In the first chapter of his Ethics: inventing right and wrong, J.L. Mackie argues for an “error theory” of affirmative moral judgments like ‘giving to the poor is morally obligatory’ (1977: 35).1 The error is that we talk as if at least sometimes our affirmative moral judgments correctly describe moral properties even though in fact moral properties do not exist. To see how this might happen, first consider our discourse about mid-sized objects, and take the judgment ‘Foxy is a vixen’. Assuming that this and other judgments about mid-sized objects are descriptive judgments, what ‘Foxy is a vixen’ describes is determined, in part, by what the concept vixen refers to (I use small caps for concepts).2 And since we must analyse vixen as having female foxes as its referent, ‘Foxy is a vixen’ describes Foxy as having the property of being a female fox. Similarly, take a moral judgment like ‘giving to the poor is morally obligatory’. Assuming with Mackie that this and other moral judgments are descriptive judgments, what ‘giving to the poor is morally obligatory’ describes

中文翻译：

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麦基的观念改革道德错误理论

在他的伦理学：发明对与错的第一章中，JL Mackie 提出了一种“错误理论”，即肯定的道德判断，例如“给予穷人在道德上是必须的”（1977：35）。1 错误在于我们说如果至少有时我们肯定的道德判断正确地描述了道德属性，即使实际上道德属性并不存在。要了解这可能如何发生，首先考虑我们关于中型物体的论述，然后判断“Foxy is a vixen”。假设对中等大小物体的这种判断和其他判断是描述性判断，那么“Foxy is a vixen”所描述的内容部分取决于 vixen 所指的概念（我对概念使用小型大写字母）。 2 而且由于我们必须将狐狸精分析为以雌性狐狸为参照物，“狐狸是狐狸精”将狐狸描述为具有雌性狐狸的特性。同样，进行道德判断，例如“向穷人施舍是道德义务”。假设 Mackie 认为这个和其他道德判断是描述性判断，那么“给予穷人在道德上是必须的”描述的是