Abstract
Some scholars consider Wittgenstein to be the most important ethicist of the past century and to support this view they realize that his influence has been mediated into virtue ethics by the work of many authors. The aims of this paper are (1) to evaluate this affirmation; (2) to underline the aspects of Wittgensteinian thought functional in suggesting a virtue anthropology and (3) to present the most relevant aspects of Wittgensteinian philosophy useful for the future of virtue ethics. In order to do this, in the first part of my presentation, I will show the influence of Wittgenstein on Elizabeth Anscombe, Alasdair MacIntyre and Bernard Williams. This overview shows that (1) Wittgenstein rejected ethics as theory, in the sense of a systematic body of knowledge about what to do; (2) he opened up a conceptual space for understanding ethics as a critical human achievement; (3) he linked ethics with religion because both are hindered by the boundaries of language. Following some remarks by Raimond Gaita, I will conclude that the reception of Wittgenstein in virtue ethics is so diversified that it could be considered ambiguous and that it is more fruitful to propose meta-ethics conceived as a philosophy of psychology.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
These conferences are entitled Wittgensteinian Approaches to Moral Philosophy and was held in 2013, 2015 and 2017. The abstracts of all papers can be found on internet: https://hiw.kuleuven.be/eng/events/wittgensteinian_approaches.
- 2.
The article Nussbaum refers to is: Foot (1994).
- 3.
In the same year Iris Murdoch published Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (London: Penguin Books), but her interpretative criteria are more dated than Gaita’s (e.g. the neo-positivist reading of the Tractatus and the fracture between the first and the second Wittgenstein). All the same, the parallelism between a Wittgensteinian virtue ethics and that proposed by Simone Weil, as well as the connection between ethics and religion remain topical.
References
Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret. 1958. Modern Moral Philosophy. Philosophy 53: 1–19.
Barrett, Cyrill. 1991. Wittgenstein on Ethics and Religious Belief. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Carr, David. 2017. Educating for the Wisdom of Virtue. In Varieties of Virtue Ethics, edited by D. Carr, J. Arthur, and K. Kristjánsson, 319–335. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59177-7.
Chappell, Timothy. 2013. Virtue Ethics in the Twentieth Century. In The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics, edited by Daniel C. Russell, 149–169. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foot, Philippa. 1994. Rationality and Virtue. In Norm, Value, and Society, edited by H. Pauer-Studer, 205–216. Amsterdam: Kluwer.
Gaita, Raimond. 2004 [1991]. Good and Evil. An Absolute Conception. London: Routledge.
Harcourt, Edward. 2013. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. In The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, edited by Hugh LaFollette, 5503–5510. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee422.
Hermann, Julia. 2015. On Moral Certainty, Justification and practice. A Wittgensteinian Perspective. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Hursthouse, Rosalind and Pettigrove, Glen. 2016. Virtue Ethics. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/. Accessed 10 Jan 2018.
Kerr, Fergus. 2004. Aquinas and Analytic Philosophy: Natural Allies? Modern Theology 20: 123–139.
Litwack, Eric B. 2009. Wittgenstein and Value. London: Continuum.
Lovibond, Sabina. 2002. Ethical Formation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 2007 [1981]. After Virtue. A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame.
Mounce, H. O., and Phillips, D. Z. 1969. Moral Practices. Oxford: Blackwell.
Nussbaum, Martha. 1999. Virtue Ethics: A Misleading Category? The Journal of Ethics 3: 163–201.
Pouivet, Roger. 2008. Moral and Epistemic Virtues: A Thomistic and Analytical Perspective. http://janusblog.squareplace.com/janusbloglibraryofpapers/Pouivet.R.Moral%20and29%Epistemic%20Virtues%20Thomistic%20Perspective%2025_4_08.doc. Accessed 10 Jan 2018.
Putnam, Hilary. 1992. Renewing Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard College.
Thompson, Michael. 2008. Life and Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Williams, Bernard. 2006 [1985]. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Routledge.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1958a. Philosophical Investigations (II ed., translated by Anscombe, G.E.M.). Oxford: Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1958b. The Blue Book. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1974 [1922]. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (translated by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980. Culture and Value (edited by G. H. Von Wright and translated by P. Winch). Oxford: Blackwell.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1993 [1929]. Lecture on Ethics. in Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions 1912–1951, edited by J. Klagge and A. Nordmann, 37–44. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Damonte, M. (2019). The Soft Presence of Wittgenstein in Virtue Ethics and His Hard Significance for Its Future. In: Grimi, E. (eds) Virtue Ethics: Retrospect and Prospect. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15860-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15860-6_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15859-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15860-6
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)