A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory

by Richard Joyce (Editor), Simon Kirchin (Editor)

What kind of properties are moral qualities, such as rightness, badness, etc? Some ethicists doubt that there are any such properties; they maintain that thinking that something is morally wrong (for example) is comparable to thinking that something is a unicorn or a ghost. These "moral error theorists" argue that the world simply does not contain the kind of properties or objects necessary to render our moral judgments true. This radical form of moral skepticism was championed by the philosopher John Mackie (1917-1981). This anthology is a collection of philosophical essays critically examining Mackie’s view.

Genres: Philosophy

262 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2009

Reviews

[·naysayer·]

❝The fear that moral skepticism will lead to a breakdown of social cohesion presupposes that our moral commitments are the only thing keeping us well-behaved (and the only thing that could keep us well-behaved), which, ironically, reveals just the kind of pessimism about the human spirit that the moral skeptic is often accused of indulging in.❞