Wittgenstein's Ethics

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WarrenZ
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Wittgenstein's Ethics

Post by WarrenZ »

Wittgenstein said at the end of Tractatus that: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent". He excludes the realm of the ethical and metaphysical from sensible speech—that all talk of Metaphysics and Ethics are not right nor wrong, but meaningless.

The Later Wittgenstein disavowed his previous position. He believes that talking about ethics, metaphysics, or religion, is just playing a language game of religion, ethics, or metaphysics. Still, what is most dear to each person (their private experiences, for example), cannot be communicated through language, because language is not designed for us to talk to ourselves, but as a social tool to interact with others. Doing philosophy, to the Later Wittgenstein, is like conducting a therapy, dissolving all the problems of philosophy and showing how many utterances are really senseless outside of the language game that it is used.

Do you agree with Wittgenstein's attack on Metaphysics and Ethics (if so, the Early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus or the Later), or would you say that he is fundamentally misguided (since our discussions on the forum would actually be meaningless)?
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Re: Wittgenstein's Ethics

Post by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes »

I agree, at least mostly.

I think there is a simpler case for the meaningless of morality and most similar metaphysics.

It is called the is-ought problem.

We can have evidence or alleged proof of varying degrees about what is and is not. For instance, if you look outside and see rain, then likely it is raining. If you look outside and don't see rain, then you might conclude it is not raining.

There is no such evidence that could be imagined even hypothetically for oughts. They don't reflect reality nor its antithesis (i.e. the is not to the is). Thus, such oughts appear to be made-up meaningless nonsense that have no relationship to what is at all, including any evidence that exists (i.e. is) or could exist. They seem to me to be an utter violation of the law of the excluded middle.

There is meaning to the phrase, "It is raining outside my window right now."

As best I can tell, the latter clause of the following sentence would typically be meaningless gibberish if someone uttered the silly words: It is raining outside, but it ought not be raining, and thus the weather right now is evil and immoral since it is doing what it shouldn't be doing.

Generally, in my anecdotal experience, that kind of moralizing gibberish is usually symptomatically indicative that the one speaking it has some kind of feeling of resentment and/or discontentment, i.e. lack of inner peace. So the moralizing gibberish can be a way of beating around a bush (a bush representing actual is statements), with the bush possibly being something like one of the following is statements:

"The truth is what it is, and I don't like it."

"2 + 2 = 4; and I resent the truth of that equation."

"I am in dishonest self-deceiving denial about reality."

"I am discontent, and I think I would be content if unchangeable reality was different."
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Re: Wittgenstein's Ethics

Post by BobS »

WarrenZ wrote: February 28th, 2021, 9:12 pm Wittgenstein said at the end of Tractatus that: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent". He excludes the realm of the ethical and metaphysical from sensible speech—that all talk of Metaphysics and Ethics are not right nor wrong, but meaningless.

The Later Wittgenstein disavowed his previous position. He believes that talking about ethics, metaphysics, or religion, is just playing a language game of religion, ethics, or metaphysics. Still, what is most dear to each person (their private experiences, for example), cannot be communicated through language, because language is not designed for us to talk to ourselves, but as a social tool to interact with others.
Metaphysical discussions generally concern subjects that lie outside any kind of experience. As such, I find such discussions, in the end, to be meaningless (albeit often entertaining).

But I disagree with the assertion that "what is most dear to each person (their private experiences, for example), cannot be communicated through language." I could be mistaken, in the same way that I could be mistaken in thinking that other people exist, but I like to think that when someone says that he's hungry, or embarrassed, or tired, I understand what he's talking about.

Same if he makes a moral statement. It's not necessary for me to have a direct experience of what he's experiencing in order to make sense of his statement. He's simply saying that he has an attitude about something, a kind of attitude with which those of us who aren't sociopaths are familiar.

The mere assertion that "Hitler was evil" certainly makes sense to me and to most people, and I don't see introducing the concept of a language game as terribly helpful in this case.

Now whether the speaker is merely expressing an attitude and nothing more, or whether he's going further, and claiming that there's a metaphysical basis for his attitude, is what introduces the question of whether the basis for his statement is coherent, But the statement itself is easily understood.
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Re: Wittgenstein's Ethics

Post by Gertie »

WarrenZ wrote: February 28th, 2021, 9:12 pm Wittgenstein said at the end of Tractatus that: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent". He excludes the realm of the ethical and metaphysical from sensible speech—that all talk of Metaphysics and Ethics are not right nor wrong, but meaningless.

