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MACKIE’S ERROR THEORY: A WITTGENSTEINIAN CRITIQUE
A TEORIA DO ERRO DE MACKIE: UMA CRÍTICA WITTGENSTEINIANA
Robert Vinten
1
Abstract: I start by arguing that Mackie’s claim that there are no objective values is a
nonsensical one. I do this by ‘assembling reminders’ of the correct use of the term ‘values’ and
by examining the grammar of moral propositions à la Wittgenstein. I also examine Hare’s
thought experiment which is used to demonstrate “that no real issue can be built around the
objectivity or otherwise of moral values” before briefly looking at Mackie’s ‘argument from
queerness’. In the final section I propose that Robert Arrington’s ‘conceptual relativism’,
inspired by Wittgenstein, helps to make our use of moral language more perspicuous and avoids
the problems faced by Mackie.
Keywords: Mackie. Metaethics. Wittgenstein. Values. Objectivity. Nonsense.
* * *
Introduction
John Mackie has suggested that he has conducted an ontological investigation
into moral and aesthetic values and has found that they “are not part of the fabric of the
world”
2
. Section I of this paper will examine Mackie’s arguments for these claims in
some detail. In section II (i) I look at Mackie’s claim that he is conducting an
ontological investigation and argue that, despite what he says, he is making
recommendations about how evaluative concepts should be employed rather than
engaging in any kind of ontological investigation. Then in section II (ii) I argue that his
claim that there are no objective values is either nonsensical or could perhaps be
construed as a reminder of the correct use of the term ‘values’. In section III I scrutinise
R. M. Hare’s argument in objection to Mackie that “no real issue can be built around the
objectivity or otherwise of moral values”
3
and claim that Mackie is too quick to dismiss
this objection from Hare. Having argued in section II that Mackie’s central claim is
nonsensical I suggest that the ‘queerness’ he attributes to claims about moral values is a
result of conceptual confusion (section IV). Finally, in sections V and VI, I present a
1
PhD candidate at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. E-mail: robert_vinten@yahoo.com.
2
Mackie, J. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, London: Penguin, 1990, p.15 (originally published by
Pelican books, 1977)
3
Hare, R. M. ‘Errors and the Phenomenology of Value’ in Essays in Quasi-Realism, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1993.
Mackie’s error theory: a Wittgensteinian critique
Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
31
Wittgensteinian alternative to Mackie’s account and distinguish it from Jonathan
Dancy’s particularism. I conclude that although Mackie is right to reject Platonic
objectivism his own position involves similar confusions. If we have a clear view of the
use of the relevant expressions then we will recognise that both ‘there are no objective
values’ and ‘there are objective values’ are nonsense.
1. Mackie’s arguments
In 1977 John Mackie’s book concerning meta-ethics and moral epistemology,
Ethics, was published. In it he made the controversial claim that there are no objective
values. Unlike his similarly controversial predecessors, the logical positivists, Mackie
maintained that claims which point to something objectively prescriptive are both
meaningful and truth-apt. This suggests that moral knowledge is possible. However,
Mackie also argued that any moral claim that purported to pick out something
objectively prescriptive was false
4
. Given that one cannot know something that is false
there can be no knowledge of facts about what is to be valued and what is to be
condemned. So Mackie’s position can be described as a kind of moral scepticism (a
description that Mackie himself is happy to accept
5
).
This does not mean that we cannot distinguish between kind acts and cruel ones.
We can describe acts as cruel or kind based on facts about people’s behaviour but we
cannot make true claims about kindness being good or cruelty being something to be
condemned
6
, according to Mackie. Whereas Mackie wants to claim that values,
obligations, and moral requirements are not part of the ‘fabric of the world’
7
, the
behaviours which can be described as cruel or kind are part of the fabric (or ‘furniture’)
of the world
8
.
Mackie claims that his central thesis, that there are no objective values, is an
ontological one and not a linguistic or conceptual one. According to Mackie, his claim
is about what exists and not a claim about the meaning of ethical terms. He argues for
4
“[…] although most people in making moral judgements implicitly claim, among other things, to be
pointing to something objectively prescriptive, these claims are all false” Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.35
Earlier in the book he says that, “…value statements cannot be either true or false”, Ethics, p.25. So,
Mackie’s position is that moral judgements are nonsensical, although they also involve implicit claims “to
be pointing to something objectively prescriptive” which are false.
5
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.16
6
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.17
7
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.15
8
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.16
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Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
32
this by drawing an analogy with perception. He says that just as the question ‘what is
perception?’ cannot be exhaustively answered by giving an account of what ‘perceive’,
‘see’, and ‘hear’ mean, the question ‘what is goodness?’ (or ‘what are values?’) cannot
be answered by finding out what ‘good’ means. Even after we’ve said what ‘perceive’,
‘see’, and ‘hear’ mean we still haven’t told people anything about what goes on when
someone perceives something. Mackie goes on to suggest that, “[w]hether Boyle and
Locke were right about [whether colours are powers of objects to produce sensations in
us] cannot be settled by finding out how we use colour words and what we mean in
using them”
9
. His conclusion is that answering the question ‘what is goodness?’ will
inevitably involve an ontological investigation and not just a conceptual one.
