The Later Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy

192 Pages·2018·2.118 MB·English

by  Benjamin De Mesel

Nordic Wittgenstein Studies
Series Editor: Niklas Forsberg
Benjamin De Mesel
The Later
Wittgenstein
and Moral
Philosophy
Nordic Wittgenstein Studies
Volume 4
Series Editor
Niklas Forsberg (Uppsala University)
Editorial Board
Sorin Bangu (University of Bergen)
Martin Gustafsson (Åbo Akademi University)
Lars Hertzberg (Åbo Akademi University)
Kjell S. Johannessen (University of Bergen)
Oskari Kuusela (University of East Anglia)
Yrsa Neuman (Åbo Akademi University)
Bernt Österman (University of Helsinki)
Alois Pichler (University of Bergen)
Simo Säätelä (University of Bergen)
Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen (University of South Denmark, Odense)
Sören Stenlund (University of Uppsala)
Thomas Wallgren (University of Helsinki)
Cato Wittusen (University of Stavanger)
Advisory Board
Maija Aalto-Heinilä (University of Eastern Finland)
Hanne Appelqvist (University of Turku)
Avner Baz (Tufts University)
Anat Biletzki (Tel Aviv University and Quinnipiac University)
Steen Brock (Aarhus University)
Kevin Cahill (University of Bergen)
David Cockburn (University of Wales)
James Conant (University of Chicago)
Cora Diamond (University of Virginia)
Alberto Emiliani (University of Helsinki)
Juliet Floyd (Boston University)
Gottfried Gabriel (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena)
Dinda L. Gorlée (The Hague, The Netherlands)
Herbert Hrachovec (University of Vienna)
Allan Janik (University of Innsbruck)
James Klagge (Virginia Tech)
Michael Kremer (University of Chicago)
Camilla Kronqvist (Åbo Akademi University)
D. K. Levy (University of Edinburgh)
Denis McManus (University of Southampton)
Felix Mühlhölzer (Georg-August Universität Göttingen)
Jean-Philippe Narboux (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)
Joachim Schulte (Universität Zürich)
Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (University of Hertfordshire)
Stephen Mulhall (New College, University of Oxford)
Antonia Soulez (Université de Paris 8)
David G. Stern (University of Iowa)
Nuno Venturinha (Nova University of Lisbon)
David E. Wellbery (University of Chicago)
Edward Witherspoon (Colgate University, New York)
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Benjamin De Mesel
The Later Wittgenstein
and Moral Philosophy
Benjamin De Mesel
KU Leuven
Leuven, Belgium
ISSN 2520-1514 ISSN 2520-1522 (electronic)
Nordic Wittgenstein Studies
ISBN 978-3-319-97618-1 ISBN 978-3-319-97619-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97619-8
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Acknowledgements
First of all, I would like to thank Stefan Rummens. Ever since I started this project,
Stefan has been approachable, supportive and confident in its success. His MA
course on Wittgenstein and ethics sparked my interest in the topic of this book, and
its central idea of applying Wittgenstein’s later methods to problems in moral phi-
losophy is his. He has read and encouragingly commented upon (sometimes several
versions of) almost all of the chapters. I have discussed parts of this book with many
people, and every chapter has received written comments by several anonymous
reviewers, but however helpful these comments have been, they never matched the
invariably outstanding quality of Stefan’s remarks. These remarks were insightful
and always constructive, aimed at making the chapter better in every possible way.
Together with Stefan Rummens, James M. Thompson, Sybren Heyndels, Audun
Bengtson and Dimitris Gakis, I organized three conferences in Leuven entitled
‘Wittgensteinian Approaches to Moral Philosophy’. I am grateful to the invited
speakers (Sophie-Grace Chappell, Anne-Marie Christensen, James Conant, Alice
Crary, Raimond Gaita, Hans-Johann Glock, Edward Harcourt, Julia Hermann,
Oskari Kuusela, Sabina Lovibond, Michel Meliopoulos, Danièle Moyal-Sharrock,
Nigel Pleasants, Genia Schönbaumsfeld, Joachim Schulte, Martin Stokhof and
Walter Van Herck) for accepting our invitation, and to all the other speakers and
participants for bringing outstanding Wittgenstein scholarship to Leuven. I would
like to thank Stefan, James, Sybren, Audun and Dimitris for their help with the
organization of the conferences.
Over the last 5 years, I have presented papers at several conferences: the
Wittgenstein conferences in Leuven; the Institute of Philosophy Graduate Student
Conference (Leuven); the Contemporary Significance of Ordinary Language
Philosophy (Turku, Finland); the NPPW-CESPP Conference (Vaalbeek); Mind,
Language and Action (36th International Wittgenstein Symposium) (Kirchberg am
Wechsel, Austria); Dutch Research School of Philosophy (OZSW) 2013 Conference
(Rotterdam, The Netherlands); Analytical and Continental Philosophy: Methods
and Perspectives (37th International Wittgenstein Symposium) (Kirchberg am
Wechsel, Austria); Realism – Relativism – Constructivism (38th International
v
vi Acknowledgements
Wittgenstein Symposium) (Kirchberg am Wechsel, Austria); Dutch Research
School of Philosophy (OZSW) 2015 Conference (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). I
am indebted to the audiences of these conferences for instructive comments on my
presentations.
I have participated in three Ludwig Wittgenstein Summer Schools in Kirchberg
am Wechsel (Austria). I must thank the instructors (James Conant, Cora Diamond,
P.M.S. Hacker, Joachim Schulte) for deepening my understanding of Wittgenstein’s
thought. Almost all the chapters of this book, as well as other aspects of Wittgenstein’s
work, have been amply discussed with participants of the Wittgenstein Summer
Schools or the International Wittgenstein Symposia in Kirchberg. I would like to
thank, in particular, Mindaugas Gilaitis, Nicole Hausen, Marco Nuzzaco, Désirée
Weber, Stefanie Dach, Hannah Read, Daniel Sharp, Wim Vanrie and Sybren
Heyndels.
I was a Recognised Student at the University of Oxford in the first semester of
the academic year 2014–2015. I would like to thank Edward Harcourt for being my
supervisor there and for commenting upon my work, and Sabina Lovibond and
Sebastian Grève for several meetings in which we discussed Wittgenstein and moral
philosophy. On a non-academic note, I am grateful to Iris Geens, Robert Esnouf and
Aidan Esnouf for being perfect hosts.
All these adventures abroad notwithstanding, most of the research for this book
