Later Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy

Benjamin De Mesel is a Postdoctoral Fellow of the FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) at KU Leuven, Belgium. He publishes on Wittgenstein’s later methods and the ways in which these methods can be applied to problems in moral philosophy. He is the main organizer of the bi-annual conference ‘Wittgensteinian Approaches to Moral Philosophy’ in Leuven. He is the co-editor (with James M. Thompson) of a special issue of Ethical Perspectives (March 2015) on Wittgenstein and ethics, and the co-editor (with Oskari Kuusela) of Ethics in the Wake of Wittgenstein (Routledge, 2018).

“The Later Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy comprises de Mesel's most important work on the topic. It assembles very original, insightful and important articles in a forceful manner … .” (Ratio, An International journal of analytic philosophy, June 17, 2021)“De Mesel’s book helps to make the significance of Wittgenstein’s thought for ethics more accessible. … De Mesel’s book makes real contributions to the study of Wittgensteinian ethics, and a real case for the inclusion of this ethics in the canon. It clearly demonstrates the usefulness of Wittgenstein’s methods in ethics, and the picture it draws of moral thinking … is compelling and worth repeating.” (Reshef Agam-Segal, Philosophical Investigations, Vol. 42 (4), October, 2019)

• Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. On Wittgenstein’s Comparison of Philosophical Methods to Therapies.- Chapter 3. Surveyable Representations, the ‘Lecture on Ethics’, and Moral Philosophy.- Chapter 4. Wittgenstein, Meta-ethics and the Subject Matter of Moral Philosophy.- Chapter 5. Wittgenstein and Objectivity in Ethics.- Chapter 6. Seeing Colour, Seeing Emotion, Seeing Moral Value.- Chapter 7. [TBD].- Chapter 8. Do moral questions ask for answers?.- Chapter 9. Conclusion.