An objection to Mackie’s thesis comes from R. M. Hare. Hare argues, “that no
real issue can be built around the objectivity or otherwise of moral values”
10
. He argues
for this by using a kind of thought experiment:
Think of one world into whose fabric values are objectively built; and
think of another in which those values have been annihilated. And
remember that in both worlds the people go on being concerned about
the same things – there is no difference in the ‘subjective’ concern
which people have for things, only in their ‘objective’ value. Now I
ask, ‘What is the difference between the states of affairs in these two
worlds?’ Can any answer be given except ‘None whatever’?
11
Mackie takes this objection to be similar to the logical positivist’s objection to
the distinction between phenomenalist and commonsense realist views of the world.
The logical positivists objected that there is no experiential difference between the two
cases. We cannot verify that we inhabit one or the other and so the question of which
one we inhabit is a pseudoquestion.
Mackie responds to Hare’s objection by saying that there would be a difference
between the world in which there are objective values and the world in which objective
values had been obliterated. In the first case there would be something to back up the
subjective concerns that people have. Mackie then presents us with a conditional claim;
“[i]f we reject the positivism that would make the dispute between realists and
phenomenalists a pseudo-question, we can reject Hare’s similarly supported dismissal
9
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.20
10
Hare, R. M. ‘Errors and the Phenomenology of Value’ in Essays in Quasi-Realism, Oxford, Oxford
University Press, 1993.
11
Hare, R. M. cited on p.21 of Mackie’s Ethics.
Mackie’s error theory: a Wittgensteinian critique
Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
33
of the objectivity of values”
12
and I take it that he thinks that the antecedent of the
conditional holds (i.e. that we can reject positivism).
At the end of the first chapter of Ethics Mackie presents two arguments
13
in
favour of his central thesis; that there are no objective values. In this paper I will focus
on the second of his two arguments: the argument from queerness. Mackie suggests that
the argument divides into two parts; a metaphysical one and an epistemological one.
The ‘metaphysical’ argument is that, “If there were objective values, then they would be
entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything
else in the universe.” The world does not contain entities, qualities or relations that are
strange in this way and so there are no objective values. The ‘epistemological’ argument
is that, “…if we were aware of them [objective values], it would have to be by some
special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways
of knowing everything else” and since we do not have such a faculty we cannot be
aware of objective values (and so we don’t have any good reason to think that they
exist)
14
.
2. Is Mackie engaged in a conceptual investigation?
(i) Wittgenstein and grammar
Wittgenstein’s conception of grammar from his later philosophy is useful in
thinking about Mackie’s claims. When Wittgenstein talks about the grammar of a word,
what he is talking about is the linguistic rules governing the use of that word.
Wittgenstein’s use of the notion of grammar was broader than that typically used by
grammarians and Wittgenstein was not particularly concerned with the rules that fill
grammar books. A grammatical rule such as “if a verb follows the word to in English
then it is called an infinitive and it is not the main verb” does not have obvious
philosophical applications and Wittgenstein’s concern was with untangling conceptual
confusions involved in philosophical problems. One example of a rule of grammar
mentioned in Wittgenstein’s the Blue Book is “of course I know what I wish”.
Wittgenstein thinks this can be interpreted as a rule of grammar partly because what it
12
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.22
13
‘The argument from relativity’ and ‘the argument from queerness’, Ethics, pp.35-42
14
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.38
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Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
34
says cannot be interpreted as a report of what I know. The reason that it cannot be a
report of what I know, and the reason that it counts as a rule of grammar is that what it
is asserting is that doubt is logically excluded in this case and similar cases. In genuine
cases of knowledge doubt has been excluded but the cases are also ones about which it
makes sense to express doubt (so doubt is not logically excluded). For example, “I
know that the Willis Tower in Chicago is taller than the Empire State Building”, is a
case of something which somebody might know but which, at another time, they might
doubt (or which somebody else might doubt). As Wittgenstein says, “[in the sentence
‘of course I know what I wish’] ‘of course I know’ could here be replaced by ‘Of course
there is no doubt’. In this way the answer ‘Of course I know what I wish can be
interpreted as a grammatical statement.”
15
Other examples of grammatical rules in the
Blue Book include “13 x 18 inches won’t go into 3 feet”, “the colours green and blue
can’t be in the same place simultaneously”, and “6 foot is 6 inches longer than 5 foot
6”
16
.