was conducted in Belgium. Special thanks go to the Institute of Philosophy (KU
Leuven) for providing an excellent research environment. Attending the Ethics
Reading Group has substantively enlarged my knowledge and understanding of the
field, and I would like to thank its members (Arnold Burms, Bart Pattyn, Xavier
Vanmechelen, Jef Peeters, Bart Engelen, Chris Bessemans, Anne Polkamp, Jinzhou
Ye, Michael Jewkes) for encouragement and comments on some of my work.
Not only the academics at the Institute are to be thanked, however. Fran Venken
and Sofie Keyaerts offered much appreciated help in organizing the Wittgenstein
conferences in Leuven. Ingrid Dierickx and Sofie Keyaerts took meticulous care of
the reimbursements of costs for books, travel and conferences. I cannot emphasize
enough the crucial role played by the library and its staff (Steven Spileers, Elke
Caubergh, Relinde Geys and Jorinde Geeraert). Having been a student at the
Institute, I got used to finding almost every book that I needed in the library. Contacts
with academics abroad have made it clear to me how exceptional that situation is
and how privileged the Institute’s philosophers are. Another respect in which they
are privileged concerns the availability of a proofreader for those who are not native
speakers of English. Without the generous, careful and precise editing work of Sean
Winkler and Jeremy Hovda, readers of this book would have encountered numerous
linguistic blunders.
I must also thank two rather invisible groups of people: first, the anonymous
reviewers of my articles, for their time and (sometimes) helpful comments; second,
Acknowledgements vii
the FWO (Research Fund – Flanders), for their trust and money and for not burden-
ing me with excessive administrative duties.
I am grateful to Niklas Forsberg, editor of Nordic Wittgenstein Studies, for his
support, to two anonymous reviewers of the manuscript and to all the people at
Springer who were involved in the production process.
Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to my friends, my parents and my
wife Lien. It is impossible to convey in a few lines what their love and support have
meant to me. I can only say thank you.
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Wittgenstein’s Ethical Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1 The Problem of Scarcity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 H ow to Get Clearer on Wittgenstein’s Ethical Views . . . . . . 3
1.2 Wittgenstein’s Ethical Views and His Later Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy and Contemporary Moral
Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.4 Structure and Overview of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4.1 P art I. Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4.2 P art II. Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy and His
Ethical Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.4.3 P art III. Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy
and Contemporary Moral Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Part I W ittgenstein’s Later Philosophy
2 O n Wittgenstein’s Comparison of Philosophical Methods
to Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2 T he Illness: Are Philosophical Questions Illnesses? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3 T he Patient and the Therapist: Are They Philosophers? . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.4 The Therapies: Are They Psychological? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.5 T he Ideal of Health: The End of Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3 S urveyable Representations, the ‘Lecture on Ethics’,
and Moral Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2 T he Concept of a Surveyable Representation: Two
Interpretations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
ix
x Contents
3.3 The Concept of a Surveyable Representation: A Third
Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4 The ‘Lecture on Ethics’ as a Surveyable Representation . . . . . . . . . 58
3.5 Are Surveyable Representations Useful for Contemporary
Moral Philosophy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Part II Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy and His Ethical Views
4 Wittgenstein, Meta-ethics, and the Subject Matter of Moral
Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.2 ‘Ethics Has No Particular Subject Matter’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
4.3 ‘There Is and Can Be No Such Thing as Meta-ethics’ . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.4 ‘A Classification by Use Rather than by Subject Matter’ . . . . . . . . . 81
4.5 ‘Ethics Is a Pervasive Dimension of Life
Rather than a Distinguishable Region or Strand of It’ . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5 Wittgenstein and Objectivity in Ethics. A Reply to Brandhorst. . . . . 91
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.2 Brandhorst’s Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.2.1 I n a Different Way, Different Kinds, in a Different
Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.2.2 No View from Nowhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5.2.3 T here Is a Language-Game in Which the Expression
Has a Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.2.4 A Deflationary Conception, No Metaphysical Depth . . . . . . 94
5.2.5 W ith a Certain Conception of X, We Also
Obtain a Conception of a Related Notion Y . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.2.6 The Analogy to Logic and Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.3 Arguments for Objectivity? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.3.1 I n a Different Way, Different Kinds, in a Different
Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.3.2 No View from Nowhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
5.3.3 T here Is a Language-Game in Which the Expression
Has a Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
5.3.4 A Deflationary Conception, No Metaphysical Depth . . . . . . 98
5.3.5 W ith a Certain Conception of X, We Also Obtain
a Conception of a Related Notion Y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
5.3.6 The Analogy to Logic and Mathematics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5.4 Brandhorst’s Conception of Objectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.5 H ow Brandhorst Reads Wittgenstein on Objectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109