the wretchedness of belief wittgenstein on guilt, religion, and recompense

The Wretchedness of Belief: Wittgenstein on Guilt, Religion, and RecompenseAuthor(s): Bob PlantSource: The Journal of Religious Ethics, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Winter, 2004), pp. 449-476Published by: on behalf of Journal of Religious Ethics, IncStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40018127Accessed: 01/12/2010 17:58

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THE WRETCHEDNESS OF BELIEF

Wittgenstein on Guilt, Religion, and Recompense

Bob Plant

ABSTRACT

In Culture and Value Wittgenstein remarks that the truly "religious man" thinks himself to be, not merely "imperfect" or "ill," but wholly "wretched." While such sentiments are of obvious biographical interest, in this paper I show why they are also worthy of serious philosophical attention. Although the influence of Wittgenstein's thinking on the philosophy of religion is often judged negatively (as, for example, leading to quietist and/or fideist- relativist conclusions) I argue that the distinctly ethical conception of religion (specifically Christianity) that Wittgenstein presents should lead us to a quite different assessment. In particular, his preoccupation with the categorical nature of religion suggests a conception of "genuine" religious belief which disrupts both the economics of eschatological-salvationist hope, and the traditional ethical precept that "ought implies can." In short, what Wittgenstein presents is a sketch of a religion without recompense. key words: Wittgenstein, guilt, religion, ethics of belief

"You can't hear God speak to someone else, you can hear him only if you are being addressed." - That is a grammatical remark.

-Wittgenstein (1990, §717)

IN A NOTE FROM 1944 LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN remarks: "People are religious to the extent that they believe themselves to be not so much imperfect, as ill. Any man who is half-way decent will think himself extremely imperfect, but a religious man thinks himself wretched" (Wittgenstein 1994, 45). Similarly, in a letter to Maurice Drury, Wittgenstein denies that "the craving for placidity is religious." Rather, "a religious person regards placidity or peace as a gift from Heaven, not as something one ought to hunt after" (Drury 1981, 110). Such examples can be multiplied, but while they are of obvious biographical interest, one might reasonably ask whether they tell us anything of philosophical significance. In this paper I will argue, not only that they do, but that in order to ascer- tain what this significance is we need to consider the role guilt plays in

JRE 32.3:449^476. © 2004 Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc.

450 Journal of Religious Ethics

Wittgenstein's treatment of a number of religious and ethical themes. The extent to which his naturalism figures in these negotiations is crucial, and I will subsequently clarify: (i) how Wittgenstein attempts to bring religious beliefs back to their practical setting, and (ii) how this is delineated as an "ethical" space.

1. Bewilderment and Hesitancy In "Lectures on Religious Belief" Wittgenstein is candid about his

bewilderment regarding (for example) belief in immortality. This bewilderment should not, however, be confused with the dissent of the atheist. For here we are assured that, in response to the petition: "What do you believe, Wittgenstein? Are you a sceptic? Do you know whether you will survive death?" all he could say with any confidence is "I don't know" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 70), or similarly "I can't say" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 55). But neither should we conclude that such remarks constitute mere equivocation. On the contrary, the spectre of silence (be it the reverent silence advocated in the Tractatus, or the hesitancy punctuating "Lec- tures on Religious Belief") is of philosophical significance throughout Wittgenstein's writings. Nevertheless, in their later manifestation the function of these silences becomes less obvious. For this reason a degree of textual reconstruction is necessary.

Wittgenstein's reluctance to either embrace or renounce belief in immortality is due to his experiencing a particular kind of incompre- hension which results from his initial inability to apply the "picture" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 54) presented by the statement "I don't cease to exist [after the demise of my body]." Here Wittgenstein does not yet have any "clear idea" what is being said or what "consequences" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 70) subsequently procure (Wittgenstein 1994a, 63, 7 1-72). 1 It is, in part, for this reason that his deeply respectful, sometimes desirous (Drury 1981, 162; Wittgenstein 1994, 48), attitude toward religiosity is both distinctive and more deeply rooted than mere indecision. Indeed, although it may often seem befitting to characterise Wittgenstein's attitude as "agnostic," this would be a misrepresentation (Engelmann 1967, 77) - not least because, as will become clear, he would judge the ratio- nally secured hesitancy of the agnostic to be inherently irreligious rather than theologically "neutral."

Wanting to avoid the traditionally polarised positions of belief and nonbelief (including agnosticism), Wittgenstein casts his own bewilderment in other terms. Any straightforward dissent is problematic here

1 One's having no "clear idea" here does not necessarily mean that the utterance is absurd (see Winch 1964, 311-12, 319; 1970, 256-57), but rather that one would not know how to make such an assessment.

The Wretchedness of Belief 451

since denying the validity of this picture would presuppose an adequate comprehension of what one was in fact denying, and thus of what the picture involved (Wittgenstein 1994, 33). 2 But, he proceeds: "If you ask me whether or not I believe ... in the sense in which religious people have belief in it, I wouldn't say: 'No. I don't believe there will be such a thing.' It would seem to me utterly crazy to say this. And then I give an explanation: 'I don't believe in . . . ', but then the religious person never believes what I describe" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 55). In other words, when explaining to the believer what it is I deny, this is rarely felt to have satisfactorily represented what it is she believes. Obviously there are occasions when the believer judges one's paraphrase to be sufficiently representative, but such assurances become increasingly unlikely the higher the existential stakes rise - the futher one proceeds from discussing specific theoretical or doctrinal matters to the deeper normative role those play in her life. This point can, I think, be usefully illustrated with reference to Leo Tolstoy - a writer to whom Wittgenstein's attitude toward religion owes a great deal.

Despite his "recognition of the existence of God," in A Confession Tolstoy describes his anguish at not being in "relationship" with Him as follows: "I fell into despair and felt that there was nothing else I could do except kill myself. And worst of all was that I did not even feel I could do that" (Tolstoy 1987, 64). (This foregrounds the distinction between belief that God exists and belief in God, to which we will return.) Tolstoy proceeds, however, to speak of "joyous waves of life" breaking through this desolation, where everything around him "came to life and took on meaning." But such rapture was short lived, for Tolstoy kept returning to abstract theological matters. It was not a "concept of God" that he sought, but rather, that "without which there cannot be life." Momen- tarily tempted (again) by thoughts of suicide, Tolstoy then recalls that he had "only lived during those times when [he] believed in God Then, as now, I said to myself: I have only to believe in God in order to live. I have only to disbelieve in Him, or to forget Him, in order to die." Tolstoy's revelation - experienced "more powerfully than ever before" (Tolstoy 1987, 65) - therefore cast everything in a new light which, henceforth, was never extinguished.

Now, without wanting to suggest that what Tolstoy describes here is typical of all Christians, these passages do illustrate, not only the depth at which religious faith can be experienced, but moreover, the immense existential stakes that can rest on such commitments (cf. Kierkegaard

2 Only if the dissent in question involved a denial of the truth of the believer's utterance would such preunderstanding be assumed; it would not be assumed if one denied that the believer's utterance had meaning. It is notable then that Wittgenstein does not merely dismiss the believer's utterances as meaningless.


1965, 69-78).3 As a nonbeliever one might be able to paraphrase another's belief concerning matters of Christology. It is, however, signifi- cantly less assured that one could adequately represent the full existential weight of Christ's sacrifice and its significance for their daily life.4 This is why a thorough grounding in theology or metaphysics guaran- tees nothing with regard to acquiring (or maintaining) genuine religious faith. Analogously, any attempt to elucidate the reasons for one's disbelief would, to believer and perhaps nonbeliever, seem obtuse. For the presen- tation of such "reasons" would be akin to paraphrasing an unacceptable hypothesis. In specifying what it is I do not believe, the believer may well agree that she does not believe that either. That the latter would feel fundamentally misrepresented by such a hypothetical gloss may often indicate that one has inadvertently distorted her beliefs, or that something important is lacking in one's synopsis.5 Indeed, one might reasonably suggest that such a representation - if it remains wholly in- sensitive to the believer's protestations - constitutes what Wittgenstein refers to as philosophical "dogmatism" (Wittgenstein 1994, 26), "preju- dice" (Wittgenstein 1958, §340), "injustice," or "arrogance" (Wittgenstein 1993, 181; 1994a, 72). This then is, in part, why Wittgenstein would be "reluctant" to say:

"These people rigorously hold the opinion (or view) that there is a Last Judgement." "Opinion" sounds queer. It is for this reason that different words are used: 'dogma', 'faith'. We don't talk about hypothesis, or about high probability. Nor about knowing. In a religious discourse we use such expressions as: "I believe that so and so will happen," and use them differently to the way in which we use them in science [Wittgenstein 1994a, 57; cf. 56, 61-62, 71; 1999, §361].

