Moral judgements cannot represent ethical reality, but it is mirrored in them.
What finds its reflection in a moral judgement, a moral judgement cannot represent.
A moral judgement shows ethical reality. ‘Er weist sie auf.’ It displays it.
If two judgements contradict one another, then their structure shows it; the same is true if one of them follows from the other. Etc.
What can be shown, cannot be said; a moral judgement is something that is said.
Ethics makes itself manifest.
‘If I don’t show my views on justice in words, I do so by my conduct.’
Socrates, as remembered by Xenophon
‘You ought to be good’ says nothing, but shows everything.
Ethical reality does not exist in the way that an object exists; it is real in the way that logical form is real. Plato would say it is the ‘idea’ of goodness.
If I point to an object, I point to something (as it were) more real than the pointing: ‘don’t look at the finger!’ But if I point to the pointing – ‘look at the finger’ – there is nothing more real than what I am doing: it shows itself in itself no more or less than it could say anything about anything beyond it.
If I make a moral judgement, I point to something more real than the judgement; but if I say ‘you ought’ I say nothing beyond what I show: this is ethical reality.
I can test your understanding of objects by asking you to point out one particular object among many. But can I test your understanding of pointing by asking you to point out ‘pointing’ and not something else? Why ask you to point out ‘pointing’ and not something else, when simply pointing at anything will show me that you know what you’re doing.
I can test your understanding of ethics by asking you to make a moral judgement: ‘Point out something good.’ But what happens if I ask you to point out goodness itself, as Socrates would? You can point (as it were) only to the pointing, and in that show what you already know but might have forgotten.
(For reference: Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.121 onwards and elsewhere)
tobybetenson.com 