Contextual Ethics: Taking the Lead from Wittgenstein and Løgstrup on Ethical Meaning and Normativity

Abstract

One prominent trend in moral philosophy today is an interest in the rich textures of actual human practices and lives. The work of these philosophers is informed by, for instance, anthropology (e.g. Lear 2008), literature (e.g. Cavell 1999; Nussbaum 1992), the empirical sciences (e.g. Appiah 2009; Turner 2010) and history (e.g. Appiah 2011; Guenther 2013; Kitcher 2014). In these and other ways, moral thinkers engage in forms of contextual ethics. These engagements motivate reflections on why and how context is important ethically, and such metaethical reflection is what this article undertakes. Unlike Anscombe, I have found the thinking of past philosophers useful in shining a light on my subject. My main inspirations are the later Wittgenstein and the Danish theologian K.E. Løgstrup. In the following, I first describe one way in which context plays a central role with regard to ethical meaning and normativity. I then look into how ‘context’ is to be defined, and finally I discuss some of the questions which arise when giving context prominence in ethics, namely how to delimit the scope of relevant context, the relevant traits of a particular context and what ‘the ethical’ is.