Abstract
Nussbaum claims that ‘it is very difficult to think of traditional values as having any normative authority at all: tradition gives us only a conversation, a debate, and we have no choice but to evaluate the different positions within it’. This line of thinking is argued to be too rationalistic and is contrasted with the idea of ‘moral certainty’ as a prominent trait of human life, designating what is beyond being morally justified and unjustified, but as enabling practices of ethical investigation, debate and justification.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
‘Stand fast’ is a translation of Wittgenstein’s expression ‘fest stehen’, which denotes our relation to, for example, basic certainties.
- 3.
- 4.
I write that this is an image this quote could suggest, as I doubt Nussbaum, if asked, holds this view of human life, as her early writings suggest otherwise. But modern humans do occasionally get caught up in a rationalistic image of human life, where instincts, habits and traditions are considered suspect if not based on enlightened debate and rational choice or on scientific knowledge and proofs. Being captivated by this image can be problematic because it can have us ask for ‘more information’ and ‘proofs’ before being willing to act in cases where we ought to have acted (the opposite default position, captured in the phrase ‘shoot first and ask afterward’, is from a moral point of view of course equally problematic).
Bibliography
Archard, D. 2015. Children: Rights and Childhood. London: Routledge.
Brandhorst, M. 2015. Correspondence to Reality in Ethics. Philosophical Investigations 38 (3): 227–250.
Brice, R.G. 2013. Mistakes and Mental Disturbance: Pleasants, Wittgenstein, and Basic Moral Certainty. Philosophia 41: 477–487.
Christensen, A.S. 2003. Wittgensteins etik. Slagmark 38: 125–142.
De Mesel, B. 2015. Moral Arguments and the Denial of Moral Certainties. In Realism - Relativism - Constructivism: Contributions of the 38nd International Wittgenstein Symposium, ed. C. Kanzian, J. Mitterer, and K. Neges, 68–70. Frankfurt am Main: Ontos Verlag.
Hermann, J. 2015. On Moral Certainty, Justification and Practice: A Wittgensteinian Perspective. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Moyal-Sharrock, D. 2015. Wittgenstein on Forms of Life, Patterns of Life and Ways of Living. Nordic Wittgenstein Review 4 (Special Issue): 21–42.
Nussbaum, M.C. 2001a. Introduction. In Women, Culture, and Development, ed. M.C. Nussbaum and J. Glover, 1–36. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 2011. Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
O’Hara, N. 2018. Moral Certainty and the Foundations of Morality. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pleasants, N. 2008. Wittgenstein, Ethics and Basic Moral Certainty. Inquiry 51 (3): 241–267.
Prichard, D. 2012. Wittgenstein and the Groundlessness of Our Believing. Synthese 189: 255–272.
Williams, M. 2009. Normative Naturalism. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 18 (3): 355–375.
Wittgenstein, L. 2001. Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
———. 2009. Philosophische Untersuchungen. Ed. P. Hacker and J. Schulte. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.
———. 2016. On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Eriksen, C. (2020). Moral Certainty. In: Moral Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61037-1_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61037-1_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-61036-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-61037-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)