Mackie Error Theory Reading Prep

“Moral Scepticism”, the view that objective moral values do not exist

A first order view is one that is concerned with linguistic or conceptual problems about what
moral statements might mean, which is not what Mackie is primarily addressing. Mackie’s
thesis is second order/ontological, which concerns the nature and status of moral values
themselves.

An ontological inquiry into the nature of ethics cannot be settled by analysing what moral
statements mean linguistically. This would be an error.

Also, the meaning of first-order moral statements is so complicated that inferring second-
order concepts from that will be prone to error.

RM Hare dismisses the significance of debating the objectivity of values since whether they
exist or not people make the same subjective judgements anyway. This reiterates the
distinction between first-order and second-order moral statements. However, Mackie argues
that these two states of affairs are not identical, since if objective values exist people’s
subjective opinions are somewhat validated, yet if values are annihilated subjective opinions
merely come down to emotions.

Objective values do not mean that some things are valued by everyone, nor does it entail
this. Inter-subjectivity is not objectivity. Universalizability, the view that the same
judgements can be made in any given situation, is also not objectivity

Objectivity is different from descriptivism, the view that moral statements only have a
descriptive meaning without even being partly prescriptive or illocutionary

A much more plausible is that it is difficult to see how values can be part of the fabric of the
world. “The difficulty of seeing how values could be objective is a fairly strong reason for
thinking that they are not so.”
Our metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical psychology will have to be changed to
accommodate for objective values’ metaphysical existence, ability to be known, and
guidance for our actions. Objective values will also affect the plausibility of first-order moral
judgements, e.g. if goodness is objective egoism is false.

Value statements cannot be either true or false, though it is possible to make objective
judgements in relation to a standard. But this does not entail an intrinsically objective value.
“Something may be called good simply in so far as it satisfies or is such as to satisfy a certain
desire; but the objectivity of such relations of satisfaction does not constitute in our sense
an objective value”

A categorical imperative expresses a moral obligation which a moral agent must carry out
unconditionally irrespective of his own wants or desires; it must not be carried out as a
means to an end.
Mackie denies any objectivity in this regard: There are no objectively valid categorical
imperatives

Similarly, Mackie’s claim is that when moral reasoning or argument is used, one or more of
the premisses cannot be objectively validated

Many philosophers including Plato, Kant, Aristotle, Hutcheson, Sidgwick disagree with
Mackie’s view on the non-existence of objective values

A naturalist or non-cognitivist construal of ethics negates its authoritative and categorical

elements, reducing it to a practical means to satisfy an agent’s desire. Ethics is normally
understood as a tool to judge whether an action is right or wrong in itself. Moral value is not
contingent upon any agent’s desires or wants.

The undermining of objective values can at least temporarily unravel one’s subjective
interpretation of ethics, since most people believe their subjective opinions are grounded in
an objective realm of morality.

Ordinary moral statements include a claim to objectivity. However, that claim is not self-
validating.

What results is an “Error Theory”: Though people implicitly make claims to objective
prescriptions when making moral statements, these claims are all false

Since this argues against common sense, it requires solid support

Two main ways of arguing against it: 1. Relativity 2. Queerness

The argument from relativity

Different moral judgements by people across cultures/throughout time indirectly supports

moral scepticism, since it is difficult to see how these claims can be apprehensions of
objective truths if they diverge radically.

Though disagreements in other fields like science does not undermine the objectivity of a
true answer, such disagreement arises from inadequate evidence of speculative inferences,
while moral disagreements are much stronger: they reflect people’s ways of approaching
life. These claims are not speculative or spontaneous, but are rooted in what people think
constitutes the fabric of the world.

