Mackie’s Error Theory: Morality and Naturalism

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Brief Introduction

“There are no objective values.”  So starts the first chapter of J.L. Mackie’s book, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, where he argues that there are no objective, universally prescriptive moral facts.

Moral facts are the things that make our moral judgments, like “It is wrong to rape people” or “We ought to treat everyone equally” true or false.  The view that moral facts exist is called moral realism or objectivism.  Mackie’s view is a cognitivist view, which means that our moral judgments express believes that have truth-value (they are either true or false), but it is not an example of moral realism.  Mackie argued that all of our moral judgments and beliefs are false.  This is why it is called “Error Theory.”  How does he argue for this position?

His argument combines a conceptual claim about our moral judgments and an ontological claim about the existence of moral facts.

1) Conceptual claim: Our moral concepts are concepts of universally prescriptive, categorical facts in the world.

2) Ontological claim: There are no such facts in the world.

Whether our beliefs are true or false depends on whether they correspond to reality.  If I believe “Earth has one moon,” that belief is true because Earth does, in fact, have one moon.  If I believe “My dog is the same as my cat,” then that belief is false because that belief does not correspond to reality.  My dog is not, in fact, my cat.  Since there is nothing in the world that corresponds to our beliefs about moral facts, our moral beliefs and claims are all false.  That is why Mackie’s view is called Error Theory, because we are literally in error.

Mackie’s Defense of His Claims

Mackie argues for (1) by showing that many philosophers in the Western tradition have defended objective moral values.  While acknowledging that many thinkers are moral subjectivists he says “the main tradition of European moral philosophy includes the contrary claim, that there are objective values of just the sort I have denied,” (p. 30).  He cites philosophers like Plato, Kant, Sidgwick, Aristotle, Samuel Clarke, Hutcheson, Richard Price, and says Hume noticed the prevalence of the objectivist tradition as well.  He also argues that the objectivist tradition has a firm basis in ordinary thought.  When many people ask if a certain action is wrong, they are not asking what they feel about the action or what benefit they think it will give them, they are asking if the action itself is wrong.  Mackie also claims that existentialism and its influence on people shows that people tend to objectify their concerns.  People who cease to believe that objective moral facts or values exist tend to begin believing that nothing matters at all; that life has no purpose.  This suggests that those people were objectifying their moral judgments so that they were something external to them, not just aspects of their own ideas, thoughts, and desires (p. 34).

Mackie argues for (2) in a few different ways, but the argument I will focus on here is the argument from queerness.

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.  Correspondingly, if we were aware of them, it would have to be by some special faculty or moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else. (p. 38)

In order to argue that moral facts do not exist, Mackie combines a metaphysical argument with an epistemological argument.  The metaphysical argument is that moral facts would be very “queer” properties unlike any other kinds of properties we know.  Moral facts are the kinds of things that have a demand for an action built into them.  They are prescriptive facts telling us how we ought to act.  The facts that we are all acquainted with, however, are prescriptively inert.  The facts or properties that we are all familiar with, physical properties, do not have demands for certain actions built into them.  They do not tell us how things ought to be, they just tell us how things are.  They are descriptive rather than prescriptive. These physical properties, which are descriptive properties that tell us how things are, are the kinds of properties that we are very well acquainted with and they are explicable on naturalism.  Moral properties, which are prescriptive properties that tell us how things ought to be, are strange and not easily explainable on naturalism, since the moral properties themselves would not be natural.

The epistemological argument is that we would need a special faculty that was able to detect these moral properties.  We have different faculties for detecting things in the world, and these faculties are how we gain knowledge about the world.  For example, our eyes pick up light and allow us to see, our noses detect scents in the air and allow us to smell, our ears detect the vibrations in the air and allow us to hear sound.  Through these different faculties we detect different things in the world and learn about them.  But what kind of faculty would we need to have in order to detect non-physical, universally prescriptive moral facts?  It is not clear what on earth this faculty could be or how we can gain knowledge of moral facts through it.  So, Mackie concludes from this that we have good reason to reject the actual existence of moral facts.

