J. L. Mackie

John Leslie Mackie 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.

For other people named John Mackie, see John Mackie (disambiguation).

J. L. Mackie

FBA
Born
John Leslie Mackie

(1917-08-25)25 August 1917
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Died12 December 1981(1981-12-12) (aged 64)
Oxford, England
Alma mater
  • University of Sydney
  • Oriel College, Oxford
Spouse
Joan Meredith
​
(m. 1947)​
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
School
Institutions
  • University of Otago
  • University of Sydney
  • University of York
  • University College, Oxford
Academic advisorsJohn Anderson
Main interests
  • Metaphysics
  • philosophy of language
  • ethics
  • moral nihilism
Notable ideas
Argument from queerness

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) has been called a tour de force in contemporary analytic philosophy. The atheist 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." In 1980 Time magazine described him as "perhaps the ablest of today's atheistic philosophers."

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