J. L. Mackie | |
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 | |
| Born | John Leslie Mackie (1917-08-25)25 August 1917 Sydney,New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 12 December 1981(1981-12-12) (aged 64) Oxford, England |
| Spouse | |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | |
| Academic advisor | John Anderson |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | |
| Institutions | |
| Main interests | |
| Notable ideas | Argument from queerness |
John Leslie MackieFBA (25 August 1917 – 12 December 1981) was an Australianphilosopher. He made significant contributions toethics, thephilosophy of religion,metaphysics, and thephilosophy of language. Mackie had influential views onmetaethics, including his defence ofmoral scepticism and his sophisticated defence ofatheism. 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 publishedThe Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God (1982)[1] has been calledatour de force in contemporary analytic philosophy.[2] The atheist philosopherKai 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]
Mackie was born 25 August 1917 inKillara,Sydney,[5] son ofAlexander Mackie, professor of education at theUniversity of Sydney and principal of theSydney Teachers College, influential in the educational system ofNew South Wales.[6] and Annie Burnett (née Duncan), who was a schoolteacher.[7][5] In his youth Mackie went toKnox Grammar School in Sydney and graduated withdux.[8]
Mackie graduated from the University of Sydney in 1938 after studying underJohn Anderson, sharing the medal in philosophy withHarold Glass. Mackie received the Wentworth Travelling Fellowship to studygreats atOriel College, Oxford, where he graduated withfirst-class honours in 1940.[5]
During theSecond World War Mackie served with theRoyal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in theMiddle East andItaly, and wasmentioned in dispatches.[5] He was professor of philosophy at theUniversity of Otago inNew Zealand from 1955 to 1959 and succeeded Anderson as theChallis 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 theUniversity of York, a position he held until 1967, when he was elected a fellow ofUniversity College, Oxford, where he served aspraelector. In 1969, he gave a lecture, "What's Really Wrong with Phenomenalism?", at theBritish Academy as part of its annual Philosophical Lectures series.[9][10] In 1974, he became a fellow of the British Academy.[6]
Mackie died inOxford on 12 December 1981.[6]
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.[11] This personal style is exemplified by the following words from the preface toEthics: 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.[12]
Mackie married Joan Meredith in 1947. One of their three children,Penelope Mackie, also became a philosopher. She lectured in philosophy at theUniversity of Birmingham from 1994 to 2004, and then at theUniversity of Nottingham from 2004 until her death in 2022.[13] Mackie's son David is also a philosopher and graduated fromOxford University, where he held lectureships atExeter College,Corpus Christi College, andChrist Church before being appointed a Fellow and Tutor atOriel College. He is Head of Philosophy atD'Overbroeck's College, Oxford.[14] His daughter Hilary is a classicist atRice University.[15]
Mackie is best known for his contributions tometaethics,philosophy of religion, andmetaphysics.
In his workThe Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation, Mackie makes an analysis ofcausality by prior philosophers and sets forth his theory of causality based oncounterfactual conditionals. He argued that a cause is an "INUS condition" (insufficient but non-redundant parts of a condition which is itself unnecessary but sufficient for the occurrence of the effect). E.g, the statement "The short circuit caused the fire", the short circuit is a necessary part of the fire condition (short circuit and flammable material) but not sufficient (a short circuit does not always result in a fire). This condition in turn is sufficient for a fire to take place, although not necessary (it can be replaced by other conditions such as "lightning and flammable material" or "arson").[16]
In metaethics, he took a position calledmoral scepticism, arguing against theobjective existence ofright andwrong as intrinsically normative entities on fundamental grounds. He was unsure what kinds of thing they would be if they existed.[17]
His most widely known work,Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, bluntly begins with the sentence "There are no objective values".[7] He uses several arguments to support this claim. He argues that some aspects of moral thought are relative, and that objective morals require an absurd intrinsic action-guiding feature. Most of all, he thinks it is very unclear how objective values could supervene on features of the natural world (see theArgument 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]
Concerning religion, he was well known for vigorously defendingatheism, and also arguing that theproblem of evil made untenable the mainmonotheistic religions.[18] His criticisms of thefree willtheodicy are particularly significant. He argued that the idea of human free will is no defence for those who wish to believe in anomnipotent 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".[19]
Mackie's views on thislogical problem of evil promptedAlvin Plantinga to respond with the "free-will defense", which Mackie later responded in hisThe Miracle of Theism. In metaphysics, Mackie made significant contributions relating to the nature ofcausal relationships, especially conditional statements describing them and the notion of anINUS condition.[20]
After being given a copy ofRichard Dawkins'sThe Selfish Gene as a Christmas present,[7] in 1978 Mackie wrote an article in the journalPhilosophy praising the book and discussing how its ideas might be applied to moral philosophy.[21] The philosopherMary Midgley responded in 1979 with "Gene-Juggling", an article arguing thatThe Selfish Gene was aboutpsychological egoism rather thanevolution.[22] This started a dispute between Mackie, Midgley, and Dawkins that was ongoing at the time of Mackie's death.
For a more complete list of works see "The publications of J. L. Mackie" compiled by Joan Mackie.[23]
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