Conclusion

To sum up, Mackie claims that our moral concepts are concepts of universally prescriptive facts, but these facts do not exist in the world, so our moral concepts are literally false.  He argues against their existence by showing that such facts would be metaphysically “queer” on naturalism and it is not clear how we would even know their existence.

If Mackie is right, then a naturalist would have to deny moral facts because they are not the kinds of things that would be natural.  If one thinks that moral facts do exist, then one has reason to reject naturalism.

Resources

(1) Mackie, J. L. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Middelessex: Penguin, 1990. Print.

(2) Miller, Alexander. An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003. Print.

Reading Recommendations for the Winter Break

This article was originally featured on ResistanceTV.

Many of our readers may be students who are still in college.  The nice thing about the university is that there is often an entire month off during this time of year.  This gives one time to read books that one does not have time to read during the semesters.  Even non-students like people working in ministry will be benefited from reading.  These are my top apologetics book recommendations.  I will be focusing on beginners material, but I will also suggest higher level books to move onto once you finish these books.

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller

This book, written by the well-known pastor in New York, is a good introductory apologetic for people who have not exposed themselves to the topic before.  In the first half, Keller responds to various criticisms of Christianity like “How can a good God send people to Hell,” “There can’t be just one true religion,” “How could a good God allow evil,” “Science has disproved Christianity,” and many more.  In the second half, he gets into some arguments for the truth of Christianity.  This book will challenge readers who have never exposed themselves to apologetics before, but it is incredibly readable too.  Those who are more familiar with apologetics may be aided by this book because, as a pastor, Keller can put things in a way that is understandable and relatable to many people.

Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl

This book isn’t so much about apologetic content as it is about apologetic skill and strategy.  This book is all about how to engaged in a winsome and intelligent way with skeptics of Christianity by asking good questions that help guide the conversation.  Greg also gets into how to deal with people who are much smarter than you, people who are rude and condescending, and other challenging situations.  The content in this book is valuable for everybody and for every discussion you will have, even if you are discussion issues with other Christians, like whether Calvinism is true.

On Guard: Defending your Faith with Reason and Precision by William Lane Craig

Dr. Craig is one of the most well-known Christian apologists of our time.  He has been in countless debates and has written countless books on the defense of the Christian faith, so any book by him is going to be worth looking into.  This book is his most accessible.  He gives several arguments for the existence of God and the arguments for Christianity in particular.

After this: Read Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics by William Lane Craig

Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan

Many objections to Christianity are aimed at the apparent moral depravity of the Old Testament.  What do we do about the conquest accounts, slavery, treatment of women, and countless other moral problems in the OT?  Even many Christians avoid the OT because they don’t know how to handle it.  Paul Copan looks at each one of these moral challenges and responds to them.

After this: Read Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God by Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan

I hope these resources can get you started.  God bless.

Faulty Assumptions in Biblical Interpretation

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I’ve noticed that, when non-Christians point out certain apparent contradictions or alleged historical errors in the Bible, those contradictions or errors only appear that way because of some unwarranted assumptions they are making.  Here are a few.

And these you shall detest among the birds; they shall not be eaten; they are detestable: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture, the kite, the falcon of any kind, every raven of any kind, the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk of any kind, the little owl, the cormorant, the short-eared owl, the barn owl, the tawny owl, the carrion vulture, the stork, the heron of any kind, the hoopoe, and the bat. (Leviticus 11:13-19)

God says that a bat is a bird!  Apparently he’s too stupid to know the difference between a bird and a mammal.

The assumption a person is making when he points this out is that the ancient Hebrews had the same species categories that we do today.  There is no reason to think this.

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. (John 20:1)

Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. (Matthew 28:1)

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. (Mark 16:1)

This seems to be a plain contradiction.  They clearly disagree with each other on how many women went to the tomb.  This is another reason to distrust the Biblical accounts.

