Philosophy Conferences and Calls for Papers

2007 sees the 30th anniversay of publication of John Mackie’s “Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong”. To mark the occasion, ETMP is devoting a special issue of the journal in 2007 to consider aspects of this work and its influence, paying particular attention to Mackie’s moral error theory.

Here are some suggested possible topics, but authors should feel free to write on any topics that concern error theory and Mackie’s “Ethics”:

- What is the structure of Mackie’s error theory? Are there other arguments for moral error theory that are more cogent than Mackie’s?

- How plausible is Mackie’s opening claim that “first order” and “second order” moral views are “completely independent” of each other?

- What does Mackie mean when he claims that his thesis that “there are no objective values is specifically the denial that any … categorically imperative element is objectively valid” (p. 29)?

- How powerful are Mackie’s Argument from Relativity and Argument from Queerness?

- Is Mackie’s defence of Hume’s Law plausible? Does it in any way affect his moral scepticism?

- How are we to understand the relation between the sceptical view Mackie endorses in Chapter 1 and the apparent moralising in which he engages in the rest of the book?

- If one endoreses a moral error theory, to what extent is the elimination of moral language (as least as it appears in the making of unembedded atomic claims) called for? What would the practical costs of such a moral eliminativism be?

- Are Mackie’s moves in ch. 4 between the various stages of universalization justified?

Deadline for Submissions: Monday 25th September 2006.

Please make clear at the top of your work that you wish your paper to be considered for the special issue.