3 As Wittgenstein puts it: "everything will be different and it will be 'no wonder' if you can do things that you cannot do now" (Wittgenstein 1994, 33; cf. Tolstoy 1987, 66, 68).

4 One might object that an ex-believer, or even perhaps a talented ethnographer, could capture the full significance of such beliefs. But, I would suggest, although immensely sensitive and imaginative representations are possible, even these will only ever be able to say what the religious life shows (Wittgenstein 1994a, 53-54). Indeed, if it were possible for the nonbeliever to fully capture the existential significance of such beliefs in linguistic form, then that would imply that they had thereby come to believe. Making an analogy with the relation of love is perhaps instructive here. For if I could fully articulate to x why it is they love v, then would x's suspicion that / too was in love (or had been in love, or was falling in love) with y be unfounded?

5 An element of trust is necessary here; that, as a general rule, when the believer claims to have been "misrepresented" she is not trying to deceive me - or herself. The question of trust plays a crucial role in On Certainty (Wittgenstein 1999, §34, 125, 150, 337, 509, 600, 603, 672), and is developed by Lars Hertzberg (Hertzberg 1988).


In "Lectures on Religious Belief" we are therefore warned that between the respective claims of believer and nonbeliever lies a vast conceptual- linguistic chasm. There is in fact no "contradiction" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 53) here because such people "think entirely differently"; they have "different pictures" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 55), or an "entirely different kind of reasoning" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 58; cf. 1996, 61; Winch 1960, 234; 1964, 312, 314-15; 1970, 254, 257-58):6

If some[one] said: "Wittgenstein, do you believe in this?" I'd say: "No." "Do you contradict the man?" I'd say: "No." If you say this, the contradiction already lies in this. Would you say: "I believe the opposite," or "There is no reason to suppose such a thing"? I'd say neither. Suppose someone were a believer and said: "I believe in a Last Judge- ment," and I said: "Well, I'm not sure. Possibly." You would say that there is an enormous gulf between us. If he said "There is a German aeroplane overhead," and I said "Possibly. I'm not so sure," you'd say we were fairly near. It isn't a question of my being anywhere near him, but on an entirely different plane which you could express by saying: "You mean something altogether different, Wittgenstein" [Wittgenstein 1994a, 53]. 7

With this in mind the aforementioned suggestion that "the religious person never believes what I describe" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 55) can be explicated further. A discrepancy occurs between what the believer actually believes and what I represent to them due to my negligence of the practical setting within which religious beliefs have their life. That my representation seems artificial to the believer - that they are com- pelled to reject such a gloss as insufficient, mistaken, or even perhaps blasphemous - should lead us to a different style of philosophical analysis (Wittgenstein 1994a, 61). Rather than assuming religious claims to be quasi empirical hypotheses (as Wittgenstein thinks James Frazer does in The Golden Bough) philosophers must "only describe" (Wittgenstein 1958, §124) such language use (Wittgenstein 1958, §109, 126). This descriptive analysis must, of course, aspire to more than merely cataloguing religious utterances. Indeed, that a concern with "words alone" (Wittgen- stein 1990, §144) would ultimately lead to the sort of representational problems already mentioned, is why Wittgenstein urges us to attend to language rooted in its various practical settings (Winch 1987, 198, 200;

6 Wittgenstein once claimed that "many controversies about God could be settled by saying I'm not using the word in such a sense that you can say . . . ', and that different religions 'treat things as making sense which others treat as nonsense, and don't merely deny some proposition which another religion affirms'" (Moore 1993, 103).

7 Note also the distinction made between secular and sacred history in Wittgenstein 1994, 31-32; 1994a, 53-54, 56-57.


Tolstoy 1987, 58, 61; Wittgenstein 1994, 85; 1994a, 55).8 What requires descriptive analysis is not only what is said, but the way in which what is said integrates with types of practical orientation toward life. But Wittgenstein is not concerned with drawing up an inventory of "words" on the one hand, and corresponding "actions" on the other; this would perpetuate exactly what his later work repudiates - namely, that linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviour are essentially independent or distinct phenomena.9 Thus what calls for description is the complex web of re- lationships within which alone linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviour have meaning. This gives the orientation of "Lectures on Religious Belief" a much broader philosophical-therapeutic strategy.

At this point something needs to be said concerning the relationship between Wittgenstein's reflections on religious belief and his later "minimal" naturalism.10 This is important, not only because it holds the key to a proper understanding of Wittgenstein's views on religion and their place in his therapeutic philosophy, but also because without appreciat- ing the role of his naturalism we will likely misconstrue (if not overlook) the ethical dimension of his later work.

2. Catharsis and Connecting Links As we previously saw, Wittgenstein suggests that there is no "con-

tradiction" between believer and nonbeliever because their respective discourses operate on "entirely different planets]" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 53). The relativistic and/or fideistic overtones of such passages are obvious enough. For here it is tempting to read Wittgenstein as describing a radical difference between believer and nonbeliever which renders their positions fundamentally incommensurable. Likewise, when I suggested that Tolstoy's confession could only be understood by someone who had "shared a similar experience," this might be taken to mean that only religious "insiders" could even begin to comprehend the anxieties Tolstoy expresses. Doubtless some interpretative work is needed here, but mindful of the broader naturalistic picture Wittgenstein presents, this relativist-fideist interpretation can be avoided - though not by ap- pealing to Wittgenstein's having thought all "genuine expressions of religion" to be "wonderful" (Drury 1981, 108).11

8 This is what ultimately turns on his distinction between "surface" and "depth grammar" (Wittgenstein 1958, §664).

9 Hence Wittgenstein's concern with "language-games" (Wittgenstein 1958, §23). 10 Precisely what this "minimal naturalism" amounts to will become clear during the

course of this paper. For a further analysis of Wittgenstein's naturalism see Malcolm 1986 and Plant 2003.

11 This claim does not tell us what distinguishes "genuine" from inauthentic religiosity.


Although the conceptual-linguistic-practical space between theist and atheist may often be vast, it is not unfathomable. For despite such differences, both believer and nonbeliever remain united by certain primitive, natural human activities. Wittgenstein's spatial metaphor of "different planes" (itself indicative of a much broader spatio-geographical rhetoric in his later work) is particularly instructive here (Wittgenstein 1958, ix, §18, 68, 71, 76, 85, 99, 119, 203, 257, 426, 499, 525, 534). There is, for example, an obvious sense in which different communities may live on "different planes" in that some are mountain dwellers while others reside closer to sea level or in valleys (and so on). Yet despite the enormous differences in climate, atmosphere, vegetation, agriculture and natural resources between such communities, all are nevertheless terrestrial, and as such their respective forms of cultural life will not be radically divergent. A related point is made by Wittgenstein in "Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough" where he insists on the "kinship" (Wittgenstein 1996, 70), "common spirit" (Wittgenstein 1996, 80), and "general inclination" (Wittgenstein 1996, 78) which underlie so-called "primitive" and "modern" societies. Indeed, this is why, in Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein asks us to envisage the following scenario: "Suppose you came as an explorer into an unknown country with a language quite strange to you. In what circumstances would you say that the people there gave orders, understood them, obeyed them, rebelled against them, and so on? The common behaviour of mankind is the system of reference by means of which we interpret an unknown language" (Wittgenstein 1958, §206 my emphasis).12