The assumption a person is making when stating this challenge is that the Gospel writers were trying to give a complete account of every single detail of the event.  There is no reason to think this.  Different people emphasize different things or might leave information out that they do not think is important to the point of the story. I do this when I tell the same story multiple times.

Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. (Matthew 2:16)

Herod had kids in an entire village killed, and yet no historical sources from the time even mention this event.  This means that the Gospel writer here likely made up the whole story.

The assumption here is that 1) no extrabiblical writers wrote about it and 2) any historians at the time would have written about it.  As for (1), we still have very little  information on the first century.  We have very few writings from that time.  How do we know that no one wrote about it?  It is simply an argument from silence.

As for (2), why would anyone have written about it?  While the murder of children is a horrible event, Bethlehem was a small, backwater village and it’s not likely that there were more than a dozen children below the age of two.  This would not have been a huge event.  The fact that historians didn’t mention it isn’t shocking. The eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 was a very large event, but we only seem to have one written account on it from Pliny the Younger.

When people point out historical errors or contradictions in the Bible, try to see if there are any unwarranted assumptions they are making.  In some cases, the passages only appear mistaken or contradictory because of these assumptions.

Note: A good resource responding to alleged historical errors and contradictions in the Gospels and Acts can be found in this series of lectures by Timothy McGrew.

Be Sure to Clarify Ambiguous Words When Debating

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Ambiguity

Something that I have quickly learned in my philosophical studies and my job teaching English to Chinese kids is that individual words often have more than one meaning.  When you use a word in a sentence that has more than one meaning, but the meaning of that word is not clear in its context, the word is ambiguous.  This is one way that our words can be unclear. One of the things that affects the productivity of discussion and debate is that people will use the same words, but mean slightly different things by them.  Unless the debaters are clear on what they mean by the words that they use, ambiguity will remain and the debaters will be talking past each other.

An Example from Discussions on Morality

An example of where ambiguity can negatively affect a discussion is in the realm of morality.  The word “morality” is an ambiguous word and, unless the speakers are clear, it can be easy for speakers to talk past each other on this issue.  Most of the time, “morality” can mean one of three things:

1. Moral Beliefs: These are simply what one believes is right or wrong; good or bad.
2. Moral Behaviors: These are the right or wrong behaviors or actions that people engage in.
3. Moral Facts: These are the truth-makers for moral claims.  A moral fact is what makes our moral judgments true or false.

When Christians and atheists debate on how Christianity or atheism ground morality, I think both groups often talk past each other because they sometimes mean different things by “morality.”  Often, when an atheist uses the word “morality,” he is talking about moral beliefs and behaviors.  If an atheist says “We don’t need religion or belief in God to explain morality,” he likely means that we do not need God to explain the development of moral beliefs and behaviors.  Dawkins, for example, says this

We now have four good Darwinian reasons for individuals to be altruistic, generous or ‘moral’ towards each other.  First, there is the special case of genetic kinship.  Second, there is reciprocation: the repayment of favours given, and the giving of favours in ‘anticipation’ of payback.  Following on from this there is, third, the Darwinian benefit of acquiring a reputation for generosity and kindness.  And fourth, if Zahavi is right, there is the particular additional benefit of conspicuous generosity as a way of buying unfakeably authentic advertising. (The God Delusion, pg. 251)

Dawkins gives an account of how moral beliefs and behaviors may have developed, but that does not address whether moral facts exist. However, when a Christian says “morality,” she often means moral facts.  When a Christian says “In order for moral values to exist, God needs to exist,” she is likely talking about the things that make our moral judgments true or false.  Notice that they are not actually disagreeing with each other.  They can both agree with each other because neither of their claims are inconsistent with one another due to the fact that they are referring to different things when they say “morality.”  In fact, William Lane Craig constantly makes it clear that the moral argument for God’s existence is referencing moral facts, not beliefs and behaviors.