“The argument from relativity has some force simply because the actual variations in the
moral codes are more readily explained by the hypothesis that they reflect ways of life than
by the hypothesis that they express perceptions, most of them seriously inadequate and
badly distorted, of objective values”

Counter: all moral codes adhere to some basic principles from which different societies
develop specific rules that fit their circumstances
However, this means that other moral judgements that are contingent upon these basic
principles could be false, as a result of false reasoning. Yet this does not appear to be the
case as these moral judgements are treated as basic and fundamental to one’s moral
compass in the same way of those general principles. People make judgements not because
“they exemplify some general principle for which widespread implicit acceptance could be
claimed, but because something about those things arouses certain responses immediately
in them”. Moral sense or intuition is a better description than reason.

The Argument from Queerness

If objective moral values exist, they would be utterly different from anything we know of,
and we would only be able to apprehend them through a special faculty which we are
unaware of. This was picked up by Moore’s “faculty of moral intuition”. Many would object
that this is a travesty of actual moral reasoning, but Mackie believes any objectivist view
implicitly adheres to such faculty in order for moral statements to be objectively binding.

When asked about how we can know the truth of these inferences, none of our usual
sensory perception provides a satisfactory answer.

Counterargument: on empiricism, we also cannot arrive at other knowledge like essence,

number, identity, diversity, solidity….. If our “faculty within us that discerns truth” allows us
to grasp these truths, why not moral truth?

Counter: construct empiricist foundations upon which these truths can be found.

If objective values were to exist, they would be akin to the Platonic conception of the Good,
with an intrinsic “to-be-pursuedness”.

Hume argued that ‘reason’ can never be an ‘influencing motive of the will’. To this the
objectivist might reply Hume’s reasons only concerns ordinary objects and it is precisely that
values have the special ability to influence the will. To this, Hume would have to object to
the postulation of a special faculty and metaphysical existence of values through the
argument from queerness.

Another way of presenting the queerness argument is to highlight the odd relationship
between the natural features and the supposed rightness or wrongness of an action. Though
“The wrongness must somehow be. ‘consequential’ or ‘supervenient’; it is wrong because it
is a piece of deliberate cruelty. But just what in the world is signified by this ‘because’?”
Postulating a special faculty is not even enough, since the faculty must be able to see
through the natural features to the wrongness that renders the action morally wrong.

Though these arguments seem to suggest that moral scepticism is more plausible than
realism, the sceptic will have to explain how these beliefs have become so widely accepted
and resistant to criticisms.
One way of understanding this is to apply the “pathetic fallacy” idea, or Hume’s “The mind’s
‘propensity to spread itself on external objects’”, that is to say the tendency to read our
feelings into objects. We seem to believe an action is wrong because we think it is
objectively wrong, but instead what really happens is we project our feelings into these
actions.

Morality is socially established and necessary, so people internalise these tendencies and
join in patterns of behaviour.

There are motives that would support objectification. We need morality to guide
interpersonal relations, control behaviour, explaining our perception of morality being
authoritative.

More importantly, morality relates to our wants and desires. When we desire something, we
call it “good”, thus it has “in our sense objective value”.

Even moral categorical imperatives are ultimately based on wants, but since morality is a
social construction, “the source of the demand is indeterminate and diffuse”, since the
demand is what the society requires of people. Therefore, all categorical imperatives are in
fact hypothetical.

Some may argue that this explanation is too descriptive. Mackie responds by saying that
morality does not only reflect the wants of the society, but perhaps an idealistic one as well
such as Kant’s kingdom of ends.

Another explanation: “Ethics is a system of law from which the legislator has been removed”.
For example, some of European morality can be traced back to Christianity, therefore rooted
in divine commands, a form of legislation. Therefore some philosophers argue that moral
“oughts” are “survivals outside the framework of thought that made them really intelligible,
namely the belief in divine law”.

However understanding morality as merely a result of belief in the divine may not suffice,
some people, even those who believe in divine commands, believe some things are good in
themselves.

The ultimate goal of human life

Moral reasoning consists in achieving a more adequate understanding of human goal

One interpretation offers the view that the goal of human life is what people desire, hence a
descriptive view. Another interpretation sees the goal of human life as what one “ought” to
strive for, thus normative and prescriptive.