Grammar is the description of and clarification of the rules of language
17
. These
rules determine what it makes sense to say (and to write and to think). Wittgenstein’s
conception of grammar includes rules of grammar that do not usually appear in
grammar books and there are sentences that are well constructed according to the rules
found in grammar books but which nonetheless do not make sense. Chomsky’s case:
“colourless green ideas sleep furiously” is an example of such a sentence. Chomsky
described the sentence as nonsensical but grammatical
18
. However, according to
Wittgenstein’s use of the term ‘grammar’ the sentence would be both nonsensical and
ungrammatical. In fact there would be no nonsensical sentences that were grammatical
according to Wittgenstein. Grammar is a description of the rules for making sense. Any
sentence that is nonsensical must have violated one of these rules.
When the philosopher G. E. Moore heard Wittgenstein speaking in this way
about grammar he thought that Wittgenstein was using the term ‘grammar’ in an odd
sense. It is tempting to think that Wittgenstein has expanded the use of the word
‘grammar’ in his later work to include rules that we would not usually think of as
grammatical rules (or perhaps not think of as rules at all) and so Wittgenstein’s use is a
15
Wittgenstein, L. the Blue Book, p.30
16
Wittgenstein, L. the Blue Book, p.56
17
See Philosophical Investigations, §496: “Grammar does not tell us how language must be constructed
in order to fulfil its purpose… It only describes, and in no way explains, the use of signs”.
18
Chomsky, N. Syntactic Structures, The Hague/Paris: Mouton, p.15
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Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
35
technical one, or a term-of-art. However, although it is fair to say that examples like
those found in the Blue Book do not fill grammar books, Wittgenstein himself insisted
that his rules were just like those found in grammar books and he was not stretching the
use of the word ‘grammar’:
Grammatical rules are all of the same kind, but it is not the same
mistake if a man breaks one as if he breaks another. If he uses ‘was’
instead of ‘were’ it causes no confusion; but in the other example the
analogy with physical space (c.f. two people in the same chair) does
cause confusion. When we say we can’t think of two colours in the
same place we make the mistake of thinking that this is a
proposition
19
, though it is not; and we would never try to say it if we
were not mislead by an analogy. It is misleading to use the word
‘can’t’ because it suggests a wrong analogy. We should say ‘It makes
no sense to say…’
20
Grammatical remarks then are remarks that authorise or prohibit a certain way of
speaking. In the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein warns against confusing
grammatical remarks with empirical ones (PI, §251) and suggests that doing so is a
source of philosophical confusion
21
. Wittgenstein suggests that, ‘our preoccupation with
the method of science [i.e. with empirical matters as discussed by the scientist]… is the
real source of metaphysics, and leads the philosopher into complete darkness…
Philosophy really is ‘purely descriptive’.”
22
I will suggest that Mackie is guilty of just
this sort of mistake. He conceives of the claim that ‘there are no objective values’ as an
‘ontological’ one, i.e. a claim about what exists. However, an examination of the
ordinary and correct use of the term ‘values’ reveals that this sentence is either nonsense
or could perhaps serve as a grammatical reminder that it makes no sense to speak of
values as entities or as part of the fabric of the world. That is, it prohibits sentences
which speak of values as entities as nonsensical.
19
Presumably Wittgenstein’s point here is that ‘two colours cannot be in the same place’, when thought
of as philosophically problematic, is a grammatical remark rather than an empirical proposition.
20
Wittgenstein, L. Lectures 1930-1932 (Desmond Lee ed.), Oxford: Blackwell, 1980, pp.97-8
21
For example, in the Blue Book, Wittgenstein suggests that the philosophical problem he has been
discussing concerning the notion of ‘thinking’, “…was not a scientific [empirical] one; but a
[grammatical] muddle felt as a problem.” p.6
22
Wittgenstein, L. The Blue and Brown Books, New York: Harper and Row, 1958, p.18
Mackie’s error theory: a Wittgensteinian critique
Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
36
(ii) Mackie and nonsense
On the very first page of the first chapter of Ethics Mackie presents his thesis
that, “[t]here are no objective values”
23
. Later on in the chapter he offers alternative
versions of the thesis. He says that he is asserting that, “there do not exist entities or
relations of a certain kind, objective values or requirements”
24
; that, “if there were
objective values they would presumably belong to kinds of things or actions or states of
affairs”
25
and then in presenting his argument from queerness he says that, “[i]f there
were objective values, then they would be entities or qualities or relations of a very
strange sort”
26
.
It is unclear whether values are supposed to be entities, things, actions, states of
affairs or things belonging to them, namely qualities or features of things, actions, or
states of affairs. But perhaps this lack of clarity does not matter because Mackie wants
to claim that values do not fit into any of these categories. According to Mackie, there is
nothing in existence that is objectively intrinsically prescriptive – no entity, property,
state of affairs, or action.
