First Order Moral View Analysis

2. What is the Difference between a first-order moral view and a second-order moral view? Give two examples of each. Is Mackie’s moral subjectivism a first-order view or a second-order view?

There is a logical distinction between first and second order moral views. In a first-order moral view a person who adopts either negative or positive is taking a practical, normative, stand. While, second-Order moral view is a view a view about the status of moral values and the nature of moral valuing, about where and how they fit into the world. Example, of a first order moral view, ‘Abortions are horrible’ and second moral view ‘ Even if abortions are horrible it doesn’t give people the right to not perform it’ I believe that Mackie’s

moral subjectivism is a second order view.
3. State in your own words the two parts of Mackie’s ‘’Argument from Queerness’’ (do not give the argument: just describe its two components).
There is one part of Mackie’s argument that states that objective values do not exist because it would be metaphysically abnormal “qualities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe”. Then the other part, epistemological, I believe that it is stating that you must have some type of super power to in order to have objective values “some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else”
4. What is the difference between these interpretations? Which interpretation does Mackie rely on in his discussions of Plato, Kant, and Sidgwick?
I believe that the difference between these two interpretation is that the first interpretation seems to appeal to the emotion only it doesn’t appeal to the moral view.

It is first order view (normative view). “Namely that everyone really ought to do whatever he thinks he should”(Mackie Page 648).While on the other hand, the second interpretation is more in depth. I believe that the second interpretation is more descriptive. “Descriptivism is again a doctrine about the meanings of ethical terms and statements, namely that their meanings are purely descriptive rather than even partly prescriptive or emotive or

evaluative”.
With Plato and Sidgwick I believe that Mackie relies on the second interpretation because they both have similar views. Plato believes that education will give people power and knowledge of the forms and Sidgwick believes that there is science of conduct, it is reason behind complying. And then there is Kant who believes that someone can pure reason by itself can be practical, complying because of self-interest is practical to Kant which is why I believe that Mackie relies on the first statement with Kant. But if the question is asking which one out of the two interpretations that Mackie rely on all three, Plato, Kant and Sidgwick would be the second interpretation. “Though a rational being gives the moral law to himself, the law that he thus makes is determinate and necessary.”
5. Why is the support for subjectivism only indirect? Why doesn’t moral disagreement lead directly to subjectivism?
“Radical differences between first order moral judgements make it difficult to treat those judgements as apprehensions of objective truths. But it is not the mere occurrence of disagreements that tells against the objectivity of values”. Subjectivism is indirect because people seem to approve moral norms they do because they are practiced rather than because they approve of them. “Disagreement about moral codes seems to reflect people's adherence to and participation in different ways of life.” Moral disagreement doesn’t lead to subjectivism directly because it is interpreted in the same way that scientific disagreement is interpret. Moral disagreement is a result form speculative inference or explanatory hypothesis based on inadequate evidence.
6. How exactly does the variation in moral views within and between societies (indirectly) support second-order subjectivism? (Hint : Focus on Mackie’s contrast between explaining scientific and moral disagreement .) Is Mackie convincing on this point?

“Second order subjectivism: radical differences between first order moral judgements make it difficult to treat those judgements as apprehensions of objective truths”.

Disagreement about moral codes seems to reflect people's adherence to and participation in different ways of life. While scientific disagreement does not show that there are no objective issues in these fields for investigators to disagree about. Actual variations in the moral codes are more readily explained by the hypothesis that they reflect ways of life than by the hypothesis that they express perceptions, most of them seriously inadequate and badly distorted, of objective values. I do believe that Mackie is convincing on this point because in order to prove something you do need evidence, without it a hypothesis would then be

inadequate