothetical reaction of despondency and vehement disagreement to his conclusion that no moral judgments are true, and instead of discarding judgments as meaningless as a nihilist might, Mackie argues that the very negative response of the reader indicates that moral judgment do have value. He urges readers to recognize that though their moral codes

First, and most generally, the Argument from Queerness, while coherent and relatively convincing, does not necessitate the conclusion that moral truths cannot exist. It's plain to see that a moral force existing within the fabric of the universe would be incredibly queer when compared to existing forces such as mathematics, physics, the objective form and shape of the physical world. But simply because something is strange or unique does not rule it out of existence. Simply because platypi have features that no other mammals have does not mean that platypi can't exist. A more parallel example might be truth itself. While Mackie didn't tether the objectivity of morals to being able to be physically perceived, that physical perception is a large factor in how he determines that wrongness is not a similar property to form or number. If an individual makes a statement of fact, say 'the sky is blue', the truthfulness of that statement is not readily identifiable if one cannot look at the sky and check. Despite the inability to discern truthfulness or not, the truth value of that statement exists. While the consideration of truth is very different from the consideration of morality, both exist intangibly. Simply because