But it is worth pondering these claims. Is the claim that ‘there are no entities that
are values’ true or false or something else? When someone says that two groups of
people share common values do they mean that those two groups of people share some
entities? It is clear that they do not mean this. Nicky Morgan, British Education
Secretary, has said that young children must learn British values
27
. Does she mean that
they must learn some entities? No sense can be made of such a claim. So it seems that it
is a matter of meaning or a matter of ‘grammar’ that ‘there are no entities that are
values’. The point is not that, as a matter of fact, there are not any entities that are
values but that nothing counts as an entity that is a value. ‘There are entities that are
values’ does not make sense and so the denial that there are entities that are values is
either nonsense itself or it may serve as a grammatical reminder that we cannot speak
about values as entities and make sense. Mackie argues that he is engaged in an
ontological investigation rather than a conceptual one but these considerations suggest
that, contra Mackie, his investigation is in fact a conceptual one.
23
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.13
24
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.17 (my italics)
25
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.23 (my italics)
26
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.38 (my italics)
27
See Adams, R. ‘Nicky Morgan: toddlers must learn ‘British values’’, The Guardian, 08/08/2014
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/08/nicky-morgan-toddler-must-be-taught-british-values
Mackie’s error theory: a Wittgensteinian critique
Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
37
I take it that in the preceding paragraph what I was doing was “marshalling
recollections” or “assembling reminders” of the correct use of the term ‘values’ in a way
suggested by Wittgenstein
28
. By looking at the way that the term ‘values’ is used,
ordinarily and correctly, we can see that the way that it is employed by Mackie is
abnormal or illegitimate. The use of the term ‘values’ in the claim that ‘there are no
entities that are values’ violates our norms concerning the use of the term ‘values’. We
do not use the term to refer to entities and cannot make any sense of using the term in
that way.
Mackie, however, denies that he is making a conceptual claim. He says that his
central thesis – that there are no objective values – “is an ontological thesis, not a
linguistic or conceptual one”
29
. Mackie’s claim then must be that as a matter of fact
values do not exist. Values are not a part of the fabric of the world. But if it is not a
linguistic thesis then presumably Mackie would accept that he can make sense of the
idea that values might be part of the world and that there might be value-entities in it. If
all of the dogs in the world were to die then it would make sense to say, “there are no
dogs in the world”. In that case one would be making an ‘ontological’ claim – a claim
about what exists. Is Mackie’s claim similar? – Is he claiming that ‘there are no
objectively prescriptive value-entities in the world now but perhaps at some point there
were or that perhaps at some point there might be’? – It is difficult to see what sense can
be made of this claim and I propose the difficulty is due to the fact that the claim does
not make sense.
As we have already seen, Mackie argues that his investigation is an ontological
one by comparing the questions, ‘what is goodness?’ and ‘what is perception?’. His
suggestion is that neither question could be answered exhaustively by just defining the
terms in question (‘goodness’ and ‘perception’). Leaving aside the awkward question of
what would constitute an exhaustive answer to a question, Mackie is mistaken in
thinking that (i) an answer which provided a definition of ‘perception’ and (ii) an
answer that provided an account of what goes on when somebody perceives something
would be answers to the same question (which together exhaustively answer it). There
28
Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations (4th edition, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S.
Hacker, and Joachim Schulte), Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, §127. The new, 4th, edition of the
Philosophical Investigations translates Wittgenstein’s “Die Arbeit des Philosophen ist ein
Zusammentragen von Erinnerungen zu einem bestimmen Zweck” as “The work of the philosopher
consists in marshalling recollections for a particular purpose”. Anscombe’s translation was “The work of
the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose” (Philosophical Investigations,
2nd edition, Oxford: Blackwell, 1958).
29
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.18
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Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
38
are two questions here, namely ‘what does ‘perception’ mean?’ and ‘what goes on when
somebody perceives something?’. In the case of ‘what is ‘goodness’?’ it is less clear
that there are two questions. This question would be most naturally answered by giving
some kind of definition or an explanation of meaning of the term ‘goodness’ and so it is
a conceptual question.
Mackie also argues that the correctness of Boyle and Locke’s thesis (that colours
are powers of objects to produce sensations in us) cannot be settled by just examining
the use of colour words. This is used to argue that his own philosophical claims about
goodness and value cannot be settled by examining the terms ‘goodness’ and ‘value’.
However, Boyle and Locke’s picture can be picked apart by looking at how we employ
various concepts (including colour concepts). One point that can be made against them
is that they assimilate perceptual experiences and sensations. This is not a factual matter
because no empirical investigation could establish that perceptions were a kind of
sensation. As Peter Hacker says, it is a matter of grammar that, “objects perceived exist
whether perceived or not” but, “…sensations cannot exist unfelt”
30
. Boyle and Locke do
not object to particular empirical claims about whether some object is red or yellow.