Returning to the believer and nonbeliever then, some "connecting links" (Wittgenstein 1996, 69) might be located between: (i) certain religious and nonreligious acts of "piety" (Frazer 1993, 253; Wittgenstein 1996, 66), (ii) a confession of sins and a confession of love or guilt (Wittgenstein 1996, 64), (iii) the adoration of a religious image and the devotion exhibited toward a picture (name, letter, and so on) of a loved one (Wittgenstein 1996, 64-65), (iv) talk of ghostly "visitations" by the dead and one's being "haunted" by conscience or the memory of another (Frazer 1993, 207, 216, 551), (v) the absolute trusting demanded by religious faith and that which governs the parental relation (Hertzberg 1988; Wittgenstein 1994, 72; 1999, §34, 160, 283, 509), (vi) prayer and expressions of basic human vulnerabilities and needs (Wittgenstein 1996, 61, 71-72), (vii) notions of fate and predestination, and natural feelings of vulnerability in the face of the world's vacillations, and (viii) following

12 This passage should be contrasted with Wittgenstein's misleading remark that others are sometimes "a complete enigma" to us - that "[w]e cannot find our feet with them" - especially when one enters "a strange country with entirely strange traditions" (Wittgenstein 1958, 223).


Wittgenstein's own suggestion that "Calling something 'the cause' is like pointing and saying: 'He's to blame!'" (Wittgenstein 1993, 373), we might suggest that certain eschatological beliefs correspond to a natural desire or hope for justice (Wittgenstein 1994, 25). In more general terms, the "connecting links" Wittgenstein refers to are often - though, as the pre- vious inventory suggests, not exclusively - found in those basic human activities associated with mortality, vulnerability, and suffering (Winch 1964, 322-24; Wittgenstein 1996, 66-67).

As Brian Clack rightly notes, what is most interesting in Wittgenstein's reflections on religious belief is the suggestion that "the origins and nature of religion must be attributed to human nature, that its roots lie in humanity's natural responsiveness to the world" (Clack 1999, 120; cf. 123). But, one might reasonably ask, if such analogies can be justified then what are we to make of Wittgenstein's general approach to religious belief? To what extent does Wittgenstein's naturalism undermine the religiosity of religious beliefs by linking them to common, natural sorts of human behaviour? Of course, Wittgenstein is not being intentionally reductive - after all, he does not proffer such an inventory (Clack 1999, 124). But, as Clack also points out, it would surely be strange for someone to come to accept Wittgenstein's account and yet remain as firmly in the "saddle" (Wittgenstein 1999, §616) of their religious world-picture as before. Likewise, it would seem highly unlikely that anyone could be "converted to Christianity having understood it in Wittgenstein's terms" (Clack 1999, 125). It seems to me that framing the question in this way inevitably leads one toward atheistic conclusions concerning Wittgenstein's work.13 On this view his following remark to Drury could be similarly applied to his thoughts about religious belief: "It is always a tragic thing when a language dies. But it doesn't follow that one can do anything to stop it doing so. It is a tragic thing when the love between a man and wife is dying; but there is nothing one can do. So it is with a dying language" (Drury 1981, 152). Wittgenstein's position is "atheistic" to the extent that he recognises (indeed laments) the death of a certain way of life. In Clack's words, Wittgenstein's is a "despairing, apocalyptic atheism" insofar as it bears witness to "the frustrated and bitter recognition that the passionate beauty of the religious life is no longer open to us" (Clack 1999, 129).

While Clack's reading has some biographical plausibility (it sits comfortably alongside Wittgenstein's general cultural pessimism), it is, philosophically speaking, neither the most fruitful nor interesting. Wittgenstein's naturalisation of religious belief is better understood,

13 Having discussed the influence of Oswald Spengler's cultural pessimism on Wittgenstein, this is exactly how Clack proceeds (Clack 1999, 127-29). Regarding Wittgenstein's pessimism see Drury 1981, 128, 131; Wittgenstein 1994, 6, 27, 71.


not as a sort of naturalistic-anthropological apologetic, but rather as something philosophically cathartic: a redescription of religious practice which "aims at" the "satisfaction" (Wittgenstein 1996, 64) of Wittgenstein's aforementioned "bewilderment." Thus, again in "Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough" we are cautioned that a "hypothetical explanation will be of little help to someone, say, who is upset because of love," for "it will not calm him." Being troubled by love - by the end of an affair, or by the longing for love - will not be eased by theoretical for- mulations; often all one can say in such circumstances is "this is what human life is like" (Wittgenstein 1996, 63). Analogously, being troubled by religious belief - by a crisis of faith, or by the desire for such faith - will not be abated by theorising, even of an "evolutionary" sort. What Wittgenstein's naturalism offers is a way to sharpen one's eye for "connecting links" between seemingly incommensurable types of human activity. Regarding religious activities, such a "perspicuous representation" thus enables Wittgenstein to account for his own sympathetic attitude toward religious practice despite being unable to fully immerse himself in any particular religious world-picture (Wittgenstein 1994, 48). Indeed, it is through this pervasive desire to discuss religion so reverently that the alleged "fideism" of Wittgenstein's later work must first be called into question. In short, we should interpret Wittgenstein's reflections on religion as one way of reconciling these apparently conflicting inclinations by tracing those recurrent patterns of behaviour which manifest themselves in "the life of mankind" (Wittgenstein 1994, 70).

It is here worth remembering that what Wittgenstein finds objection- able about Frazer's anthropology - and, not least, the "narrow spiritual life" (Wittgenstein 1996, 65) it evinces - is Frazer's apparent incapacity to suspend his own prejudiced and reductive scientism. All Frazer can discern in the practices he seeks to "explain" are epistemological blun- ders and instrumentally inferior methods of handling the natural envi- ronment. What he fails to recognise is, as Wittgenstein puts it in Culture and Value, that one "can fight, hope and even believe without believing scientifically" (Wittgenstein 1994, 60). This can, for example, be seen in Frazer's frequent references to sun worship rituals. For there is nothing inherently superstitious in these activities; it is not as though the promi- nence of scientific explanation has rendered such natural phenomena as sun, sea, rain and lightning any the less awe inspiring (Wittgenstein 1994, 5; 1996, 67) (indeed, we might recall our own ritualised fascina- tion with such phenomena). Although the pervasiveness of scientific and instrumentalist ways of thinking might one day result in the decline of such practices, this is neither inevitable nor prerequisite for one's full immersion into a secular world-picture (Winch 1987, 202-4).

On Frazer's account, between "primitive" and "modern" society lies an epistemological gulf in virtue of which "civilised" Westerners can


legitimately judge the former to be essentially impoverished. Wittgenstein's point is that, not only are these respective epistemological world-pictures not "fundamentally" (Wittgenstein 1996, 74) different, but more crucially, neither is the religious-ritualistic life of the "primitive" so far removed from the 'civilised' existence of Westerners. Their practices may seem at odds with those of modern Western society, but scratch the surface of the latter and one soon finds analogous sorts of non- instrumental, ritual activities which are - to the Western eye at least - more immediately conspicuous in the former.14