Now it’s important that we remain clear in understanding the issue before us.  The question is not: Must we believe in God in order to live moral lives?  There’s no reason to think that atheists and theists alike may not live what we normally characterize as good and decent lives.  Similarly, the question is not: Can we formulate a system of ethics without reference to God?  If the non-theist grants that human beings do have objective value, then there’s no reason to think that he cannot work out a system of ethics with which the theist would also largely agree.  Or again, the question is not: Can we recognize the existence of objective moral values without reference to God?  The theist will typically maintain that a person need not believe in God in order to recognize, say, that we should love our children. (Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed. pg. 175-176)

When this ambiguity is not cleared up and eliminated, the atheist and the Christian are simply talking past each other and no progress is being made in the discussion.

Be Clear on the Meaning of your Words

The example I gave above is just one subject where ambiguity can come up.  There are many other controversial topics where ambiguous words can pop up, so my advice is to make sure that you clearly know what you mean when you use certain words and that you clearly express the meaning of that word to whoever you are speaking to.  You should also make sure that the individual or individuals that you are debating are clear with their words too.  Ask questions like “What do you mean by x?” or “When you say x, do you mean?. . .”  Being clear will help your apologetic and hopefully make your discussions more productive.

Note: A good book to read on how to discuss your Christian beliefs in a winsome and intelligent way is Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl.

Do Not Dismiss What Someone Says Simply Because of Lack of Experience

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The Internet Dismissal!

Something that I have noticed in this age of online discussion and debate is that people often dismiss what others say because of certain facts about them, whether that’s facts about their race, life experience, gender, or other things.  If you have experienced something in your life that is persistent and at least sometimes very difficult to deal with, such as infertility, depression, singleness, unwanted pregnancy, divorce, unjust discrimination, or a myriad of other struggles, it can be easy to dismiss the wisdom, advice, or arguments of people who have not gone through what you have gone through.  In this tense political and racial climate, I often hear people dismiss each other’s arguments because of their race.  Some black Americans will dismiss anything a white person says about racial injustice.  In the abortion debate, it is common for women to dismiss pro-life arguments because the arguments are coming out of the mouths of men.  I certainly understand this mentality and see where it comes from. As someone who has been single for a longtime, it can be easy to dismiss the things people who have been married since their early 20’s say to me about singleness. One one hand, it makes sense, since they have not experienced the particular trials of long-term singleness and don’t understand what it is like.  Personal experience does give a person valuable insight into the circumstances they have experienced, so it makes sense to think that the lack of that experience means that the person also lacks that insight.

I don’t, however, think that people should always be dismissed if they do not or have not personally experienced certain circumstances in life. Just because someone hasn’t experienced something you or I are struggling with doesn’t mean that person has nothing good, true, helpful, wise, or valuable to say. There are a couple of reasons why I think this is the case.

Don’t be so hasty to Dismiss out of hand

One, there is often overlap of experiences between people who are dealing with different struggles, life stages, conditions, and other things. A couple struggling with infertility struggles with at least some similar things as the single person, since both desire a really good thing that is just not coming. They have both experienced the wait, unfulfilled longing, and disappointment of each thing, so there can be an understanding between them even though they are going through different things.

Second, when you have been dealing with something for a really long time, you often become very emotional about that thing. Those emotions can often cloud your ability to see your trial from a different perspective or see all of the facts of the situation. A person who has never gone through what you’ve gone through likely does not have that emotional clouding, so he may be able to see facts or perspectives that are valuable, but you cannot see.  So, while someone being an “outsider” about a certain struggle is often used as a reason to dismiss anything that they say, I think the fact that a person has not experienced a certain trial in life actually gives one reason to at least listen to and consider what the person says because they may have a perspective on the situation that the struggler does not have.

What I’m saying is that if you are struggling with a particular thing and an “outsider” about that struggle gives their insight, it is worth at least considering what the person says to see if it is true or helpful.  Don’t automatically dismiss the wisdom, advice, or general thoughts that they give simply because they’re an outsider. They may actually be getting at the truth.