Their cases are made up of a priori arguments or thought experiments which result in
them recommending a complete reconception of our talk about perception of colour
(and of other ‘secondary qualities’). Similarly Mackie is not concerned with rejecting
this or that moral judgement on empirical grounds he is claiming that we need to
completely reconceive our talk about moral states of affairs, properties, actions, and so
on
31
.
Mackie acknowledges that the way that we ordinarily speak about values
involves a, “claim to objectivity” and we do indeed use words like ‘know’, ‘fact’ and
‘true’ in relation to moral statements. But Mackie argues that this does not demonstrate
that there really is moral knowledge or that there are moral facts. Moral language,
according to Mackie, is not self-validating. However, as Oswald Hanfling has pointed
out, this is not because it is false that moral language is self-validating. Rather it is
because no sense can be made of saying that moral language is self-validating. There is
30
Bennett, M. and Hacker, P. M. S. Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, Blackwell, Oxford,
2003, p. 121
31
A further reason to think that he is engaged in a conceptual investigation is his methodology, which is
‘armchair philosophy’.
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Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
39
no such thing as self-validating moral language and so we cannot conclude on this basis
that we are wrong in using such language in relation to moral statements
32
.
3. Hare’s objection
Mackie brushes off Hare’s objection
33
to his position by comparing it to the
logical positivist’s objection to the distinction between phenomenalist and
commonsense realist views of the world. The logical positivist A. J. Ayer argued that
whereas there is a procedure for dealing with the question of whether a painting is by
Goya or not, there is no similar kind of procedure for deciding whether a painting is real
or ideal and so he suggests that the problem is “fictitious” according to his criterion
(verifiability)
34
.
Most philosophers have now rejected verificationism and so perhaps Mackie is
right to give it short shrift. But even assuming that Mackie can reject the logical
positivist’s verificationism he still cannot make the argument against Hare’s objection
so quickly. Mackie claims that, “[i]f we reject the positivism that would make the
dispute between realists and phenomenalists a pseudo-question, we can reject Hare’s
similarly supported dismissal of the objectivity of values” but this is not true. For one
thing Hare is not himself a positivist. He does not share their non-cognitivist take on
ethics. Hare thinks, “both that moral statements can be true or false, and that we can
know them to be true or false” and adds that “I get extremely cross when people classify
me as a non-cognitivist”
35
. Moreover, Hare cites Wittgenstein approvingly; saying that
the words ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ have a use and “[i]t is a task for the philosopher to
explain, if he can, what this use is.”
36
In order for Mackie’s rejection of Hare to be effective Mackie would also need
to reject other, non-verificationist, ways of showing that the dispute between realism
and phenomenalism is not a legitimate one, including Wittgenstein’s critique of such
32
Hanfling, O. ‘Moral Knowledge and Moral Uncertainty’, Philosophical Investigations, 31:2, April
2008, p.105
33
“Think of one world into whose fabric values are objectively built; and think of another in which those
values have been annihilated. And remember that in both worlds the people go on being concerned about
the same things – there is no difference in the ‘subjective’ concern which people have for things, only in
their ‘objective’ value. Now I ask, ‘What is the difference between the states of affairs in these two
worlds?’ Can any answer be given except ‘None whatever’?” Hare, R. M. cited on p.21 of Mackie’s
Ethics (originally from Hare’s article ‘Nothing Matters’)
34
Ayer, A. J. Language, Truth, and Logic
35
Hare, R. M. ‘Objective Prescriptions’, Philosophical Issues, 4, Naturalism and Normativity, 1993
36
Hare, R. M. ‘Objective Prescriptions’, Philosophical Issues, 4, 1993, p.17
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Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
40
metaphysical views in his later philosophy
37
. Wittgenstein would agree with Ayer that
there is no procedure for deciding whether a painting is real or ideal but he is not a
positivist. Wittgenstein famously associated meaning with use in his later philosophy
38
.
It remains possible that Hare’s rejection of the distinction between a, “world into whose
fabric values are objectively built” and a world, “in which those values have been
annihilated” could be defended on Wittgensteinian grounds.
Hare argues that values cannot be annihilated “[…] you cannot annihilate values
– not values as a whole. As a matter of empirical fact, a man is a valuing creature, and is
likely to remain so.”
39
This doesn’t sound like a particularly Wittgensteinian account of
the use of the term ‘value’ but I think that a Wittgensteinian kind of defence can be
given of his thought experiment. Remember that in the thought experiment we are asked
to think of one world where values are built into the fabric of the world and another
where those values have been annihilated. I have already argued above (in section II
(ii)) that if we look at the correct use of the term ‘values’ it becomes clear that ‘there are
no objective values’ is nonsense (or perhaps, at a stretch, a grammatical reminder). If
this is the case then talk of the ‘annihilation of values’, where what we are imagining is
the destruction of entities, is also nonsense. While we can imagine the annihilation of
valuable things (I can think of a ming vase being completely destroyed) and we can
imagine the annihilation of creatures that value things we cannot imagine the
annihilation of values. This is because nothing counts as the annihilation of values. The
claim that we can imagine a world in which values have been annihilated is nonsensical.
