View source for J. L. Mackie

{{Short description|Australian philosopher (1917–1981)}}
{{Other people|John Mackie}}
{{Use Australian English|date=January 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region           = [[Western philosophy]]
| era              = [[20th-century philosophy]]
| image            = John Leslie Mackie.jpg
| caption          =
| name             = J.&nbsp;L. Mackie
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA|size=100%}}
| birth_name       = John Leslie Mackie
| birth_date       = {{birth date|df=yes|1917|8|25}}
| birth_place      = [[Sydney]], [[New South Wales]], Australia
| death_date       = {{death date and age|df=yes|1981|12|12|1917|8|24}}
| death_place      = [[Oxford]], England
| alma_mater       = {{ubl | [[University of Sydney]] | [[Oriel College, Oxford]]}}
| spouse           = {{marriage|Joan Meredith|1947}}
| school_tradition = {{ubl | [[Analytic philosophy]] | [[Australian realism]]}}
| institutions     = {{ubl | [[University of Otago]] | [[University of Sydney]] | [[University of York]] | [[University College, Oxford]]}}
| main_interests   = {{hlist | [[Metaphysics]] | [[philosophy of language]] | [[ethics]] | [[philosophy of religion]]}}
| notable_ideas    = [[Argument from queerness]]
| academic_advisors = [[John Anderson (philosopher)|John Anderson]]
}}

'''John Leslie Mackie''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA}} (25 August 1917 – 12 December 1981) was an Australian [[philosopher]]. He made significant contributions to [[ethics]], the [[philosophy of religion]], [[metaphysics]], and the [[philosophy of language]]. Mackie had influential views on [[metaethics]], including his defence of [[moral scepticism]] and his sophisticated defence of [[atheism]]. He wrote six books. His most widely known, ''[[Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong]]'' (1977), opens by boldly stating, "There are no objective values." It goes on to argue that because of this, [[ethics]] must be invented rather than discovered.

His posthumously published ''The Miracle of Theism: Arguments For and Against the Existence of God'' (1982)<ref>"The title is a clever allusion to [[David Hume|Hume's]] remark in the tenth chapter of his ''[[An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding|Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding]]'' that it is a miracle that anyone assents to the Christian religion." [[William Lane Craig|Craig, W.]] (1984). [https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/scholarly-writings/the-existence-of-god/professor-mackie-and-the-kalam-cosmological-argument/ Professor Mackie and the KalĀm cosmological argument]. ''[[Religious Studies (journal)|Religious Studies]],'' ''20''(3), fn.1, p. 367 {{doi|10.1017/S0034412500016243}} {{JSTOR|20006071}}</ref> has been called ''a'' ''tour de force'' in contemporary analytic philosophy.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Allan|first=James|author-link=James Allan (law professor)|date=1996|title=The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God|url=http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/OtaLawRw/1996/14.pdf|journal=[[Otago Law Review]]|volume=8|pages=633}}</ref> The atheist philosopher [[Kai Nielsen (philosopher)|Kai Nielsen]] described it as "one of the most, probably the most, distinguished articulation of an atheistic point of view given in the twentieth century."<ref>{{cite book | last1=Moreland | first1=James Porter | last2=Nielsen | first2=Kai | title=Does God exist? : the debate between theists & atheists | publisher=Prometheus Books | publication-place=Buffalo, N.Y. | date=1993 | isbn=0-87975-823-6 | oclc=27171769 | author-link1=James Porter Moreland | author-link2=Kai Nielsen (philosopher)}}</ref> In 1980, ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine described him as "perhaps the ablest of today's atheistic philosophers".<ref>{{Cite magazine|date=7 April 1980|title=Religion: Modernizing the Case for God|language=en-US|magazine=Time|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,921990-6,00.html|access-date=28 April 2020|issn=0040-781X}}</ref>