What I referred to a moment ago as Wittgenstein's project of "recon- ciliation" is not therefore merely of biographical import concerning his own self understanding - though it may indeed begin there (Wittgenstein 1994, 16). Religious believers and nonbelievers alike (not to mention radical pluralists and relativists) might benefit from reminding themselves that, despite the linguistic-conceptual gulf that sometimes divides human beings, there nevertheless remain natural grounds upon which mu- tual understanding can be built - though, of course, pacific intercourse can never be guaranteed (Bambrough 1992, 249-50). This is not, as it is for Frazer, simply to try and make "foreign" practices seem palatable to people who think as we do (Wittgenstein 1996, 61). Rather, such "connecting links" between the life of religious belief and nonbelief (or between different faiths, cultures, and so on) demonstrate the "common spirit" they share as human beings. These "very general facts of nature" which "do not strike us because of their generality" (Wittgenstein 1958, 230) bear witness to a commonality which is necessarily presupposed by even the most radical antinaturalist. For, "[w]hat we are supplying are really remarks on the natural history of human beings; we are not contribut- ing curiosities however, but observations which no one has doubted, but which have escaped remark only because they are always before our eyes" (Wittgenstein 1958, §415). But neither is this to suggest that religious practices can simply be "reduced" to primitive human activities. Such a position would not only render Wittgenstein's account fundamentally atheistic, it would also underestimate the inherent complexities of such religious practices as they have developed and continue to develop (Wittgenstein 1994, 78; 1996, 80). Maintaining that ritual (for example) is not an activity peculiar to the explicitly "religious" sphere, but rather finds a place in many regions of human life - that "man is a cer- emonial animal" (Wittgenstein 1996, 67) - is not to trivialise religious rituals in their particularity, but simply to deny their radical singular- ity. For without rooting such activities in certain basic human tendencies

14 This cuts both ways; the charge - often made from a misplaced self-deprecation by Westerners, or dubious exoticism - that the West is spiritually barren, is similarly superficial.


and activities they would become irredeemably alien phenomena, and as such unidentifiable as "religious rituals" - or for that matter as "rituals" of any sort.

This then is how Wittgenstein's naturalism feeds into his general account of religious belief. But, as previously suggested, this same naturalism leads him to a distinctly ethical understanding of specific religious concepts. It is to these that I now want to turn.

3. Immortality and Responsibility Regarding the notion of immortality Wittgenstein elucidates further

his reason for hesitancy between positive assent and dissent: " 'If you don't cease to exist, you will suffer after death', there I begin to attach ideas, perhaps ethical ideas of responsibility. The point is, that although these are well-known words, and although I can go from one sentence to another sentence, or to pictures [I don't know what consequences you draw from this statement]" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 70 my emphasis).15 Again, what we find expressed here is a certain bewilderment regarding religious notions, despite the familiarity of their surface grammar. Yet, in what becomes a characteristic move in Wittgenstein's work, he thereby also presents the key to understanding such beliefs by asking what "consequences" subsequently procure? These "consequences" are, of course, not merely logical but practical; of particular interest here is how these practical consequences are taken to likely involve "ethical ideas of responsibility." Wittgenstein thus continues: "A great writer said that, when he was a boy, his father set him a task, and he suddenly felt that nothing, not even death, could take away the responsibility [in doing this task]; this was his duty to do, and that even death couldn't stop it being his duty. He said that this was, in a way, a proof of the immortality of the soul - because if this lives on [the responsibility won't die]" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 70).16

This was not an isolated thought. Norman Malcolm similarly recalls Wittgenstein suggesting that "a way in which the notion of immortality can acquire a meaning is through one's feeling that one has duties from which one cannot be released, even by death" (Malcolm 1958, 71). Moreover, the following passage clearly testifies to Wittgenstein's general orientation toward bringing the ethical and religious together:

15 The square brackets and enclosed text are in the translation. I have added emphasis to make it clearer that, although Wittgenstein can begin to identify what "consequences" might follow ("ethical ideas of responsibility") from such a statement, he is not sure that the person who makes such a claim necessarily has these "ideas" in mind.

16 The square brackets and enclosed text are in the translation.


Wittgenstein did once say that he could understand the conception of God, in so far as it is involved in one's awareness of one's own sin and guilt. He added that he could not understand the conception of a Creator. I think that the ideas of Divine judgement, forgiveness, and redemption had some intelligibility for him, as being related in his mind to feelings of disgust with himself, an intense desire for purity, and a sense of the helplessness of human beings to make themselves better. But the notion of a being making the world had no intelligibility for him at all [Malcolm 1958, 70-71].

As I have been arguing, Wittgenstein's reclaiming of religious utterances "from their metaphysical to their everyday use" (Wittgenstein 1958, §116) does not undermine them.17 Rather, no real sense can be made of religious beliefs (even those which appear distinctly ontological) which are not rooted in the practical-ethical lives of those professing them (Drury 1981, 103). Thus, recalling Tolstoy's remarks in A Confes- sion, one might "believe that God exists" and yet from this nothing else may follow.18 Such a belief in the being of God could plausibly take the form of a quasi-cosmological judgment about which one remains utterly indifferent. There is a stark contrast, however, between this and "belief in God." Although the latter must in some sense require a latent commitment to the being of God, the point is that no meaningful access can be gained to the ontological conception except through the ethical. Belief in God is more akin to an absolute "trusting" (Wittgenstein 1994, 72) or a "passionate commitment" (Wittgenstein 1994, 64) by means of which the "shape" (Wittgenstein 1994, 86) of one's life is both radically changed and continually moulded. In short, one's application of "the word 'God' does not show whom you mean - but, rather, what you mean" (Wittgenstein 1994, 50). For the genuine believer the question pertaining to God's existence becomes a question regarding the orientation of their life as a whole. This is a question to which they can only adequately respond by "show- ing" us that orientation (presumably their religiosity ought to "show" itself). Thus, in a markedly Tolstoyan passage, Wittgenstein concludes:

17 Raimond Gaita's position on the intertwining of the religious and nonreligious is interesting. On the one hand he claims that religious language (concerning, for example, the "sacredness" of others) is a far superior form of expression than its "secular equivalent^]" (Gaita 2000, 23). On the other hand, he not only makes much of "nonreligious" ritual (Gaita 2000, 219-21), but also suggests of the "soul" that the "religious or metaphysical conception . . . depends on the conception expressed in the more natural ways of speaking" (Gaita 2000, 238-39).

8 Concerning Tolstoy's A Confession, one commentator remarks that: "What he leaves us with, in the end, is an overwhelming feeling of his need for God to exist and his sense that many among the people possess an enviable faith in the reality of that existence which he himself lacks" (Greenwood 1975, 121). Much the same could be said of Wittgenstein (see Drury 1981, 162, 182). Indeed, this allusion to "envy," a word Tolstoy himself uses (Tolstoy 1987, 73), goes some way toward explaining why Wittgenstein cannot be described as "agnostic."


Suppose somebody made this guidance for this life: believing in the Last Judgement. Whenever he does anything, this is before his mind. In a way, how are we to know whether to say he believes this will happen or not? Asking him is not enough. He will probably say he has proof. But he has what you might call an unshakeable belief. It will show, not by reasoning or by appeal to ordinary grounds for belief, but rather by regulating for all in his life Suppose you had two people, and one of them, when he had to decide which course to take, thought of retribution, and the other did not. One person might, for instance, be inclined to take everything that happened to him as a reward or punishment, and the other person doesn't think of this at all [Wittgenstein 1994a, 53-54; cf. 1994, 5, 33].

As Malcolm himself intimates, this emphasis upon the practical setting within which alone words get their sense results in drawing ethical and religious concepts together. Wittgenstein's own bemusement regarding an essentially ontological conception of God leads him, not to a dogmatic atheism, but rather to a deeply sympathetic appreciation of religious concepts in terms of sin, guilt, and one's responsibilities to others. As I said above, this is not merely a biographical point. For what Wittgenstein here bears witness to is the broader possibility of one's making some sense of religious concepts in terms of those behaviours we share as human beings (Malcolm 1958, 20; Engelmann 1967, 77-78).

