Mackie's Hypothetical And Categorical Imperatives

J. L. Mackie claims that there are no objective values in the world that is to say that there are no such values that have been by default built into the structure of the universe. When Mackie claims that there are no objective values, he clarifies that his theory is not a first-order form of subjectivism or skepticism, but a second-order one. This means that his position is not one of a moral skeptic who would argue that we ought to reject all conventional moral judgments. According to Mackie, there are two things that are required for values to be objective:
1. These values should have intrinsic reason-giving power.
2. They should be able to unconditionally motivate us to act.
Thus to say that there are no objective values there should be no values that have intrinsic-reason giving power or motivate us unconditionally to act in a certain manner. For example an ethical statement like, “Love thy neighbor”, has neither an intrinsic-reason giving power, nor motivates us unconditionally to really love our neighbors. Here, in order to clarify, Mackie uses Immanuel Kant’s idea of hypothetical and categorical imperatives.
Kant distinguished between two types of imperative: hypothetical and categorical.
Hypothetical imperatives tell us what to do in order to achieve a particular goal, for example, “If you want to score well in a test, study hard” or “If you don’t want to go to prison, then don’t break the law”. Categorical imperatives, on the other hand, tell us what to do irrespective of our desire to achieve certain goals. For example, “Don’t kill” or “Don’t steal” are categorical imperatives that tell us to not kill or steal, regardless of whether we want to avoid the negative consequences of that action or not. Mackie denies that categorical imperatives have any power as they do not motivate us unconditionally to act in a certain manner and therefor there are no objective moral values since hypothetical imperatives already vary from person to
person.
Mackie gives us three argument against the objectivity of values, one of which is the argument from relativity. The theory of relativity says that moral values and norms concerning moral conduct have differed from time to time and from place to place, both within and between different societies and are thus not objective. Mackie takes this argument further to say that the moral values that exist at a particular time are approved of by the people because they practice them rather than people practicing them because they approve of them and therefor moral values at any point of time are subjective. This argument can be broken down as follows:
P1: If there is a large variation in moral codes between and within cultures and communities, then there is no single objective moral value.
P2: There is a large variation in moral codes between and within cultures and communities.
C: Therefore, there is no single objective moral value.
However, there exists a well-known objection to the relativity argument against the objectivity of values. One might say that perhaps it is not specific moral values but rather general principles of morality which are objective across all cultures.
Mackie, however, believes that this objection is inadequate and in reply to this objection, he says that people often judge things to be right or wrong because of their automatic reactions or “moral intuition” towards them, not because they are a particular manifestation of a general moral principle. In such cases people’s differing judgments cannot be accounted for as being consequences of general moral principles as applied to particular circumstances, because those rules would then have no influence on people’s judgments.