==Life==
Mackie was born 25 August 1917 in [[Killara]], [[Sydney]],<ref name="Australian Dictionary of Biography">{{cite Australian Dictionary of Biography |id2=mackie-john-leslie-14214|title= Mackie, John Leslie (1917–1981)|last= Menzies| first= Peter | access-date= 7 March 2017 }}</ref> son of [[Alexander Mackie (Australian academic)|Alexander Mackie]], professor of education at the [[University of Sydney]] and principal of the [[Sydney Teachers College]], influential in the educational system of [[New South Wales]].<ref name="Times Obit"/> and Annie Burnett (née Duncan), who was a schoolteacher.<ref name="ODNB"/><ref name="Australian Dictionary of Biography" /> In his youth Mackie went to [[Knox Grammar School]] in Sydney and graduated with [[Valedictorian|dux]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Menzies |first1=Peter |title=Australian Dictionary of Biography |chapter=John Leslie Mackie (1917–1981) |date=2012 |publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University |url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mackie-john-leslie-14214/text25228 |access-date=2 July 2025}}</ref>
[[File:PRIZE-GIVING AT KNOX GRAMMAR SCHOOL.png|thumb|left|J. L. Mackie receives his Dux from Knox Grammar School]]
Mackie graduated from the University of Sydney in 1938 after studying under [[John Anderson (philosopher)|John Anderson]], sharing the medal in philosophy with [[Harold Glass]]. Mackie received the Wentworth Travelling Fellowship to study [[Literae Humaniores|greats]] at [[Oriel College, Oxford]], where he graduated with [[British undergraduate degree classification|first-class honours]] in 1940.<ref name="Australian Dictionary of Biography" />

During the [[Second World War]] Mackie served with the [[Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers]] in the [[Middle East]] and [[Italy]], and was [[mentioned in dispatches]].<ref name="Australian Dictionary of Biography"/> He was professor of philosophy at the [[University of Otago]] in [[New Zealand]] from 1955 to 1959 and succeeded Anderson as the [[Challis Professor]] of philosophy at the University of Sydney from 1959 to 1963. In 1963, he moved to the United Kingdom, becoming the inaugural holder of the chair of philosophy in the [[University of York]], a position he held until 1967, when he was elected a fellow of [[University College, Oxford]], where he served as [[praelector]]. In 1969, he gave a lecture, "What's Really Wrong with Phenomenalism?", at the [[British Academy]] as part of its annual Philosophical Lectures series.<ref>Mackie, John L, [https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/2143/55p113.pdf "What's Really Wrong With Phenomenalism"],''[[Proceedings of the British Academy]]'' 55:113-127 (1969)</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Philosophical Lectures |url=https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/lectures/listings/philosophical-lectures/ |access-date=2022-06-16 |website=The British Academy |language=en}}</ref> In 1974, he became a fellow of the British Academy.<ref name="Times Obit"/>

Mackie died in [[Oxford]] on 12 December 1981.<ref name="Times Obit"/>

===Character and family===
Mackie is said to have been capable of expressing total disagreement in such a genial way that the person being addressed might mistake his comment for a compliment.<ref>Obituary notice, ''University College Record'', 1982</ref> This personal style is exemplified by the following words from the preface to ''Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong'':

{{blockquote|I am nowhere mainly concerned to refute any individual writer. I believe that all those to whom I have referred, even those with whom I disagree most strongly, have contributed significantly to our understanding of ethics: where I have quoted their actual words, it is because they have presented views or arguments more clearly or more forcefully than I could put them myself.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong|last=Mackie|first=J.|date=30 August 1990|isbn=9780140135589|language=en|chapter=Preface|ol=24952211M|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=litcWybOSYcC&pg=PT10|ol-access=free|title-link=Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong|publisher=Penguin Adult }}</ref>}}

Mackie married Joan Meredith in 1947. One of their three children, [[Penelope Mackie]], also became a philosopher. She lectured in philosophy at the [[University of Birmingham]] from 1994 to 2004, and then at the [[University of Nottingham]] from 2004 until her death in 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |title=LISTSERV 16.5 - PHILOS-L Archives |url=https://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=PHILOS-L;edf05587.2212 |access-date=2022-12-15 |website=listserv.liv.ac.uk}}</ref> Mackie's son David is also a philosopher and graduated from [[Oxford University]], where he held lectureships at [[Exeter College, Oxford|Exeter College]], [[Corpus Christi College, Oxford|Corpus Christi College]], and [[Christ Church, Oxford|Christ Church]] before being appointed a Fellow and Tutor at [[Oriel College]]. He is Head of Philosophy at [[D'Overbroeck's College]], Oxford.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160217192420/http://www.doverbroecks.com/oxford/school/staff.php Teaching Staff] at [[D'Overbroeck's College]] website. Archived from [http://www.doverbroecks.com/staff/ the original] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150614215506/http://www.doverbroecks.com/staff/ |date=14 June 2015 }} on 17 February 2016 by [[Wayback Machine]]</ref> His daughter Hilary is a classicist at [[Rice University]].<ref>Hilary Mackie [https://web.archive.org/web/20180304010802/http://ces.rice.edu/faculty/hilary-mackie Faculty website]. Archived from [http://ces.rice.edu/faculty/hilary-mackie the original] on 14 March 2018 via [[Wayback Machine]]</ref>

==Philosophical work==
Mackie is best known for his contributions to [[metaethics]], [[philosophy of religion]], and [[metaphysics]]. 

