From Practical Attitude to Normative Status: Defending Brandom's Solution of the Rule-Following Problem

Abstract

In a well-known letter to Ludwig Ficker, Wittgenstein mentions that there is an
unwritten part of his Tractatus, and it is this unwritten part that actually
matters. What is this unwritten part? What does Wittgenstein try to convey in
this unwritten part? Why is it unwritten? I argue that this unwritten part is
his view on ethics. If we read the Tractatus carefully, it would become crystal
clear that Wittgenstein is nowhere near to moral indifferentism or moral
emotivism. But Wittgenstein does hold the view that ethics is ineffable, for our
language is limited in nature. I also argue that, to Wittgenstein, it is
actually its being unwritten that ethics could be meaningfully being talked
about.