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

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

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