The Problem With Quick Appeals to Mystery

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How do Some People Respond to Deep Questions about God?

There are many questions that Christians have about the existence of God.  Some of these questions have to do with the coherence of the concept of God or other theological issues in Christianity.  How can God be three persons?  How does God’s sovereignty work with our free-will?  How is Jesus both God and man?  These questions, and many others, are often on a Christian’s mind and will inevitably be asked in church and Bible studies.  A common response to these questions is to appeal to the mystery of God.  God, being infinite, is beyond complete comprehension, so it is a mystery how these things work together.

Potential Problems with this Kind of Response

There is truth to this response.  God is not completely comprehensible by us because He is infinite.  We will never fully understand a being like God and we would be fooling ourselves to think that we can.  However, my concern is that Christians and pastors will use quick appeals to mystery as an easy way to dismiss a legitimate question about God and certain theological doctrines.  While acknowledging the mysteriousness of God has legitimacy, it leads to a few problems if it is used as a quick response to complex questions about God.  Here are the problems.

1. Quick appeals to mystery stop us from thinking deeply about God.  When you love something, you think about that thing as often as possible and seek to understand it more.  Quick appeals to mystery can cut that deep thinking short and it comes off as saying “No, don’t think that deeply.  That’s far enough.”  Thinking deeply about God is a worshipful and prayerful act, which is clearly shown in writings like Augustine’s Confessions or Anselm’s formulation of the ontological argument, so quick appeals to mystery can stop us from doing something that is worshipful and glorifying to God.
2. Quick appeals to mystery also invalidate people’s legitimate questions about God.  Those appeals can come off as saying “Don’t ask those questions.”  I think that if God and theology are important to people, then it is good for them to ask questions and we should help cultivate a desire to ask questions and seek to understand God better.  We do not want to discourage people from asking those questions.
3. Finally, quick appeals to mystery can make God look absurd.  If a pastor or small group leader continually uses quick appeals to mystery as a response to deep questions about God’s nature and his actions in the world, it will make it seem like there is no answer to those questions, which makes the concept of God look more and more incoherent and ridiculous.  If there is anything that the God of Christianity is not, it’s absurd, incoherent, and ridiculous.  People probably think that appealing to God’s mystery is a way of glorifying God because it acknowledges His infinite nature.  This is not wrong, but using appeals to mystery as a lazy response to legitimate questions can actually have the opposite effect and make it look like there is no answers to these questions because the concept of God, in actuality, doesn’t make sense.

Do the Hard Work

Again, I am not saying that God is not significantly mysterious to us.  He is infinite and we are limited beings who can hardly even comprehend our own world.  I also understand that I have not answered every question one may have about this topic.  When is an appeal to mystery “quick?”  How do we know when we are relying too much on human reason to understand God perfectly?  These are good questions and I do not have answers.  My problem is when appeals to mystery lead to laziness and discourage deep thinking about God.  If you are in a position of leadership in the church or have the opportunity to talk about your faith with non-believers, take the questions about God seriously and be willing to do the deep thinking that we ought to do about our Lord.

Does Hebrews 11:1 Teach that Faith is Belief Without Evidence or Reason?

This article was originally featured on ResistanceTV.

Faith, what is it?

In our modern context, many people think that “faith” means to believe that something is true without evidence or without adequate evidence.  This is something many skeptics will say in order to invalidate the legitimacy of faith.  In The God Delusion, Dawkins says

The dictionary supplied by Microsoft Word defines a delusion as ‘a persistent false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence, especially as a symptom of psychiatric disorder’. The first part captures religious faith perfectly. (p. 28)

In A Manual for Creating Atheists, Peter Boghossian says

If one had sufficient evidence to warrant belief in a particular claim, then one wouldn’t believe the claim on the basis of faith.  “Faith” is the word one uses when one does not have enough evidence to justify holding a belief, but when one just goes ahead and believes it anyway. (pg. 9)