What is more we cannot make any sense of the claim that ‘[…] values are part of the
fabric of the world’. If this is correct then there is nothing to verify. The claims are not
nonsensical because they are unverifiable. Rather they are unverifiable because they are
nonsense
40
.
4. The argument from queerness
We saw in section I that Mackie argues that were values to exist they would
have to be, “[…] entities or qualities or relations of a very strange sort” and we would
37
See, for example, pp.48-49 and p.59 of Wittgenstein, L. the Blue Book.
38
“For a large class of cases – though not for all – in which we employ the word ‘meaning’ it can be
defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language” Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical
Investigations, §43
39
Hare, R. M. ‘Nothing Matters’ in Applications of Moral Philosophy, London, Macmillan, 1972
40
I could add that, as nonsense they do not even qualify as claims.
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41
have to have a strange kind of faculty to apprehend them. Given the arguments made in
the preceding sections I suggest that the reason that there is a sense of ‘queerness’ or
‘strangeness’ surrounding the notion of objective value is that Mackie is conceptually
confused. It is not that the ‘fabric of the world’ does not incorporate values but that it
might; the point is that no sense can be made of the claim that the fabric of the world
incorporates values. The claim that ‘there are no objectively prescriptive items that are
part of the fabric of the world’ is a piece of (unobvious) nonsense.
5. Some conclusions
I hope that I have established that some of Mackie’s arguments do not hit their
target and so have opened up space for an alternative kind of explanation of values and
of morality. The kind of explanation that I have in mind is an explanation of the
meanings of the relevant terms and the account would provide a synoptic representation
or an overview of the conceptual territory. This would involve a close examination of
the correct use of the expressions that are causing confusion in Mackie’s account of
morality. The aim of such an overview would be to dissolve confusion about the notions
of ‘right’, ‘wrong’, ‘goodness’, ‘obligation’, ‘morality’ and related terms. I have already
looked at some reminders of the correct use of the term ‘values’ but I think that perhaps
more needs to be said in order to satisfy someone who talks in the way that Mackie
does. If we are reminded of the way that we ordinarily and correctly speak about
morality and the way that we ordinarily talk about the truth and falsity of moral claims
perhaps we will be less tempted to get vexed about the ‘ontology’ of values and
goodness.
Looking carefully at what we say when it comes to matters of morality and
value we will find that Mackie has got things the wrong way around. Whereas Mackie
claims that, “[…] although most people in making moral judgements implicitly claim,
among other things, to be pointing to something objectively prescriptive, these claims
are all false”
41
The argument of section II suggests that claims that ‘point to something
objectively prescriptive in the world’ will turn out to be nonsensical (neither true nor
false). Moreover, as Oswald Hanfling has pointed out, we have no good reason to think
that people are implicitly committed to such claims in making moral judgements.
41
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.35
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42
Hanfling asks, “[h]ow should we understand the ontological commitments that
Mackie ascribes to ordinary users of moral language? He speaks of them… in terms of
the ‘fabric of the world’. But how is this to be understood? What is the fabric of the
world? One might reply by reference to the materials of which it is made, such as rocks,
metal, water, etc.: or at a more analytic level, chemicals and molecules. But the idea that
values could find place in this company is bizarre and there is no reason to suppose that
this is what people are committed to by their use of moral language, or that ‘linguistic
analysis’ would reveal such a commitment”.
42
Earlier in the book Mackie says that, “[…] value statements [as opposed to the
claims implicit in them about objectively prescriptive values] cannot be either true or
false”
43
. This claim, as Mackie recognises, conflicts with the way that we ordinarily talk
about moral judgements. Given that Mackie’s arguments involve conceptual confusions
I suggest that we have no good reason to give up the way that we ordinarily speak about
moral judgements. In particular, we have no good reason to give up the claim that moral
judgements can be true or false.
My aim in the preceding sections was the Wittgensteinian one of, “pass[ing]
from unobvious nonsense to obvious nonsense” (PI, 464). Mackie’s central claim, that
‘there are no objective values (in the fabric of the world)’, is nonsensical but it is not
obviously nonsense in the way that a ‘sentence’ like ‘attack fighters conservative with’
is. It appears grammatically well formed according to the school grammarian’s rules.
Mackie’s claim looks like sentences which do make sense such as ‘there are no chairs in
the room’ or ‘there are no parrots depicted in the fabrics of ancient Egypt’. But, as I
have argued, it is nonetheless ungrammatical and nonsensical.