In a note from 1950 Wittgenstein writes: "If someone who believes in God looks around and asks 'Where does everything I see come from?', 'Where does all this come from?', he is not craving for a (causal) explanation; and his question gets its point from being the expression of a certain craving. He is, namely, expressing an attitude to all explanations. - But how is this manifested in his life?" (Wittgenstein 1994, 85). There are clear resonances between this passage and Wittgenstein's 1929 discus- sion of ontological wonder in "A Lecture on Ethics."19 There, struggling to find an adequate expression, Wittgenstein believes that "the best way of describing [this feeling] is to say that when I have it / wonder at the existence of the world. And I am then inclined to use such phrases as 'how extraordinary that anything should exist' or 'how extraordinary that the world should exist'" (Wittgenstein 1993, 41). Wittgenstein's subsequent emphasis lies on the way in which "a certain characteristic mis- use of our language runs through all ethical and religious expressions" (Wittgenstein 1993, 42; cf. 44). But still, some nine years earlier than "Lectures on Religious Belief," he concludes in characteristically sympathetic fashion that this "running against the walls of our cage is perfectly,

19 A reverence which is perhaps more obvious in Martin Heidegger. Interestingly, in his own remarks on Heidegger, Wittgenstein again refers to "the astonishment that anything exists" (Wittgenstein 1978, 80).


absolutely hopeless But it is a document of a tendency in the human mind which I personally cannot help respecting deeply and I would not for my life ridicule it" (Wittgenstein 1993, 44). That this primitive "impulse" (Wittgenstein 1978, 80) to speak of ethics and religion is at once utterly futile and yet also worthy of the deepest respect, is important to remem- ber when considering the appropriation of Wittgenstein's early work by the Logical Positivists (Wittgenstein 1993, 40). While both might be said to have placed "God" under erasure, for Wittgenstein such a "boundary line" (Wittgenstein 1958, §499) was not a mark of disavowal, but rather a way of protecting the term "God." Nevertheless, these sentiments of ontological wonder become somewhat more intelligible against the practical backdrop of Wittgenstein's later emphasis on language usage, and, not least, in the light of his own suggestion that the ontological question "gets its point from being the expression of a certain craving."20 Gen- uinely religious utterances do not describe an extraterrestrial or tran- scendent reality. Rather, they express a fundamental orientation toward one's earthly life (Wittgenstein 1994, 32, 53, 61, 63; 1994a, 53-54). If such utterances can be said to "describe" anything, it is not to the supernatural realm that we should direct our attention, but rather to the human. Hence, "Christianity is not a doctrine," that is, "not ... a theory about what has happened and will happen to the human soul," but rather "a description of something that actually takes place in human life." In other words: " 'consciousness of sin' is a real event and so are despair and salvation through faith," and "Those who speak of such things . . . are simply describing what has happened to them, whatever gloss anyone may want to put on it" (Wittgenstein 1994, 28).

In passages such as these we again get a sense of the normativity which lies at the heart of Wittgenstein's "descriptive" project. For it is clear that for some the notion of immortality does denote the continu- ation of the self, spirit, or soul beyond the demise of the body. But it would be misguided to consider this belief to be intrinsically religious. One may profess such a conviction "either religiously or nonreligiously" (Malcolm 1972, 215); that is, either with a practical-ethical attitude or without. There is nothing to prevent someone from believing that they will "survive death" as though this were merely some incidental, contingent, quasi-empirical fact. In short, it is not necessary that anything else need follow from such a conviction (Malcolm 1972, 211, 214).

Of course, Wittgenstein does not think that such classificatory "wrong turnings" (Wittgenstein 1994, 18) are easily avoided (Wittgenstein 1958, §109). On the contrary, what often leads us astray is precisely the "power

20 Regarding Wittgenstein's attitudinal emphasis on the ontological question, see also his remarks on predestination (Wittgenstein 1994, 30), fate (Wittgenstein 1994, 61), and free will (Wittgenstein 1994, 63).


language has to make everything look the same" (Wittgenstein 1994, 22) when extracted from its manifold practical settings (Wittgenstein 1958, §38, 132). The notion of immortality begins to look quasi-empirical or hypothetical due to the very language in which it is couched (Wittgenstein 1994, 41). For we naturally become confused "by certain analogies between the forms of expression in different regions of language" (Wittgenstein 1958, §90) - not least because "our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions" (Wittgenstein 1994, 15). Wittgenstein goes on: "Philosophers who say: 'after death a timeless state will begin', or: 'at death a timeless state begins' ... do not notice that they have used the words 'after' and 'at' and 'begins' in a temporal sense, and that temporality is embedded in their grammar" (Wittgenstein 1994, 22; cf. Moore 1993, 109-10). Talk of immortality thereby lends itself to certain misunderstandings (Wittgen- stein 1969, 18). Due both to the temporality rooted in our language, and the "urge" (Wittgenstein 1958, §109) to assume that language functions in one way only (Wittgenstein 1994, 22), we are prone to misconstrue the notion of immortality quantitatively as more-of-the-same - more life after this life or more time after death. But what separates the believer and nonbeliever here is not a difference in their respective postmortem antici- pations. Rather, the difference is exhibited in their respective existential attitudes towards this life.21 By bringing words back "to their everyday use" (Wittgenstein 1958, §116) and rejecting explanation in favour of "description alone" (Wittgenstein 1958, §109), Wittgenstein thus attempts to show that talk of immortality is essentially of practical-ethical significance.

These conditions apply when talking about numerous other religious concepts and practices. But in his essay "The Groundlessness of Belief" Malcolm brings to light something else of particular significance for our analysis. There Malcolm remarks that while (like Tolstoy) he finds "great difficulty with the notion of belief in the existence of God" the notion of "belief in God" is, to him at least, quite "intelligible." For if

a man did not ever pray for help or forgiveness, or have any inclination toward it; nor ever felt that it is 'a good and joyful thing' to thank God for the blessings of his life; nor was ever concerned about his failure to comply with divine commandments - then ... he could not be said to believe in God . . . belief in God in any degree does require, as I understand the words, some religious action, some commitment, or if not, at least a bad conscience [Malcolm 1972, 211; cf. Malcolm 1960, 60-61].

21 In response to Drury's admission that he thought of "death as the gateway to a perma- nent state of mind," Wittgenstein "seemed disinclined to continue with this conversation." Drury had "the feeling that [Wittgenstein] thought what he had said was superficial" (Drury 1981, 147).


All of this is broadly in keeping with Wittgenstein's own views. But it is Malcolm's closing remark that is most striking. The suggestion here is that a "bad conscience" is the minimal manifestation required of the genuinely religious life. Wittgenstein emphasises much the same thing when he remarks that "[pleople are religious to the extent that they believe themselves to be not so much imperfect, as ill. Any man who is half-way decent will think himself extremely imperfect, but a religious man thinks himself wretched" (Wittgenstein 1994, 45; cf. Kierkegaard 1973, 429-30). It is this dramatic and, I think, important characterisation of the genuinely "religious man" that I will now examine.

4. Wretchedness and Bad Conscience

It has become evident that Wittgenstein's "religiosity" is far from transparent. Indeed, this ambiguity is compounded insofar as it becomes central to his philosophical treatment of religious belief. It is thus sometimes hard not to become impatient with Wittgenstein's aforementioned "hesitancy" on such matters. One source of dissatisfaction here can be located in his demarcation between "decency" and religiosity when char- acterising the genuinely "religious man" as thinking himself to be, not merely "imperfect," but positively "wretched" For here we are presented with a portrait which immediately calls to mind Wittgenstein himself (Engelmann 1967, 74, 77, 79-80; Monk 1991, 186-88, 367-72; Pascal 1996). But again, I do not think that this is only of biographical interest. Drury recalls Wittgenstein once remarking: "If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God." Drury then proceeds: "Just as I was leaving [Wittgenstein] suddenly said, '[t]here is a sense in which you and I are both Christians'" (Drury 1981, 129-30). Whatever contingent circumstances may have prompted Wittgenstein to make this startling remark, it usefully raises a more general question regarding his approach to religious belief: Is it possible (and if so, what might it mean) to "live a Christian life" without actually "being a Christian"? For if to be a Christian is essentially to "live a Christian life," then the latter must surely amount to more than practising a Christian ethic (assuming there is such a thing), or of merely trying "to be helpful to other people." This question is germane because it is not clear that Wittgenstein provides any obvious response. One reason for this is the deeply Tolstoyan picture of Christianity he tends toward (Engelmann 1967, 79-80).22 In both thinkers we find a certain idealisation of what

22 That is, Tolstoy's "attempt to state 'the religion of Christ . . . purged of dogmas and mysticism'" (Greenwood 1975, 126). It is also interesting that Greenwood describes


Tolstoy describes as the "true" faith of the "illiterate peasant" (Tolstoy 1987, 71) or "simple working people" (Tolstoy 1987, 63).23 Along with this portrait comes a deep suspicion of both the theology of "learned believers," which destroys "the thing it should be advancing" (Tolstoy 1987, 72, 74),24 and institutionalised ritual practice.25 This concurrence is worth noting because it is precisely the Tolstoyan dimension of Wittgenstein's work that becomes potentially disabling at a philosophical level.26 If one undermines the significance of doctrinal and theological tradition (escha- tology, Christology, organisational hierarchy, the role of religious arte- facts, holy places, institutionalised rituals, and so on) in distinguishing believers from nonbelievers - in short, if one is denied recourse to the sort of organisational "trappings" of religion which Wittgenstein appears to have thought to be "pretentious" (Wittgenstein 1994, 30; cf. Drury 1981, 109)27 - then one is in danger of rendering that very distinction superflu- ous. In what substantive sense then might we understand Wittgenstein's claim that both himself and Drury were "Christians"?