In his work ''The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation'', Mackie makes an analysis of [[causality]] by prior philosophers and sets forth his theory of causality based on [[Counterfactual conditional|counterfactual conditionals]]. He argued that a cause is an "[[INUS condition]]" (insufficient but non-redundant parts of a condition which is itself unnecessary but sufficient for the occurrence of the effect). E.g, the statement "The short circuit caused the fire", the short circuit is a necessary part of the fire condition (short circuit and flammable material) but not sufficient (a short circuit does not always result in a fire). This condition in turn is sufficient for a fire to take place, although not necessary (it can be replaced by other conditions such as "lightning and flammable material" or "arson").<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mackie |first=J. L. |title=The cement of the universe: a study of causation |date=1974 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-824405-9 |series=The Clarendon library of logic and philosophy |location=Oxford}}</ref>

In metaethics, he took a position called [[moral scepticism]], arguing against the [[Moral realism|objective existence of ''right'' and ''wrong'']] as intrinsically normative entities on fundamental grounds. He was unsure what kinds of thing they would be if they existed.<ref>See, for example, Mackie 1977: [[Argument from Queerness]]. ''The Argument from Queerness also suggests that the only way to know of such entities would be through an [[intuition]] or another faculty different from how we know everything else. He conjoined moral scepticism with [[error theory]], holding that moral judgments, while cognitive, are all false since there are no moral properties about which our moral judgments could be correct.''</ref>

His most widely known work, ''Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong'', bluntly begins with the sentence "There are no objective values".<ref name="ODNB"/> He uses several arguments to support this claim. He argues that some aspects of moral thought are relative, and that objective morals require an absurd intrinsic action-guiding feature. Most of all, he thinks it is very unclear how objective values could supervene on features of the natural world (see the ''[[Argument from queerness]]''), and argues it would be difficult to justify our knowledge of "value entities" or account for any links or consequences they would have. Finally, he thinks it possible to show that even without any objective values, people would still have reason to firmly believe in them (hence he claims that it is possible for people to be mistaken or fooled into believing that objective values exist). ''[[The Times]]'' called the book "a lucid discussion of moral theory which, although aimed at the general reader, has attracted a good deal of professional attention."<ref name="Times Obit"/>

[[File:FreeWillTaxonomy2.svg|right|thumb|250px|Mackie held compatibilism about [[free will]].]]
Concerning religion, he was well known for vigorously defending [[atheism]], and also arguing that the [[problem of evil]] made untenable the main [[monotheism|monotheistic]] religions.<ref>See, for example, Mackie 1982.</ref> His criticisms of the [[free will]] [[theodicy]] are particularly significant. He argued that the idea of human free will is no defence for those who wish to believe in an [[omnipotent]] being in the face of evil and suffering, as such a being could have given us both free will and moral perfection, thus resulting in us choosing the good in every situation. In 1955 he published "Evil and Omnipotence", which summarized his view that belief in the existence of evil and an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good god is "positively irrational".<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mackie|first=J. L.|title=Iv.—Evil and Omnipotence|date=1955|url=http://www.ditext.com/mackie/evil.html|journal=Mind|language=en|volume=LXIV|issue=254|pages=200–212|doi=10.1093/mind/LXIV.254.200|issn=0026-4423|jstor=2251467|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Mackie's views on this [[Problem of evil#Logical problem of evil|logical problem of evil]] prompted [[Alvin Plantinga]] to respond with the "[[Alvin Plantinga's free-will defense|free-will defense]]", which Mackie later responded in his ''The Miracle of Theism''. In metaphysics, Mackie made significant contributions relating to the nature of [[causality (physics)|causal relationships]], especially conditional statements describing them and the notion of an [[INUS]] condition.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h38IAQAAIAAJ|title=The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation|last=Mackie|first=John Leslie|date=1974|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=9780198244059|language=en}}</ref>