6. Synoptic representations
There is nothing particularly Wittgensteinian about being clear about the correct
use of terms such as ‘value’. Most people in their everyday lives generally do use such
terms correctly without any problem. The more difficult task, and the one which could
with some right be described as Wittgensteinian, is to have a clear view of the
interrelationships between moral terms with a view to dissolving philosophical
problems such as the one posed by Mackie. In the Philosophical Investigations
42
Hanfling, O. Philosophy and Ordinary Language, Routledge, 2000, p.147
43
Mackie, J. L. Ethics, p.25
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43
Wittgenstein suggested that what we need in order to get clear about an area of
discourse, such as moral discourse, is a surveyable representation of the use of words in
that area (PI, §122)
44
. Providing a surveyable representation of a significant segment of
moral discourse will provide an answer to the question about truth.
There is some controversy amongst Wittgenstein scholars about how to translate
the expressions ‘übersichtliche Darstellung’, ‘übersichtlichkeit’, and ‘übersehen’ as they
are used in passages, like the one just cited, in Wittgenstein’s work. There is also
controversy about how to interpret what Wittgenstein is saying in passages such as the
one just cited (PI, §122)
45
. This is not an exegetical essay about such matters. I take it
that what we need is an overview of the way in which terms in moral discourse are used
and of the variety of logically distinct kinds of claims made in that area. A synoptic
representation is not theoretical, does not involve making scientific claims, and does not
provide us with any new facts. In this case it is an overview of the grammar of our
moral language and the purpose of providing it is to dissolve philosophical problems
surrounding truth, knowledge, and values in morality.
This paper has largely been focussed on the negative task of ‘destroying houses
of cards’ (PI, §118). But Wittgenstein also saw a positive role for philosophy in
describing the grammar of our language in order to get clearer about how our language
works and how it fits into our lives. I do not intend to provide a positive account that
will fill exactly the space left by Mackie’s one since I do not think that there is any need
or place for a theory of the ontology of morality. What can be provided is a surveyable
representation of our moral language and I think that Wittgensteinian philosophers have
already provided quite thorough accounts of this
46
.
For example, Robert Arrington, in his book Rationalism, Realism, and
Relativism provides a Wittgensteinian account of the grammar of moral expressions
44
“A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words.
– Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of
understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing
intermediate links. The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It
characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?” –
Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (4th edition), Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009
45
An excellent survey of the literature can be found in Nuno Venturinha’s ‘Wittgenstein and the Natural
History of Human Beings’ in Philosophical Anthropology. Wittgenstein’s Perspective (ed. Jesús Padilla
Gálvez), Ontos Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., 2010, pp.95-102
46
See, for example, Arrington, R. Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, New York: Cornell University
Press, 1989 and Mounce, H. O. and Phillips, D. Z. Moral Practices, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1969.
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Kínesis, Vol. VII, n° 13, Julho 2015, p.30-47
44
under the banner of ‘conceptual relativism’
47
. Arrington suggests that one of the
principal sources of philosophical confusion in the area of morality has been thinking of
rules such as ‘it is wrong to tell a lie’ as substantive moral principles rather than as
grammatical rules or principles. There is a temptation to regard such rules as
generalizations and as being contingent because it seems as though they have
exceptions. The case of someone having to lie in order to save an innocent person’s life
has been used in objection to Kant’s claim that we must be truthful, come what may
48
.
Kant’s claim really is a substantive moral principle, that we can raise objections to,
namely the claim that ‘it is always wrong to tell a lie’. However, ‘it is always wrong to
tell a lie’ does not say the same thing as ‘it is wrong to tell a lie’ and plays a different
role. The claim that ‘it is always wrong to tell a lie’ is weakened, probably falsified, by
the example of lying to save an innocent person’s life. However, we do not think of ‘it
is wrong to tell a lie’ as being weakened every time another moral principle takes
precedence over it
49
. The role of this rule is to carve out a piece of logical space. As
Arrington says, it “establishes the presumption that anyone who has lied has acted
wrongly”
50
.
If one is still tempted to view ‘it is wrong to tell a lie’ as a contingent
generalization then Arrington has several questions designed to draw us away from the
temptation. He says,
If a proposition like ‘it is wrong to tell a lie’ is contingent it would be
appropriate to ask when this was discovered. It would also be
appropriate to inquire whether there is any kind of experimentum
crucis that could be devised to prove it. It would make sense to inquire
what evidence we have for the proposition and to ask whether some
people merely believe the proposition whereas others know it the
latter having adequate evidence for it
51
.
