I'm off to the 5th Annual Regional Wittgenstein Workshop today, where I'll be presenting this paper. It's about ethics in the Philosophical Investigations, and relates what Wittgenstein says to Aristotle, Moore, Sidgwick, and Brentano. I ended up writing it in a bit of a rush, so it's roughly the quality of a long blog post rather than a polished paper, but I don't see any harm in linking to it as long as everyone is forewarned.
Read at your peril. Comments welcome.
If I get the chance I'll work up a detailed response to this. But a brief comment to be going on with.
ReplyDeleteI think Anscombe overlooks the difference between rule changes that betoken a new game and rule changes that take place within a game.If I say that the results of "measurement" are whatever seem right to me - so that a table might be 3ft and a doorway 5ft yet the table not fit through the doorway - then (it seems to me) I've invented a new game that I'm spuriously calling "measurement". But not all rule changes have this consequence (cf the introduction of castling in chess or changes to the off-side laws in football)..
Now, what about changes to the rules of morality? If I claim that the weak should be killed I am proposing a new set of rules. But does this amount to a new game that ought not to be called "morality" or am I changing the rules within the game of morality? Extreme as my change is, it seems to me to be a change to the rules rather than a new game. And that, I think, is a feature of moral language games: at ANY stage it is open to someone to object to the rules as they stand and suggest amendments (even drastic ones) without thereby crossing over into a completely new game. So long as I propose my changes because I (sincerely) think they're "right" and the old rules are "wrong" then we're still playing the game of morality.
I don't have time to respond fully to this now, but I don't want to just ignore it for a couple of days either. So two quick points: I didn't explain Anscombe's view very well--she can accept both changes within games and the invention of new games. But within a single game whose rules are not being changed you have to follow the rules. Otherwise you aren't playing the game.
DeleteSecondly, I don't know what she would say about the rules of morality. Some people think of morality as a language game. others think it's a family of language games. I don't really think of it as either of those things, but I need to think about this some more.
And surely the important remark here is PI #240: "Disputes do not break out (among mathematicians, say) over the question of whether or not a rule has been followed. People don't come to blows over it, for example".
ReplyDeleteBut people DO come to blows over ethical disputes. And that tells you a lot about the differences between these two language games.
Yes, thanks, that's an important point.
DeleteBut mathematicians too can in fact come to blows, or at least as close to blows as possible without actual blows being exchanged.
DeleteFor instance, not too long ago I read an interesting paper about a 19th-century controversy on geometry, which was as ugly and acrimonious as any disagreement in any walk of life. Just one big cacophony of grinding axes, with childish personal attacks, petulant retaliation, career-saving self-censorship, and so on.
Even Frege was involved – on the losing side, incidentally – and I can't help thinking that Wittgenstein must have been aware of the matter, however vaguely. But somehow he didn't take it into account when writing his remark.
And then there was the person who got shot in Russia after an argument about Kant. People will fight about almost anything. I think the audience attacked the actors when Ubu Roi was first performed. It's hard to imagine people caring now. We're more jaded about some things than others. Perhaps that's as much as one can really say. Although some things are also more up for grabs, more open to dispute, than others. And ethics seems to be one of these things.
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