After being given a copy of [[Richard Dawkins]]'s ''[[The Selfish Gene]]'' as a Christmas present,<ref name="ODNB"/> in 1978 Mackie wrote an article in the journal ''[[Philosophy (journal)|Philosophy]]'' praising the book and discussing how its ideas might be applied to moral philosophy.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mackie|first=J. L.|date=1978|title=The Law of the Jungle: Moral Alternatives and Principles of Evolution|journal=Philosophy|language=en|volume=53|issue=206|pages=455–464|doi=10.1017/S0031819100026322|s2cid=159925034 |issn=1469-817X|doi-access=}}</ref> The philosopher [[Mary Midgley]] responded in 1979 with "Gene-Juggling", an article arguing that ''The Selfish Gene'' was about [[psychological egoism]] rather than [[evolution]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Midgley|first=Mary|date=1979|title=Gene-juggling|journal=Philosophy|language=en|volume=54|issue=210|pages=439–458|doi=10.1017/S0031819100063488|pmid=11661921|issn=1469-817X|doi-access=free}}</ref> This started a dispute between Mackie, Midgley, and Dawkins that was ongoing at the time of Mackie's death.

==Publications==

===Books===
[[File:The Miracle of Theism.jpg|thumb|upright=0.5|''The Miracle of Theism'' (1982).]]
* ''Truth, Probability, and Paradox'' (1973), [[Oxford University Press]], {{ISBN|0-19-824402-9}}.
* ''The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation'' (1980), Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|0-19-824642-0}}.
* ''Problems from Locke'' (1976), Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|0-19-824555-6}}.
* ''[[iarchive:ethicsinventingr00mack|Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong]]'' (1977), Viking Press, {{ISBN|0-14-013558-8}}. 
* ''Hume's Moral Theory'' (1980), Routledge Keegan & Paul, {{ISBN|0-7100-0525-3}}.
* ''[[iarchive:TheMiracleOfTheismArgumentsForAndAgainstTheExistenceOfGodJLMackie|The Miracle of Theism]]: Arguments for and against the Existence of God'' (1982), Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|0-19-824682-X}}.

===Anthologies===
* ''Logic and Knowledge: Selected Papers, Volume I'' (1985), Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|0-19-824679-X}}.
* ''Persons and Values: Selected Papers, Volume II'' (1985), Oxford University Press, {{ISBN|0-19-824678-1}}.

=== Papers/book chapters ===

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20231208011542/https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/2143/55p113.pdf "What’s Really Wrong with Phenomenalism?"] ''Proceedings of the British Academy 55, 1969'' (1971)

For a more complete list of works see "The publications of J. L. Mackie" compiled by Joan Mackie.<ref>In:  [[Ted Honderich|Honderich, Ted]] (1985) ''Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J.L. Mackie''</ref>

== References ==
<references>
<ref name="Times Obit">[http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/anderson/contributors/harris/mackie-obit.pdf Obituary], ''The Times'', 15 December 1981</ref>
<ref name="ODNB">{{ODNBweb |id=65648 |title=Mackie, John Leslie (1917–1981)|last=McDowell |first=John}}</ref> 
</references>

==Further reading==
* [[John McDowell|McDowell, John]]. (1991) [https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/1299/76p487.pdf "Mackie, John Leslie, 1917–1981"] in ''[[Proceedings of the British Academy]]'' 76 {{ISBN|0-19-726107-8}}
*[[James Franklin (philosopher)|Franklin, James]]. (2003) ''Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia'', Macleay Press, {{ISBN|1-876492-08-2}}, [https://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/corruptingtheyouthch5.pdf ch. 5.] (author shared eprint)
* [[Ted Honderich|Honderich, Ted]]. (ed). (1985) ''Morality and Objectivity: A Tribute to J. L. Mackie'', Routledge Kegan & Paul, {{ISBN|0-7100-9991-6}}.
* {{cite book | last1=Brown | first1=Stuart C. | last2=Collinson | first2=Diane | last3=Wilkinson | first3=Robert | title=Biographical dictionary of twentieth-century philosophers | publisher=Routledge | publication-place=London | date=2002 | isbn=978-1-134-92796-8 | oclc=1100433484}}
* {{cite book | editor-last=Oppy | editor-first=Graham | editor-last2=Trakakis | editor-first2=Nick | title=A companion to philosophy in Australia & New Zealand | publication-place=Clayton, Victoria | date=2014 | isbn=978-1-925495-26-3 | oclc=904689134 | url = https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/31527/627410.pdf | chapter = Mackie, J. L. | first = Keith | last = Campbell | author-link = Keith Campbell (philosopher) | orig-date = 2010 | edition = Second}}

{{Analytic philosophy}}
{{Ethics}}
{{philosophy of religion}}

{{Authority control}}

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