Persons and Values: Selected Papers Volume II

270 Pages·1985·10.57 MB·English

by  J. L. Mackie

PERSONS AND
VALUES

Selected Papers
Volume

J. L. Mackie
PERSONS AND VALUES.
Copyrighted material
Persons and Values
SELECTED PAPERS

Volume IT

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J. L. MACKIE
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EDITED BY
JOAN MACKIE

AND
PENELOPE MACKIE

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PREFACE

Tuts is the second of two volumes of selected papers by J. L.
Mackie, who died in December 1981 at the age of sixty-four. Like
its companion volume, Logic and Knowledge, it is based on a selec-
tion made by Mackie himself a few months before his death. Of
the nineteen papers published here, seven have not appeared in
print before. The present volume is not a complete collection of
John Mackie’s papers on ethical subjects. A full bibliography of
his published writings, including those on moral, political, and legal
philosophy, will be found in Morality and Objectivity, the memorial
volume edited by Ted Honderich (Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1985).

Chapters I-X and Chapter XII of the present collection were
chosen by Mackie for a volume of his papers on ‘moral philosophy
and related topics’, for which he suggested the title ‘Persons and
Values’. Chapters XVIII and XIX consist of material that he
planned to rework as a single paper for inclusion in the volume.
Although the greater part of Mackie’s work on moral philosophy
was done in the later years of his life, which saw the appearance of
his Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong (197), his Hume's Moral
Theory (1980), and the publication of numerous articles, he wrote
and published work in this field throughout his career. As is evident
from his choice of papers and their ordering, Mackie’s selection
was designed to represent his contributions to a wide range of
ethical topics over many years. He contemplated adding a post-
script to the collection, giving his retrospective comments on the
Papers, but his illness and death interrupted the project, and the
postscript was not written.

Personal identity and responsibility are the subjects of the first
four chapters: the 1980 paper ‘The Transcendental “I”” and “The
Grounds of Responsibility’, published in 1977, are accompanied by
“Multipte Personality’ and ‘Responsibility and Language’, two pap-
ers written over twenty years earlier, the first of which has not
appeared in print before. Chapter V, a paper first published in
1969, examines subjective and objective elements in aesthetic judge-
vi Preface

ments, giving an account of aesthetic evaluation that complements
Mackie’s subjectivist theory of moral value.

In Chapter VII, first published in 1973, while not endorsing any
form of utilitarian theory, Mackie defends act-utilitarianism
against certain arguments purporting to show that it is self-defeat-
ing. Utilitarian theory is also discussed in Chapter VI, ‘Sidgwick’s
Pessimism’ (1976), where the chief topic is the relation between
egoism and moral principles, a theme that appears, in various
forms, in many of Mackie’s writings on moral philosophy.

‘The Third Theory of Law’ (1977), a well-known critique of
Ronald Dworkin’s legal theory, is printed here as Chapter X, while
‘Can There Be a Right-Based Moral Theory?’ (1978), with its ad-
vocacy of a central place for rights in moral philosophy, appears
as Chapter VIII. Chapter IX, ‘The Law of the Jungle: Moral Al-
ternatives and Principles of Evolution’, originally published in
1978, discusses the relevance of sociobiology to ethics, a theme
continued in Chapter XII, ‘Co-operation, Competition, and Moral
Philosophy’, which examines the contributions of biological and
cultural evolution to the development of morality, and their impli-
cations for ethical theory. In the final papers in his selection, ‘Par-
fit’s Population Paradox’ and ‘The Combination of Partially-
Ordered Preferences’ (Chapters XVIII and XIX), both written in
1980 and printed here for the first time, Mackie addresses himself
to a group of puzzles concerning the combination of moral prin-
ciples.