The Later Wittgenstein disavowed his previous position. He believes that talking about ethics, metaphysics, or religion, is just playing a language game of religion, ethics, or metaphysics. Still, what is most dear to each person (their private experiences, for example), cannot be communicated through language, because language is not designed for us to talk to ourselves, but as a social tool to interact with others. Doing philosophy, to the Later Wittgenstein, is like conducting a therapy, dissolving all the problems of philosophy and showing how many utterances are really senseless outside of the language game that it is used.

Do you agree with Wittgenstein's attack on Metaphysics and Ethics (if so, the Early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus or the Later), or would you say that he is fundamentally misguided (since our discussions on the forum would actually be meaningless)?
I've not read W, but I disagree with this. I don't believe morality is meaningless, in fact I believe both morality and meaning are ultimately rooted in consciousness.

My view is that a world without conscious experience is meaningless. It was the advent of conscious beings which brought meaning into a dead universe of rocks interacting according to the laws of physics. Meaning, purpose, value are all qualiative features consciousness brings into the world. And because conscious beings have a quality of life, a sense of wellbeing, it matters how they are treated. And this mattering is the basis for Oughts, for morality.

So I disagree with W. Language isn't the root of meaning, it's an imperfect tool for giving meaning communicable and comprehensible symbolic forms.
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Re: Wittgenstein's Ethics

Post by Atla »

WarrenZ wrote: February 28th, 2021, 9:12 pm Wittgenstein said at the end of Tractatus that: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent". He excludes the realm of the ethical and metaphysical from sensible speech—that all talk of Metaphysics and Ethics are not right nor wrong, but meaningless.

The Later Wittgenstein disavowed his previous position. He believes that talking about ethics, metaphysics, or religion, is just playing a language game of religion, ethics, or metaphysics. Still, what is most dear to each person (their private experiences, for example), cannot be communicated through language, because language is not designed for us to talk to ourselves, but as a social tool to interact with others. Doing philosophy, to the Later Wittgenstein, is like conducting a therapy, dissolving all the problems of philosophy and showing how many utterances are really senseless outside of the language game that it is used.

Do you agree with Wittgenstein's attack on Metaphysics and Ethics (if so, the Early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus or the Later), or would you say that he is fundamentally misguided (since our discussions on the forum would actually be meaningless)?
The moral insanity (lack of empathy / psychopathology) comes in many forms and degrees, one can be a fairly normal human being and a celebrated philosopher, and still not realize that the basis of morality is the natural human conscience. Anything but meaningless.
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Re: Wittgenstein's Ethics

Post by Pattern-chaser »

WarrenZ wrote: February 28th, 2021, 9:12 pm Wittgenstein said at the end of Tractatus that: "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent". He excludes the realm of the ethical and metaphysical from sensible speech—that all talk of Metaphysics and Ethics are not right nor wrong, but meaningless.

This argument is quite common, but misleading, I think. Like the academic who emphasises the significance and import of their own discipline, while, er, playing down that of other (perhaps competing) disciplines. In this case, the intention (I believe) is to show that the topics that science cannot address are trivial in themselves, so it doesn't really matter. It's inter-disciplinary jealousy, and that kind of silliness.

The fact is that science is a tool honed over centuries to address a subset of those that philosophy can address, but much better. For that subset of issues, science is heavily optimised, so of course it better addresses them. But the cost of that optimisation is that science cannot address such things as ethics and so-called metaphysics, while philosophy can and does. That's not a failing of either discipline, only a simple recognition of their nature, their strengths and their weaknesses.

Finally, the statement "talk of Metaphysics and Ethics is not right nor wrong, but meaningless" is actually correct when we restrict the context to a strictly-scientific one. It's only when we broaden the context to include philosophy too that the statement becomes (highly) questionable.
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Re: Wittgenstein's Ethics

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Pattern-chaser wrote: March 2nd, 2021, 1:36 pm The fact is that science is a tool honed over centuries to address a subset of those issues that philosophy can address, but much better.

Yes, that reads more like I intended it to. 👍
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