We can see that propositions like ‘it is wrong to tell a lie’ are not empirical
generalisations by looking at how they are in fact used. One thing we notice when we
look at how they are used is that they are not used much at all by adults speaking to
adults. The paradigmatic case in which they are used is in cases of instruction; to
47
Arrington, R. Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, New York: Cornell University Press, 1989,
pp.248-315
48
“Truthfulness in declarations that one cannot avoid is a human being’s duty to everyone, however great
the disadvantage to him or to another that may result from it…” Kant, I. Practical Philosophy, Cambridge
University Press, 1996, 8: 426 p.612
49
See Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, p.272
50
Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, p.276
51
Arrington, R. Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, New York: Cornell University Press, 1989, p.272
Mackie’s error theory: a Wittgensteinian critique
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45
establish the ideas of rightness and wrongness in children. In these cases we do not
attempt to prove to the child that it is wrong to tell a lie but to bring them into our
(moral) way of life. Propositions such as ‘it is wrong to lie’ are used to define
morality
52
.
But we should not take ‘it is wrong to tell a lie’ to characterize the nature of all
of the statements in morality. We have these grammatical rules in order to be able to
apply the terms ‘wrong’, ‘lie’, ‘morality’ and similar terms correctly in particular cases.
As Arrington makes clear, there is a great variety of different kinds of moral
propositions. So, for example, there are contingent claims such as ‘you ought to have
gone to the cinema with him (because you promised)’, contingent principles such as
‘one ought to live a simple and frugal life’, and principles of moral permissibility such
as ‘it is permissible to commit suicide’
53
.
Once we recognise the variety of different kinds of moral proposition and their
different roles it becomes clearer about how we can account for the truth of particular
moral judgements. We do so by applying rules to conduct on a particular occasion. If
someone has told a lie on a particular occasion we can apply the rule ‘it is wrong to tell
a lie’ which sets up a presumption that what they have done is wrong. This means that,
contra Mackie, the word ‘lie’ is already imbued with moral meaning and we cannot
separate out the descriptive element in practice. This does not mean that we have to
consult the grammatical rules of morality each time we make a moral judgement any
more than we have to consult the grammatical rules of colour expressions when we
make judgements about colour. But these rules must nonetheless be operative and are
available for consultation if there is confusion about meaning.
The kind of account just outlined sounds superficially like another recent
position in moral philosophy, namely the particularism of Jonathan Dancy. We have
already seen that moral rules are rarely consulted and this account also suggests that we
could get by making judgements without having to have any substantive moral
principles. Arrington says that, “[m]ost of us…live our moral lives piecemeal, dealing
situation by situation with the moral dimensions that confront us and trying to decide in
each case where our duty lies… [W]e resist the simple solution proffered by the
universal principle or rule, thinking that it fosters more moral harm than good”
54
. Indeed
52
Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, p275
53
See Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, pp.302-3 for a more detailed taxonomy.
54
Rationalism, Realism, and Relativism, pp.278-9
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Arrington could accept the claim made in Dancy’s definition of particularism, “the
possibility of moral thought and judgement does not depend on the provision of a
suitable supply of moral principles”
55
, as long as ‘principles’ is taken here to mean
‘substantive moral principles’ as opposed to grammatical rules. The difference is that
Arrington conceives of claims like ‘it is wrong to tell a lie’ and ‘one ought to keep one’s
promises’ as grammatical rules and sees them as central to thinking about truth in
morality and as central in thinking about what morality itself is (as constituting it).
7. Conclusion
So I have argued first of all that Mackie is conceptually confused in trying to
argue for the claim that there are no objective values. His claim that values are not part
of the fabric of the world is nonsensical. However, this negative deconstruction of
Mackie’s account may leave some unsatisfied and wondering how it is that moral
judgements can be true or false, or if they are true or false at all. In section VI we saw
that Robert Arrington’s Wittgensteinian account of the conceptual territory in moral
philosophy can be used to provide at least the beginnings of an answer to that question.
Wittgenstein may well have said that Mackie has not put the question marks
deep enough down
56
. Mackie rejects the Platonic view that values are prescriptive and
objective
57
but then adopts the mirror image of this view in claiming that values are not
part of the fabric of the world. I hope that I have shown that there is a plausible third
option here which is to regard both sides of this apparent antinomy as nonsense. As
Frank Ramsey said, “[i]t is a heuristic maxim that the truth lies not in one of the two
disputed views but in some third possibility which has not yet been thought of, which
we can only discover by rejecting something assumed as obvious by both disputants”
58
.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Robert Arrington for comments on an earlier version of this paper. I
would also like to thank participants in the discussion of an earlier version of this paper
at the Epistemologia Moral conference at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 3rd/4th
September 2014, including Marcelo Carvalho, João Vergílio Gallerani Cuter, Alexandra
Dias Fortes, David Erlich, Luís Miguel Simões, and Nuno Venturinha. I would like to
thank the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) for their support during the
writing of this paper. Finally, I would also like to thank an anonymous reviewer for
their comments on a draft of this paper.