A plausible response to this question can, I think, be formulated, but only by returning to the deeper naturalism orienting Wittgenstein's treatment of religious belief. Although he may not do justice to the "trappings" of religious practice, and despite the fact that such phenomena as "hierarchy, honours and official positions" (Wittgenstein 1994, 30) or the importance of one's "saying a lot of prayers" (Drury 1981, 109) are extremely marginal in Wittgenstein's account, this marginality is due, not to their being inherently "pretentious," but because for someone at Wittgenstein's "lower level" of "devoutness" (Wittgenstein 1994, 32) they

Tolstoy's purpose in A Confession and What I Believe as "not just trying to establish the correct point of view . . . but also as trying to awaken the educated classes to a lively sense of the realities of life and death, and of the demands of the Christianity that many of them outwardly profess. Tolstoy is just as concerned with a metanoia or a 'change of heart' as with a 'correct point of view'" (Greenwood 1975, 126; cf. 128-31).

23 This "nostalgia" is not wholly unreserved in Tolstoy's writings (Tolstoy 1987, 77; cf. Greenwood 1975, 120-21).

24 See also Wittgenstein's warnings about theology in Drury 1981, 101, 123. 25 See Wittgenstein's reassurance to Drury on the latter's feeling of "emptiness" at the

"ceremonies of Holy Week and Easter" (Drury 1981, 144). On a related matter refer also to Wittgenstein's lamentation that Drury's not having "lived a religious life" (Drury 1981, 179) had perhaps been due to his own influence.

26 Clack is right to highlight Wittgenstein's changing attitude toward the "peasants" Tolstoy so admired (Clack 1999, 114-15). Nevertheless, I suspect that this ambiguity lies within Wittgenstein's Tolstoyan attitude; that Wittgenstein never unburdened himself of a deeply Tolstoyan ideal despite his inability to assimilate himself with such "ordinary people."

27 This attitude is best illustrated in what Wittgenstein described as his "favorite" (Drury 1981, 101) of Tolstoy's short stories, "The Three Hermits" (Tolstoy 1982, 280-86).


could rarely appear otherwise (Wittgenstein 1994, 30).28 Wittgenstein focuses upon those beliefs and practices which have a more obvious ethical dimension because it is only by means of such deeply human phenomena that he can even begin to make sense of the particularities of Christianity.29 Thus, although we are warned that "[everything ritualistic (everything that, as it were, smacks of the high priest) must be strictly avoided, because it immediately turns rotten," Wittgenstein nevertheless proceeds: "Of course a kiss is a ritual too and it isn't rotten, but ritual is permissible only to the extent that it is as genuine as a kiss" (Wittgenstein 1994, 8).30 Wittgenstein's attitude is not therefore dismissive toward institutionalised practices per se, rather, he is recom- mending a certain caution or vigilance regarding them. And it is on the basis of this sensitivity toward both the fundamentally ethical orientation of religious faith and the importance therein of genuine ritual that Wittgenstein can, without excessive violence, describe himself as being "in a sense" a Christian.

In Logic and Sin in the Writings ofLudwig Wittgenstein Phillip Shields makes some observations which are highly pertinent here. Reading Wittgenstein against the backdrop of the Christian conception of original sin, Shields suggests that Wittgenstein's work represents a sort of exorcism of philosophical vices or "temptations" (Shields 1997, 61). By emphasising Wittgenstein's continued preoccupation with "the thought of absolute dependence on arbitrary power" Shields reasonably claims that "one point is clear . . . Wittgenstein shows that this is not a warm personal God but a fearful Power whose main attribute is his otherness" (Shields 1997, 33). Wittgenstein stresses this, we are further told, by reference to the sheer "givenness" of "the world," "logical form," "form[s] of life," and "grammar" (Shields 1997, 34) that are "not of our own making" but rather "thrust upon us" (Shields 1997, 36; cf. 65; Gaita 2000, 219- 20). Indeed, "[m]eaning is given like a gift, or a covenant of God made toward the undeserving" (Shields 1997, 46; cf. 70). While much of Shields's account is compelling - particularly his emphasis on the quasi religious sense of the "given" in Wittgenstein's thinking - some restraint is needed

28 This "lower level" of religiosity becomes most striking in Wittgenstein's markedly pragmatic advice to Drury concerning the legitimacy of "try[ing] experiments in religion. To find out, by trying, what helps one and what doesn't" (Drury 1981, 179).

29 We should note that while in Norway Wittgenstein "spent his time in prayer" and had also "felt it necessary to write out a confession" (Drury 1981, 135) - the latter was eventually offered to (amongst others) G. E. Moore and Fania Pascal (Drury 1981, 190- 218; Rhees 1981, 190-95; Pascal 1996, 45-50).

30 Likewise, when Wittgenstein remarks to Drury that "the religion of the future" will perhaps be "without any priests or ministers," he goes on to suggest that "one of the things you and I have to learn is that we have to live without the consolation of belonging to a church" (Drury 1981, 129 my emphasis).


when applying the notion of original sin. As I previously suggested with reference to Tolstoy (and as Shields himself notes) Wittgenstein's work does often display a certain exoticism or "nostalgia" (Shields 1997, 88) for the honest, simple faith of the "peasant." Nevertheless, the sort of "wretchedness" Wittgenstein perceives to lie at the heart of the genuinely religious life problematizes the reparative teleology of the Christian concept of original sin.31 In view of Wittgenstein's more general focus on the categorical nature of religious belief (Wittgenstein 1994, 29, 32, 45, 53; 1994a, 56, 58), I would therefore like to pursue another interpretative possibility.

Most striking in this regard is Wittgenstein's warning in Culture and Value: "'God has commanded it, therefore it must be possible to do it.' That means nothing. There is no 'therefore' about it In this context 'He has commanded it' means roughly: He will punish anybody who doesn't do it. And nothing follows from that about what anybody can or cannot do" (Wittgenstein 1994, 77). While this passage bears witness to Wittgen- stein's tendency to characterise God as "a fearful Power" (Shields 1997, 33), what we should also note here is the way God's having "commanded" something dislocates the conceptual-practical boundaries within which human responsibility is ordinarily circumscribed. In other words, when God commands me this does not necessarily entail the possibility of my being able to fulfil that injunction.32 God's commandments come from a certain moral "height" outside the customary rules governing ethical discourse and human responsibility.33 And it is this severing of the realm of responsibility (the ethical "ought") from that of possibility (the ontological "can") that enables us to relocate the feeling of "wretchedness" Wittgenstein describes outside the teleology of original sin. Likewise, and as we saw earlier, Wittgenstein makes a connection between "the immortality of the soul" and a certain experience of responsibility "that even death couldn't stop" (Wittgenstein 1994a, 70). In this coupling it is again evident that the usual criteria of moral responsibility are similarly disrupted, for here not even the possibility of death can relieve

31 To this extent Wittgenstein's religiosity is perhaps more Judaic than Christian (see Drury 1981, 175).

32 See Wittgenstein's remarks on "How God judges a man" (1994, 86). 33 As Hertzberg remarks of "reliance" and "trust": "In relying on someone I as it were

look down at him from above. I exercise my command of the world. I remain the judge of his actions. In trusting someone Hook up from below" (Hertzberg 1988, 315 my emphasis). Of course, even in Abraham's example, God did not demand what was practically impossible (cf. Kierkegaard 1985, 44-46). Certainly God's command pushes ethical sensibilities to their limit. But no matter how repulsive or incomprehensible, such an action remained firmly within the realms of the possible. Wittgenstein's remarks thus seem to move beyond even Abraham's example; namely, that God could demand of me, not merely something repugnant, but something I could not do even if I had the will to do it.


the moral burden experienced.34 In these passages ethical responsibility is therefore presented as radically unconditional: what God demands never logically entails the possibility of one's satisfying that demand, and likewise, the notion of the immortal soul may itself gain its sense from the "feeling" that even my death (or for that matter the other's) cannot always annul my duty to another human being.