To be fair, a reason why many skeptics believe this is because many Christians also perpetuate this view of faith.  In Love Your God With All Your Mind, J.P. Moreland gives this account

A few years ago I conducted a series of evangelistic messages for a church in New York.  The series was in a high school gym, and both believers and unbelievers attended each night.  The first evening I gave arguments for the existence of God from science and philosophy.  Before closing in prayer, I entertained several questions from the audience.  One woman (who was a Christian) complained about my talk, charging that if I “proved” the existence of God, I would leave no room for faith.  I responded by saying that if she were right, then we should pray that currently available evidence for God would evaporate and be refuted so there would be even more room for faith! (p. 26, emphasis added)

Sadly Christians Believe Faith is Shallow

Unfortunately, many Christians do believe that faith is believing something without evidence, but many Christians, especially the ones in apologetic circles, will rightly point out that this is not what faith means.  Faith is compatible with evidence and reason.  Skeptics, however, will respond by citing Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (ESV)

This verse, according to the skeptic, shows that the Bible agrees with their definition of faith, not with the definition of the Christian apologist.  If the Bible itself says that faith is belief without evidence, then that means the Christian is incorrect to say that faith can and even should involve evidence.

The skeptic, however, grossly misuses this verse when she uses it to support her case.  Hebrews 11:1 does not say that faith is belief without evidence, what I will call “blind faith” from now on.  I will give two reasons why this verse does not mean what the skeptic says it means.  First, taking the verse by itself without context does not lead us to the conclusion that it is talking about blind faith.  Second, when we look at the textual context that the verse is in, it cannot be talking about blind faith.

When one reads this verse critically, it is not clear how it means or implies blind faith.  Which part of the sentence suggests blind faith?  Is it “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for” part?  Being assured of things that you hope for is not a necessarily unevidential thing.  Is it the “conviction of things not seen” part?  This is probably what makes the skeptic think that this verse is talking about blind faith, since it says “not seen,” but “not seen” does not mean “no evidence.”  For example, many philosophers and mathematicians believe that numbers actually exist as abstract objects.  They cannot see, hear, taste, or touch numbers, but they still believe they exist because they think there are very good reasons to believe that numbers exist.  Seeing is not the only form of evidence.  Also, astronomers know that there are many other planets in the galaxy revolving around other stars.  These astronomers do not see many of these planets, but they know they are out there because there is good evidence that those planets are there.  They can see the effects the planets and their gravity have on other heavenly bodies that can be seen, like stars.  In both of these cases and in many others, people believe something exist because they have good reasons to believe them, but the evidence does not involve actually seeing the things in question.  The fact that Hebrews 11:1 says “not seen” at the end does not necessarily or automatically mean “no evidence,” so simply citing this verse does not prove that the Bible has the same definition of faith as the skeptic is proclaiming.  This gives us reason to doubt the skeptic’s claim that this verse confirms their belief, but it does not give positive evidence that the verse does not affirm blind faith.  If we look at the context of chapter 11, however, verse 1 clearly does not affirm blind faith.  

If one continues through chapter 11 or Hebrews, one will come across what is called the “Hall of Faith,” where the author of Hebrews lists off a number of people in the past who exhibited great faith in God.  This list of people includes Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Rahab, David, Gideon, and others.  The author of Hebrews would have believed that all of these people saw manifestations of God’s presence, examples of His power, and His faithfulness in keeping promises.  So, to the author of Hebrews, these people would have had a lot of evidence that God exists and is who He says He is.  If the author of Hebrews is teaching blind faith in verse one, he would not be using these people as examples of great faith.  Since he is using these people as examples of great faith, he must not be teaching that faith is blind in verse one.

Since blind faith does not fit into the context of chapter 11 and blind faith is not implied by the language of the verse, this means that the skeptic is wrong to use it as a response to Christians when they say faith is compatible with evidence.