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J. L. Mackie

Analytic · Oceania · 1917 to 1981

Australian philosopher who argued that the problem of evil counts against God. He also argued that there are no objective moral facts.

What it is

J. L. Mackie (1917 to 1981) was an Australian philosopher who argued that there are no objective moral facts, and argued against belief in God. He is best known for the book Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong (1977) and, after his death, for The Miracle of Theism (1982).

His two main lines of argument fit together. In ethics he held that moral claims aim at an objective standard that does not exist. In religion he examined the arguments for God and rejected many of them. He was an atheist.

The main ideas

  • Morality is invented. His book opens by saying that there are no objective values, and goes on to argue that for this reason right and wrong have to be made by people and not found in the world.
  • An error in how we talk. He held that when we say that something is wrong, we speak as if there were a standard that holds whatever anyone wants. Moral judgments are then beliefs or claims that are never true, because the standard they point to is not there. This view is called the error theory.
  • The argument from queerness. An objective value would be a very odd thing, unlike anything else in the world as science describes it. It would also have to guide action by its own nature, giving reasons that do not depend on what a person wants. He thought it implausible that anything of that kind exists.
  • The case against God. He defended atheism, and his book of 1982 weighs the arguments for and against God's existence and rejects many of the classical and recent arguments for it.

What it looks like in practice

Imagine someone who says that cruelty is wrong, and is then asked what makes it wrong. Mackie would say that the person speaks as if wrongness were a feature of the world that exists whatever anyone thinks, and he would doubt that there is such a feature. This would not mean that he thought cruelty good or allowed: an error theorist holds that it is neither wrong nor right in the sense that is meant. The example is an illustration of his argument, not a passage from his books.

Books and moments

  • Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977) is his most widely known book. It sets out his doubts about objective values.
  • The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God (1982) was published after his death. It has been described as an influential and comprehensive treatment of the arguments about God.

Questions and criticism

  • Is the error theory right? Critics can accept that objective values would be strange and still say that moral talk does not commit us to them. Others agree that morality needs objective values but doubt that they would be as odd as he claimed.
  • What label fits? Different writers give his view different names. It is fair to ask which name fits best.
  • What follows for life? If no moral claim is true, people disagree about whether we should keep speaking morally as a kind of fiction, or drop moral talk as far as we can.

Close neighbours

The page on David Hume is nearby. Alvin Plantinga has a page here and stands on the other side of the questions about God. The school of atheism is the one Mackie belongs to.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

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