Stanley Cavell on the Ethical Point of the "Investigations"

In this paper, I explore Stanley Cavell’s account of the ethical point of the Philosophical Investigations. Cavell argues that we should locate Wittgenstein’s later work within the tradition of what he himself has described as “moral perfectionism”. Though Wittgenstein’s philosophy is clearly a major influence on Cavell’s understanding of perfectionism, Cavell tends to focus on other authors – most notably on Emerson – when he explicitly articulates this moral outlook. In this article, I will rearrange certain themes from Cavell’s reading of Wittgenstein, with the hope of making the connection of such thoughts with moral perfectionism more straightforward. In this way, I aim to illustrate the way in which, in Cavell’s perspective, we can make sense of the ethical significance of the Investigations.