Wittgenstein on Moral Consciousness (original) (raw)
Related papers
Wittgenstein’s Notion of Ethics
ESTUDO GERAL Repositório científico da UC , 2017
The aim of this paper is to clarify Wittgenstein’s notion of ethics, and explain how it can contribute to the understanding of the continuity of his philosophy. The broad consensus on Wittgenstein’s work divides it into an early and later period; however, few have undertaken the challenge of finding the linking thread between them. Of those who have, results have in general led to prioritising the original aspects of one in favour of the other. The premise of this study is that the ethical purpose of Wittgenstein’s philosophy remained essentially the same throughout his life. This means that interpretation of his work (from the Notebooks 1914 – 1916 to On Certainty) through the lens of his notion of ethics, may offer a synoptic, yet non-discriminatory view of his writings. If this is correct, it should lead to a fresh reading of Wittgenstein’s philosophy that avoids postulating in advance an internal discord in his thoughts and that prioritises its conception as coherent in its development. Finally, it also underscores Wittgenstein’s will in contributing to the pursuit of the ‘good’ life.
Early Wittgenstein’s Views on Ethics: Some Reflections
Journal of Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2018
The paper undertakes an in-depth analysis of the early phase of Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings in Notebooks (NB), Tractatus Logico Philosophicus (TLP) and ''A Lecture on Ethics'' (LOE) in order to present an exposition of some of the central themes, and to extrapolate his views on ethics. To this end, the paper analyses Wittgenstein's understanding of the nature of philosophical inquiry, significance and centrality of ethics, the model of language, saying/showing distinction, notions of will, happiness, good and evil, use of relative and absolute values and several others. Early Wittgenstein's views on ethics are peculiar in so far as they are implied by his views on language with the study of which he was centrally concerned. He claims that language, thought and reality are isomorphic; therefore, language is the basis of all speculation about morality. In TLP, Ethics is transcendental and transgresses the limits of language. The paper begins with a discussion of the importance of ethics, as explicated in his early writings.
Moral Thought in Wittgenstein: Clarity and Changes of Attitude
Routledge - Wittgenstein’s Moral Thought (Edited by Reshef Agam-Segal, Edmund Dain), 2018
In ethics, Wittgenstein, early and late, emphasized changes of attitude over questions about how to act. He once told his friend Rhees: “One of my sister’s characteristics is that whenever she hears of something awful that has happened, her impulse is to ask what one can do about it, what she can do to help or remedy. This is a tendency in her of which I disapprove.” Instead, he says elsewhere: “If life becomes hard to bear we think of improvements. But the most important & effective improvement, in our own attitude, hardly occurs to us […].” Such attitudinal changes involve a kind of clarity of thought for Wittgenstein, and his understanding of them can be explained in part by reference to his later discussion about aspect-perception. Moral problems can disappear in a way that resembles the disappearance of the rabbit-aspect of Jastrow's duck-rabbit when the duck-aspect dawns. I compare moral clarification to logical-philosophical clarification. Both cases involve propositions that say nothing, but rather shed light on what other propositions say—tautologies, grammatical remarks, and philosophical elucidations on the one hand, clarificatory moral remarks like ‘think of her as someone’s daughter’ on the other. I argue that this gives a practical edge to Wittgenstein’s moral thought, a tool with which to think through moral difficulties.
The Early Wittgenstein on Living a Good Ethical Life
Philosophia
This paper offers a novel interpretation of Wittgenstein’s early conception of ethics and the good ethical life. Initially, it critically examines the widespread view according to which Wittgenstein’s early conception of ethics and the good ethical life involves having a certain ethical attitude to the world. It points out that this reading incurs in some mistakes and shortcomings, thereby suggesting the need for an alternative reading that avoids and amends these inadequacies. Subsequently, it sets out to offer said reading. Specifically, it is argued that the good ethical life is predicated on a good exercise of the ethical will and solving the riddle of life, both of which demand a certain view of, and not an attitude to, the world. This view is the view of the world sub specie aeterni.
A Wittgensteinian Form of Moral Expressivism
The notion of " attitude " is central to the reception of Wittgenstein in moral philosophy, in at least two different contexts: firstly, in connection with early Wittgenstein it has become standard to speak of ethics as an " attitude towards the world as a whole " ; and secondly, and in connection with the later Wittgenstein, the notion of the " attitude towards a soul " — in contrast with the alleged opinion that someone has a soul — has been used to elucidate a sense of the moral significance of others, particularly in the writings of Peter Winch and Cora Diamond. Interestingly, within contemporary metaethics, the position that our moral judgments are expressions of attitude is labelled " moral expressivism ". In this paper I focus on Simon Blackburn's version of moral expressivism. I argue that Blackburn's position is motivated by the same concerns Wittgenstein expressed in his " Lecture on Ethics ". However, while Blackburn's notion of " attitude " is ultimately an emotivist notion, denoting a binary affective response to the facts, whereas the notion of " attitude " used in Wittgensteinian contexts is much subtler; while it often involves an emotional response, an attitude is primarily a way of conceiving the facts and in the context of his later work it is more firmly grounded in practices. I suggest finally that if we modify moral expressivism by adopting the Wittgensteinian notion of attitude, we are able to more capably answer some of the objections to standard moral expressivism and generate a more sophisticated and plausible view.
Reformation Bible College, 2021
This thesis reconsiders common understandings of Tractarian ethics by proposing to recontextualize it within the anthropological bent that runs through Wittgenstein’s philosophy and culminates in the Philosophical Investigations. More specifically, I claim that this recontextualizing of the Tractarian vision of value, ethical propositions as nonsense, and ethics as transcendental shows how these are actually instantiated within the anthropological frame of Wittgenstein’s vision of meaning as use, language-games, rule-following, and forms of life from Philosophical Grammar to Philosophical Investigations. The significance of the paper is that it offers a study of Wittgenstein’s moral thought positioned between traditionalist and resolute readings which offers the possibility of new avenues of dialogue with other moral philosophers.
(2007) The Moral Dimension of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Method
Wittgenstein wrote: ‘Working in philosophy … is really more a working on oneself. On one’s own interpretation. On one’s own way of seeing things.’ In what sense, for Wittgenstein, is work in philosophy ‘work on oneself’? This paper will be devoted to answering this question, and to delineating the moral aspects of his work.
Ethics: Wittgenstein's Radical Ethics
European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2018
In this paper I will show how the later Wittgenstein utilises the "logic" of the second-person or I-you perspective. Though Wittgenstein himself did not think of his philosophy in this way, laying out the logic of the I-you understanding will show the source of the illuminating power of his philosophy and give a perspicuous view of the character of philosophical problems. Philosophers tend to overlook that a fundamental form of intelligibility has its source in the second person or I-you perspective. The most salient feature of the I-you perspective is its ethical character and I will try to outline some aspects of this feature. When ethics is understood in terms of the I-you perspective it will differ radically from the way ethics is understood in the philosophical mainstream. This may explain why it has been so difficult for Wittgensteinscholars to give a clear account of the way ethics is essential to Wittgenstein's later philosophy. I will try to show the philosophical significance of the I-you perspective by discussing both some of Wittgenstein's problematic ideas such as his talk of first person expressive and third person descriptive perspectives and some of his fruitful ideas such as his talk of primitive reactions and language-games, in the light of the I-you perspective.