- This event has passed.
Twenty-Third BWS Lecture Richard Gipps
June 2, 2020 @ 6:00 am - 8:00 pm
Event Navigation
Oskari Kuusela
Wittgenstein and moral philosophy: reinterpreting theories as Wittgensteinian models
24th November, 2020 TBC
@ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Invitations are exclusive to BWS members until 1st November. Any available places will then be more offered more widely.
About the Speaker
Abstract
Video
Report
About the Reporter
About the Speaker
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abstract
Most of moral philosophical theorising assumes a conception of philosophical theories as making exceptionless truth-claims that cover all relevant cases targeted by the theory, for example, all morally good actions. This has led to a stalemate between the three main theories, Kantian, utiitarian and virtue ethics, with each theory claiming to give an exclusively true account of morality in their own terms. Consequently, each theory also excludes the others, just as any truth-claim excludes any incompatible ones. In my talk I discuss the prospect of solving the stalemate by reinterpreting moral philosophical theories as models in the sense of the later Wittgenstein (cf. PI §§130-132). Whilst retaining the traditional conception of philosophy as concerned with exceptionless generality and necessity, this conception makes it possible to a acknowledge exceptions to models as well as to use more than one model simultaneously to clarify features of complex objects of investigation.
Video
available after the event
REPORT
available after the event
About the reporter
See more BWS Lecture Series videos