Jumia Books Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by J. L. Mackie

"Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong" by J. L. Mackie is a landmark work in moral philosophy that presents a skeptical view about the existence of objective moral values. Mackie argues that what we call moral values are not objective truths but human inventions.

Key points from the book include:

Mackie introduces the "argument from disagreement," noting widespread and persistent moral disagreements across cultures and times, suggesting there is no objective morality everyone recognizes.

He presents the "argument from queerness," which claims if objective moral values existed, they would be metaphysically and epistemologically strange or "queer" entities unlike anything else in the world, making their existence unlikely.

Mackie advances an "error theory" of ethics, which says that moral judgments presuppose objectivity and truth, but since there is no objective morality, these judgments are systematically mistaken.

He does not equate his view with simple subjectivism or emotivism but sees moral discourse as trying and failing to describe real features of the world.

Mackie contextualizes moral systems as inventions meant to regulate social cooperation, competition, and conflict, serving human needs rather than revealing universal moral facts.

He suggests moral codes arise from social necessity and practical considerations like coexistence and group survival, not from discovering unchanging ethical truths.