Mackie’s Internalisms Walter Sinnott-Armstrong 1 Mackie’s Basic Argument When Mackie calls certain judgments “queer,” he seems to mean that they differ from other judgments in some way that makes them dubious. Each version of the argument from queerness then picks out a different way in which moral judgments are supposed to differ from other judgments. Since Mackie’s goal is an error theory, he also needs to show that the differences between moral judgments and the other judgments make moral judgments dubious in such a way that they are never true in the same way as the other judgments. The version of queerness based on internalism claims that moral judgments are queer because some special force is internal to moral judgments but not to other judgments. This argument can be presented in steps: 1. Moral judgments have some special force built into them. 2. Other judgments do not have that special force built into them. 3. Therefore, moral judgments are unlike other judgments. 4. If moral judgments are unlike other judgments in this way, then they are never true (in the same way as the other judgments). 5. Therefore, moral judgments are never true (in the same way as the other judgments). This overall argument works only if Mackie can specify some special force that (a) moral judgments have, (b) other judgments lack, and (c) is important enough in some way that supports Mackie’s skeptical conclusions. Mackie, thus, needs to argue for some kind of internalism in his first premise, and he also needs the right kind of internalism to make the rest of his argument follow. Comparison to other judgments, though suggested by Mackie’s label “queer,” might not be essential to Mackie’s argument. Sometimes (e.g., 1977, p. 35) W. Sinnott-Armstrong (B ) Department of Philosophy, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA 55 R. Joyce, S. Kirchin (eds.), AWorld Without Values, Philosophical Studies Series 114, DOI 10.1007/978-90-481-3339-0_4, C  Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010