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Abstract
The ‘argument from queerness’, made famous by J. L. Mackie, remains one of the most influential arguments in metaethics. However, many philosophers focus on just one or two of its strands, while others assume a particular but by no means universal reading of it. This essay attempts to disentangle and evaluate all strands of the argument. Surprisingly, when this is done, not much is left as a distinct argument from queerness. Much of the argument collapses into other types of argument, and what is left, though intuitively appealing, is not viable as philosophical argument.
Notes
1 This essay grew out of work originally submitted for credit in Jenann Ismael's metaphysics class at the University of Arizona in Fall 2000. For helpful discussion and criticism, I am grateful to Jenann Ismael and Mark Timmons; also to Matt Bedke, Tom Christiano, Michael Gill, Michael Huemer, Jason Matteson, Michaela Mueller, Connie Rosati, Daniel Sanderman, and anonymous referees.
2 Occasionally I use ‘objects’, ‘entities’, or ‘things’ in a similar way. Also, for ease of exposition I occasionally omit either ‘objective’ or ‘moral’ from the phrase ‘objective moral values’, but in such cases I should be understood as intending the longer phrase. Similarly, references to prescriptivity should be understood as references to objective prescriptivity.
3 In the case of reasons for action, the phrase ‘recognition of’ is arguably superfluous. My discussion allows for this.
4 It is controversial to extend the argument in this way, for many think that instrumental reasons for action are not queer. However, others hold that the move from (e.g.) ‘I want to drink gin’ to ‘I should drink gin’ is potentially queer. Russ Shafer-Landau writes, ‘Here is a particular kind of fact—Φing satisfies one's desires, or promotes one's interests. And to this we attach a very special property—that of supplying in itself ... a reason for action. To the extent that this property is mysterious, the mystery attaches equally to egoism or instrumentalism [as to other theories of practical reason]’[2003: 211]. For an extended defence of the view that all normative reasons are equally queer (or not), see Bedke [Citation2007: chap. 1].
5 An alternative way of rendering the last clause is, ‘it would be queer qua belief, if it existed’. The correct way of writing the clause depends on whether such beliefs in fact exist. A similar issue arises at many points in this essay, and for ease of exposition, I often drop qualifications such as ‘if it existed’.
6 Interestingly, Mackie suggests that an argument from queerness might be needed to support the Humean view of motivation [1977: 40 – 1]. If this is true, then I am wrong to dismiss the connection between motivational prescriptivity and queerness. However, in that case, so much the worse for Humean theories of motivation, for I see no way of establishing the requisite queerness claim without begging the question against non-Humeans.
7 I am not sure there is any principled and useful distinction between the natural and the non-natural. However, I follow Mackie's use of ‘natural’.
8 Consider Mackie's [1946] words: ‘In this paper I do not pretend to be advancing any particularly new ideas. … But I think I am justified in offering this restatement of them, because it is seldom realized how they may be brought together and interrelated, or how radically destructive they are of all common views of morality, when this is done’[77]. The thesis of the current essay is that the argument from queerness adds no argumentative force to this interrelation.
9 Gilbert Harman [1977: chap. 1] presents an argument along these lines, though he does not characterize his argument as an argument from queerness. Jean Hampton fleetingly seems to read Mackie's argument this way when she writes, ‘[Mackie] argues, first, that such language refers to objects or properties that are metaphysically “queer” by virtue of being inherently prescriptive. Since the best scientific theories we have—in physics, chemistry, and biology—neither recognize nor require for explanation any such object or property, Mackie concludes that we are not licensed to believe that they exist’[1998: 21 – 2]. However, the bulk of Hampton's reply to Mackie is informed by a different reading of the argument (see below).
10 At present. What the advancing field of genetics may produce is another matter! I am grateful to Matt Bedke for discussion of this and similar examples.
11 For ways in which appeals to parsimony are grounded, see Huemer [unpublished].
12 Garner similarly objects, ‘Moral facts are not just unusual in the way that facts about quarks and black holes are unusual, they are unusual in an unusual way’[1990: 143].
13 This reading of the argument is essentially the one presupposed by the bulk of Hampton's [Citation1998] reply to Mackie. Cf. n. 9.
14 I call this presentation of the argument ‘crude’ not only because it makes no attempt to deal with the difficult problem of speaking about non-existent things but also because it arguably states its first premise and conclusion too strongly. A better version might weaken premise (1) to state, ‘We have good reason to suspect that everything that exists is of type φ' and modify the conclusion accordingly. I am grateful to Michaela Mueller for raising this point.
15 ‘All these matters’ refers to a list of concepts Mackie borrows from Richard Price. Mackie's full recitation of the list is: ‘our ideas of essence, number, identity, diversity, solidity, inertia, substance, the necessary existence and infinite extension of time and space, necessity and possibility in general, power, and causation’[1977: 39].
16 I take it that empiricist accounts of mathematics fail [Frege 1980].
17 I make one passing comment on the Darwinian Dilemma: it does not arise on theist or deist views. Premise (2) of Q6 supposes that random genetic variation and natural selection are the only forces operative on human evolution, but of course theists and deists deny this. Street's arguments are attractive once atheism has been granted, but I cannot here assess whether they ultimately succeed.
18 I do not, of course, mean to imply that there are no scientists or philosophers who are people of faith.