Oskari Kuusela

Wittgenstein and moral philosophy: reinterpreting theories as Wittgensteinian models

24th November, 2020 TBC

@ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

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people.uea.ac.uk/o_kuusela

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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

24th British Wittgenstein Lecture - Oskari Kuusala from British Wittgenstein Society on Vimeo.

SPEAKER REPORT

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, utilitarian 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 explain how the stalemate can be solved 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 acknowledge exceptions to models as well as to use more than one model simultaneously to clarify features of complex objects of investigation. This becomes possible by reconceiving the characteristic exceptionless necessity of philosophical statements as a feature of philosophical models used as objects of comparisons instead of taking exceptionless necessity to be a feature of the objects of investigation of which a truth-claim is made. In this way models then also make it possible to account for resources and features of moral thought that the traditional moral philosophical theories eclipse, as illustrated by certain well-known criticisms against utilitarianism and Kantian ethics by Michael Stocker and Bernard Williams and the unsatisfactory responses to them by Kantians and consequentialists, such as Barbara Hermann and Peter Railton.

Additionally, the Wittgensteinian account can dispel confusions arising from the traditional metaphysical interpretation of universal philosophical statements. These are not timeless true assertions about the universal essence of morality. They are non-temporal statements made in specific historical circumstances to clarify features of morality which itself is a historical phenomenon. Thus philosophers themselves must take responsibility for the clarifications they offer, instead of presenting themselves as speaking with the voice of reason or humanity on behalf of everyone else.

How far the generality of such clarificatory statements reaches is a matter of investigation, not of dogmatic assertion.

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