Now, it might appear that these passages provide a striking example of language which has gone "on holiday" (Wittgenstein 1958, §38), become "like an engine idling" (Wittgenstein 1958, §132), or which has no "practical consequences" (Wittgenstein 1999, §450). That is to say, it may seem as though divorcing the ethical "ought" from the ontological "can" effectively severs the normal connection between linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviour. If I am "commanded" to do something that I cannot possibly do, or if even my death does not necessarily annul my responsibilities to others, then surely any subsequent talk of obligations, duties, guilt, (and so on) can at best lead only to conceptual confusion. An adequate response to these allegations would take us far beyond the range of the present analysis - and perhaps beyond Wittgenstein's philosophy.35 Nevertheless, in the remainder of the paper I would like to show how, even in Wittgenstein's earlier writings - where ethics is described as "supernatural" (Wittgenstein 1993, 40) - this correlation between guilt and responsibility plays an important role.

5. Guilt and Religion without Recompense

Although "A Lecture on Ethics" postdates the Tractatus by eight years or so, this text retains many of the same emphases. Thus, echoing a number of his earlier ideas, Wittgenstein there remarks:

Suppose one of you were an omniscient person and therefore knew all the movements of all the bodies in the world dead or alive and that he also knew all the states of mind of all human beings that ever lived, and suppose this man wrote all he knew in a big book, then this book would contain the whole description of the world; and what I want to say is, that this book would contain nothing that we would call an ethical judgement or anything that would logically imply such a judgement [Wittgenstein 1993, 39].

34 On a related, though somewhat broader, theme Tolstoy remarks that "the essence of any faith consists in giving a meaning to life that will not perish with death" (Tolstoy 1987, 68).

35 The work of Emmanuel Levinas (and especially his conception of guilt and responsibility) would here provide one way of moving "beyond" Wittgenstein. For an overview of this aspect of Levinas's work see Plant 2003a.


Developing the Kantian distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives, Wittgenstein maintains that whereas the former (judgments of relative value) can be translated into the language of ontology, the latter (judgments of absolute value) cannot. (I will return to this distinction in a moment.) The contents of this imagined "world- book" would thus consist only of facts that all "stand on the same level" (Wittgenstein 1993, 39), from which no judgments of absolute value could be derived (Wittgenstein 1994, 3; 1995, 6.42). Wittgenstein thus proceeds to suggest that "if a man could write a book on Ethics which really was a book on Ethics, this book would, with an explosion, destroy all the other books in the world Ethics, if it is anything, is supernatural and our words will only express facts" (Wittgenstein 1993, 40). Meaningful language, on this account, is tethered to mirroring the structure of the world. But, as I previously noted, Wittgenstein repeatedly emphasises that although attempting to speak of the ethical may be "absolutely hopeless" it nevertheless remained a human "tendency" he deeply respected (Wittgenstein 1978, 80-81). It is therefore significant that in a letter to Ludwig von Ficker he should remark of the Tractatus itself: "the point of the book is ethical. I once wanted to give a few words in the fore- word which now actually are not in it, which, however, I'll write to you now because they might be a key for you: I wanted to write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one" (Wittgenstein 1996a, 94; cf. Engelmann 1967, 74-75). The Trac- tatus therefore performs a sort of negative theology which, indirectly, "points to something" (Wittgenstein 1978, 81).36 By remaining (almost) silent about the ethical here Wittgenstein nevertheless maintains that it is this (almost) unspoken part of his book that is "the important one." By determining what could - and thus could not - be meaningfully said within the language of ontology, the Tractatus positions the realm of the ethical "outside the world" (Wittgenstein 1995, 6.41), thereby exiling it from meaningful, fact stating speech (Wittgenstein 1995, 6.4-6.421). In order to "write a book on Ethics which really was a book on Ethics" would therefore be to write the book Wittgenstein did not himself write (and presumably did not think could be written): the silent, but copresent un- derside of the Tractatus itself. The metaphysical vision underpinning the Tractatus (and specifically the account of language Wittgenstein therein expounds) is clearly at odds with his later writings, and it is the latter that primarily concern me. Nevertheless, by briefly returning to "A Lec- ture on Ethics" we will see how - even here where ethics is described

36 Wittgenstein similarly remarks that he should like to "put an end to all the idle talk about Ethics - whether there be knowledge, whether there be values, whether the Good can be defined, etc." (Wittgenstein 1978, 80-81).


as "sublime" and "supernatural" (Wittgenstein 1993, 40) - human guilt figures as a central theme.

When distinguishing between relative and absolute judgments of value Wittgenstein employs the following illustration: "if I say that it is important for me not to catch cold I mean that catching a cold pro- duces certain describable disturbances in my life and if I say that this is the right road I mean that it's the right road relative to a certain goal. Used in this way these expressions don't present any difficult or deep problems. But this is not how Ethics uses them" (Wittgenstein 1993, 38). He then proceeds:

Supposing that I could play tennis and one of you saw me playing and said "Well, you play pretty badly" and suppose I answered "I know, I'm playing badly but I don't want to play any better," all the other man could say would be "Ah then that's all right." But suppose I had told one of you a preposterous lie and he came up to me and said "You're behaving like a beast" and then I were to say "I know I behave badly, but then I don't want to behave any better," could he then say "Ah, then that's all right"? Certainly not; he would say "Well, you ought to want to behave better." Here you have an absolute judgement of value, whereas the first instance was one of a relative judgement [Wittgenstein 1993, 38-39].

One's not wanting to play tennis "any better" presents no direct ethical problem. Any suggestion that one ought to want to play "better" would only be commensurate to certain other relatively valuable states of affairs - such as "you will get fitter" or "you will meet more people" - the importance of which one could still reasonably contest (Drury 1981, 114). Of course, it might be argued that the pursuit of excellence (in sport, music, cookery and so on) is not instrumental in this way. So, for example, the value of playing tennis "better" might be said to be intrinsic rather than in its bringing about extrinsic states of affairs. Whatever the merits of this position, one could not, I think, claim that such obligations were unconditional (in an equivalent way to the moral case) without committing a sort of "category mistake" - the sort of mistake sometimes made (though more often in jest) by treating one's latest musical or culinary tastes as universally binding.37

So, returning to Wittgenstein's example, one's not wanting to "behave any better" is not dependent upon additional commitments: here we reach "bedrock" (Wittgenstein 1958, §217). This is why, in the above scenario, such an exclamation would likely be treated as facetious or met with astonishment. For there is no "right time" - no specific or de- terminable occasions - in which to seek the moral good. You may find it

37 Although this claim seems to me uncontroversial, questions of aesthetic "objectivity" might be raised here. These clearly lie beyond the scope of the present analysis.