In preparing the volume for publication we have added to
Mackie’s own selection the papers printed as Chapters XI and
XUI-XVI, four of which have not been published before. All
dating from the period 1979-80, they show Mackie at work on
themes characteristic of his moral philosophy. Chapter XI, ‘Boot-
straps Enterprises’, which appears in print for the first time, is a
contribution to a debate with Ronald Dworkin on the issue of
objectivity in ethics and legal theory. Ethical objectivity is also one
of the chief topics of Chapter XV, in which Mackie argues that
retributive elements in attitudes to punishment, and in moral atti-
tudes in general, support a subjectivist conception of ethics; the
paper might be regarded as a companion piece to Chapter XII.
Mackie’s advocacy of a right-based moral theory (in opposition to
utilitarianism, in particular) is carried further in Chapters XIV and
XVI: in Chapter XIV (‘Rights, Utility, and Universalization’) on
Preface vii

the basis of a critique of R. M. Hare’s version of utilitarianism,
and in Chapter XVI (which has not appeared in print before) by
means of an examination of the problem of external costs. Chapter
XIII, ‘The Three Stages of Universalization’, also published here
for the first time, criticizes attempts to base utilitarianism on the
thesis of universalizability, adding to the discussion presented in
Chapter 4 of Ethics, Inventing Right and Wrong. ‘Norms and Di-
lemmas’, another paper not previously printed, is a short critical
examination of Derek Parfit’s suggestion that rational benevolence
can provide a solution to various ‘prisoners’ dilemmas’ involving
public goods and harms.

At the time of his death Mackie’s papers included further un-
published material on moral and political philosophy that he in-
tended to use for a book on theories of justice and rights. We hope
to publish this material, for which we could not find space in this
collection, in a separate volume in due course.

Oxford P.M.
February 1985
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are very grateful to all the copyright holders and editors concerned for
permission to reprint in this volume those papers that were originally
Published elsewhere. These include three of the most recent papers, all
published only after the death of the author and in collections for which
they were specially written: in respect of these we express our thanks to
Acta Philosophica Fennica for permission to reprint ‘Morality and the
Retributive Emotions’ from Edward Westermarck: Essays on His Life and
Works, edited by Timothy Stroup (Helsinki, 1982); to the University of
innesota Press for permission to reprint ‘Rights, Utility, and Universal-
ization’ from Urility and Rights, edited by R. G. Frey (Minneapolis, 1984);
to Van Nostrand Reinhold for permission to reprint "Co-operation, Com-
petition, and Moral Philosophy" from Cooperation and Competition in
Humans and Animals, edited by A. M. Colman (Wokingham, 1982). We
also express our thanks to The Australasian Journal of Philosophy for
permission to reprint ‘Responsibility and Language’; to Peter A. French,
‘Theodore Uehling Jr, and Howard K. Wettstein, editors of Midwest
Studies in Philosophy, Vol. III, 1978 (Studies in Ethical Theory), and the
University of Minnesota Press for permission to reprint ‘Can There Be a
Right-Based Moral Theory”; to The Philosophical Quarterly and Basil
Blackwell for permission to reprint “Sidgwick’s Pessimism’ and “The Dis-
ility of Act-Utilitarianism’; to Princeton University Press for permission
to reprint “The Third Theory of Law’ from Philosophy and Public Affairs,
Vol. 7, No. 1, © 1977 by Princeton University Press; to the Royal Institute
of Philosophy and Cambridge University Press for permission to reprint
from Philosophy “The Law of the Jungle: Moral Alternatives and Principles
of Evolution’
CONTENTS

1_Multiple Personality 1
H_The Transcendental ‘T 1
Iil_Responsibitity and Language 28
IV_The Grounds of Responsibility 46
V_ Aesthetic Judgements—A Logical Study 60
VI_Sidgwick’s Pessimism 1
VII__The Disutility of Act-Utilitarianism on
VIII_Can There Be a Right-Based Moral Theory’ 105
IX_The Law of the Jungle: Moral Alternatives and 120
Principles of Evolution
X_The Third Theory of Law 132
XI_Bootstraps Enterprises 145
XII_Co-operation, Competition, and Moral Philosophy _152
XIII_ The Three Stages of Universalization 170
XIV_ Rights, Utility, and Universalization 184
XV_Morality and the Retributive Emotions 206
XVI_ Rights, Utility, and External Costs 220
XVII Norms and Dilemmas 234
XVIII Parfit's Population Paradox 242
XIX__The Combination of Partially-Ordered Preferences 249

Index of Names

254