J. L. Mackie

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J. L. Mackie

Born
John Leslie Mackie

(1917-08-25)25 August 1917
Died12 December 1981(1981-12-12) (aged 64)
Oxford, England
Alma mater
Spouse
Joan Meredith
(m. 1947)
Era
Argument from queerness

John Leslie Mackie

philosopher. He made significant contributions to ethics, the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language
.

Mackie had influential views on

moral scepticism and his sophisticated defence of atheism. He wrote six books. His most widely known, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977), opens by boldly stating, "There are no objective values." It goes on to argue that because of this, ethics must be invented rather than discovered. His posthumously published The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God (1982)[1] has been called a tour de force in contemporary analytic philosophy.[2] The atheist philosopher Kai Nielsen described it as "one of the most, probably the most, distinguished articulation of an atheistic point of view given in the twentieth century."[3] In 1980 Time magazine described him as "perhaps the ablest of today's atheistic philosophers."[4]

Life

Mackie was born 25 August 1917 in

Sydney Teachers College, influential in the educational system of New South Wales.[6] and Annie Burnett (née Duncan), who was a schoolteacher.[7][5]

Mackie graduated from the University of Sydney in 1938 after studying under

greats at Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated with first-class honours in 1940.[5]

During the

Challis Professor of philosophy at the University of Sydney from 1959 to 1963. In 1963, he moved to the United Kingdom, becoming the inaugural holder of the chair of philosophy in the University of York, a position he held until 1967, when he was elected a fellow of University College, Oxford, where he served as praelector. In 1969, he gave a lecture, "What's Really Wrong with Phenomenalism?", at the British Academy as part of its annual Philosophical Lectures series.[8][9] In 1974, he became a fellow of the British Academy.[6]

Mackie died in Oxford on 12 December 1981.[6]

Character and family

Mackie is said to have been capable of expressing total disagreement in such a genial way that the person being addressed might mistake his comment for a compliment.[10] This personal style is exemplified by the following words from the preface to Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong:

I am nowhere mainly concerned to refute any individual writer. I believe that all those to whom I have referred, even those with whom I disagree most strongly, have contributed significantly to our understanding of ethics: where I have quoted their actual words, it is because they have presented views or arguments more clearly or more forcefully than I could put them myself.[11]

Mackie married Joan Meredith in 1947. One of their three children,

Oriel College. He is Head of Philosophy at D'Overbroeck's College, Oxford.[13] His daughter Hilary is a classicist at Rice University.[14]

Philosophical work

Mackie is best known for his contributions to

moral scepticism, arguing against the objective existence of right and wrong as intrinsically normative entities on fundamental grounds. He was unsure what kinds of thing they would be if they existed.[15]

His most widely known work, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, bluntly begins with the sentence "There are no objective values".

Argument from queerness), and argues it would be difficult to justify our knowledge of "value entities" or account for any links or consequences they would have. Finally, he thinks it possible to show that even without any objective values, people would still have reason to firmly believe in them (hence he claims that it is possible for people to be mistaken or fooled into believing that objective values exist). The Times called the book "a lucid discussion of moral theory which, although aimed at the general reader, has attracted a good deal of professional attention."[6]

Mackie held compatibilism about free will.

Concerning religion, he was well known for vigorously defending atheism, and also arguing that the problem of evil made untenable the main monotheistic religions.[16] His criticisms of the free will theodicy are particularly significant. He argued that the idea of human free will is no defence for those who wish to believe in an omnicompetent being in the face of evil and suffering, as such a being could have given us both free will and moral perfection, thus resulting in us choosing the good in every situation. In 1955 he published "Evil and Omnipotence", which summarized his view that belief in the existence of evil and an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good god is "positively irrational".[17]

Mackie's views on this so-called logical problem of evil prompted Alvin Plantinga to respond with the "free-will defense", which Mackie later responded in his The Miracle of Theism.

In metaphysics, Mackie made significant contributions relating to the nature of

INUS
condition.

After being given a copy of Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene as a Christmas present,[7] in 1978 Mackie wrote an article in the journal Philosophy praising the book and discussing how its ideas might be applied to moral philosophy.[18] The philosopher Mary Midgley responded in 1979 with "Gene-Juggling", an article arguing that The Selfish Gene was about psychological egoism rather than evolution.[19] This started a dispute between Mackie, Midgley, and Dawkins that was ongoing at the time of Mackie's death.

Publications

Books

Anthologies

Papers/book chapters

For a more complete list of works see "The publications of J. L. Mackie" compiled by Joan Mackie.[20]

References

  1. JSTOR 20006071
  2. ^ Allan, James (1996). "The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God" (PDF). Otago Law Review. 8: 633.
  3. OCLC 27171769
    .
  4. . Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  5. ^ . Retrieved 7 March 2017.
  6. ^ a b c d Obituary, The Times, 15 December 1981
  7. ^ required.)
  8. ^ Mackie, John L, "What's Really Wrong With Phenomenalism",Proceedings of the British Academy 55:113-127 (1969)
  9. ^ "Philosophical Lectures". The British Academy. Retrieved 16 June 2022.
  10. ^ Obituary notice, University College Record, 1982
  11. .
  12. ^ "LISTSERV 16.5 - PHILOS-L Archives". listserv.liv.ac.uk. Retrieved 15 December 2022.
  13. ^ Teaching Staff at D'Overbroeck's College website. Archived from the original Archived 14 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine on 17 February 2016 by Wayback Machine
  14. ^ Hilary Mackie Faculty website. Archived from the original on 14 March 2018 via Wayback Machine
  15. error theory
    , holding that moral judgments, while cognitive, are all false since there are no moral properties about which our moral judgments could be correct.
  16. ^ See, for example, Mackie 1982.
  17. JSTOR 2251467
    .
  18. .
  19. .
  20. ^ In: Honderich, Ted (1985) Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J.L. Mackie

Further reading