The Wretchedness of Belief All

odd or frustrating that I do not want to play tennis "any better," but you would not perceive this listlessness to constitute a deep moral problem (Winch 1987, 176). 38 Thus the differences which separate these two cases will likely be shown in the extent to which you would employ your powers of persuasion to convince me that I am mistaken, and/or what you would ultimately risk on account of it. In other words, having exhausted your reasons and rhetoric, there will be little else but for you to reevaluate the basis, depth and future prospects of our relationship. Wittgenstein then concludes:

The right road is the road which leads to an arbitrarily predetermined end and it is quite clear to us all that there is no sense in talking about the right road apart from such a predetermined goal. Now let us see what we could possibly mean by the expression, "the absolutely right road." I think it would be the road which everybody on seeing it would, with logical necessity, have to go, or be ashamed for not going. And similarly, the absolute good, if it is a describable state of affairs, would be one which everybody, independent of his tastes and inclinations, would necessarily bring about or feel guilty for not bringing about. And I want to say that such a state of affairs is a chimera. No state of affairs has, in itself, what I would like to call the coercive power of an absolute judge [Wittgenstein 1993, 40].

What is noticeable here is the vocabulary Wittgenstein employs in discussing this "chimera." For Wittgenstein does not simply say that failure to follow "the absolutely right road" or pursue "the absolute good" would be "wrong" or "bad." Rather, he explicitly cashes out the latter in terms of guilt, shame, and perhaps even the wrath of an "absolute judge."

To the extent Wittgenstein's emphasis on guilt (notably in those passages from "Lectures on Religious Belief" and Culture and Value discussed earlier) disrupts orthodox ethical precepts by divorcing the "ought" from the "can," it may seem merely paradoxical, no matter how biographically revealing. But despite the piecemeal nature of Wittgenstein's reflections on guilt, they do suggest another, more strictly philosophical rendering. First, we can begin to piece together a rather different conception of "genuine" religiosity which emphasises its fundamentally categorical structure. Just as enquiring "Why should I be good?" or "What's in ethics for meT would be to erroneously conceive of the categorical in hypothetical terms, so too would it be mistaken to ask of religion

" Why should I be religious?" or again "What's in religion

38 Someone who was altogether satisfied with their relatively poor level of achievement in sports, music or cookery should not strike us as having a corrupt character, not least because these sort of activities are ultimately self oriented rather than - as in the moral case - fundamentally other oriented. Some conceptions of ethics - such as versions of egoism, virtue ethics, or ethics conceived as "care of the self" in the Foucauldian sense - might contest this distinction. For the sake of brevity I will not explore these possibilities here.


for meT Doubtless such questions are frequently posed to believers by nonbelievers of all sorts. Doubtless too, the apologetic responses (of the former) to such petitions can often be cashed out in similarly prudential terms: "If you want salvation then . . . "; "If you do not want divine retribution at the Day of Judgment then ..." (and so on). But this sort of response is itself profoundly irreligious. The person who "loves" another essentially because they love him can never be said to have truly loved the other. Likewise, giving "gifts" only to those who one knows will com- pensate with a gift in return is a similarly shallow practice. Analogously, she who decides in favour of "being moral" because we convince her that it is prudent to do so, can hardly be said to be genuinely moral. And he who decides in favour of Christian belief because it promises salvation (of whatever variety, terrestrial or celestial) is not merely superficially religious, he is not religious at all.39

This, it seems to me, is the deeper meaning to draw from Wittgenstein's claim that he who states his belief "categorically [is] more intelligent than the man who [is] apologetic about it" (Wittgen- stein 1994a, 63). Remarks such as this are not primarily dogmatic or fideistic (though, of course, they do lend themselves to that reading). Rather, they say something important about the grammar of genuine religious faith. In this regard they naturally raise questions concerning the possibility of a purely categorical religion which says only "Do thisl" (Wittgenstein 1994, 29) without promising anything at all - or, more radically perhaps, which promises us only losses. As the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas wonders: "Are we entering a moment in history in which the good must be loved without promises? Perhaps it is the end of all preaching. May we not be on the eve of a new form of faith, a faith without triumph, as if the only irrefutable value were saintliness, a time when the only right to a reward would be not to expect one?" (Levinas 1999, 109). In other words, is it conceivable that one might "believe" beyond the inherent economics of eschatological-salvationist hope; beyond the traditional religious "promise" of "the Happy End" (Levinas 1988, 175)? Could religious faith consist in an absolute expenditure without the assurance, faith or hope that one will be "well paid" (Nietzsche 1968, §188; cf. §172, 246; 1992 (First Essay) §§14-15; Kierkegaard 1965, 209; Drury 1981, 110)?

Wittgenstein's remarks on immortality (and associated themes) ges- ture in this general direction. For, we will recall, it is the feeling that "even death couldn't stop" a sense of "duty" to another that is said to provide a sort of "proof of the immortality of the soul - because if [the soul] lives on" then so too would the "responsibility" not "die" (Wittgenstein

39 See Arthur Schopenhauer's remarks on how religion does not so much combat egoism as merely shift it into "another world" (Schopenhauer 1995, 137).


1994a, 70). Here the reality of the immortal soul does not represent po- tential recompense for (or an annulment of) one's mortal ethical responsibilities. Rather, the "proof" that the soul is immortal lies in the sense that one's obligations to another move even beyond death itself. In short, the immortal soul retains its state of "wretchedness" eternally.

6. Concluding Note on Dostoyevsky It is widely acknowledged that Fyodor Dostoyevsky's work fascinated

Wittgenstein at least as much as Tolstoy's (Malcolm 1958, 52; Redpath 1990, 50; Pascal 1996, 32). Indeed, Malcolm recalls that when Wittgen- stein was incarcerated at Monte Cassino "he and a fellow prisoner read Dostoyevsky together. According to Parak, it was this writer's 'deeply religious attitude' that commended him to Wittgenstein" (Malcolm 1993, 8). Theodore Redpath similarly claims that Wittgenstein read Crime and Punishment "at least ten times, and both in that novel and in The Brothers Karamazov he thought Dostoyevsky expressed 'a whole religion'" (Redpath 1990, 53; cf. Drury 1981, 101, 117-18). And likewise, Ray Monk reports that Wittgenstein had read the latter text "so often he knew whole passages of it by heart" - indeed, The Brothers Karama- zov was one of the very "few personal possessions" (Monk 1991, 136) he had taken to the Eastern Front in 1916. We can only speculate as to what portions of Dostoyevsky's work Wittgenstein had deemed worthy of committing to memory, but there is one specific passage in The Brothers Karamazov (a passage which Levinas is fond of quoting) that encapsulates perhaps the most significant aspect of Dostoyevsky's work; namely, its treatment of guilt as "having a positive function" (Johnston 1991, 123). There Dostoyevsky writes:

"[EJvery one of us is responsible for everyone else in every way, and I most of all." Mother could not help smiling at that. She wept and smiled at the same time. "How are you," she said, "most of all responsible for everyone? There are murderers and robbers in the world, and what terrible sin have you committed that you should accuse yourself before everyone else?" "Mother . . . my dearest heart, my joy, you must realize that everyone is really responsible for everyone and everything. I don't know how to explain it to you, but I feel it so strongly that it hurts ..." [Dostoyevsky 1967, 339].

This excerpt from The Brothers Karamazov^ brings to light many of the themes in Wittgenstein's work which have concerned me in this paper - notably those remarks pertaining to the relationship between

40 The sentiments of this passage are repeated a number of times in The Brothers Kara- mazov 1, particularly in the section "From the Discourses and Sermons of Father Zossima" (Dostoyevsky 1967, 376-379).


responsibility and a certain "experience ... of feeling guilty" (Wittgen- stein 1993, 42), and his characterisation of the "religious man" as thinking himself to be "wretched" (Wittgenstein 1994, 45; cf. 86). In short, what might be said to be prerequisite for genuine religiosity is not merely the "'belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God"' (Drury 1981, 129), but more crucially, the conviction that the greatest immorality and blasphemy is to be found in the experience of good conscience - that is, in believing that one's responsibilities have been placated before God or one's neighbour.41

41 1 am grateful to an anonymous reader for their remarks on an earlier version of this paper.

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