Ethics

The content of Wittgenstein’s lecture on ethics that he delivered in Cambridge on November 17, 1929, is preserved in the drafts he prepared for his lectures (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2014. Lecture on Ethics. Edited with commentary by Eduardo Zamuner, Ermelinda Valentina Di Lascio and D. K. Levy. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.

1). I shall usually refer to the established text of the Lecture that the editors identify as “MS 139b Normalized” (ibid. 42–51).

Wittgenstein adopts and criticizes G. E. Moore’s definition of ethics as “the general enquiry into what is good” (ibid. 43). Wittgenstein’s critique of Moore’s definition concerns the adjunction of the expression “general” and the expression “inquiry”, and the understanding of the range of ethics. Ethics is the inquiry or search of what is good by the individual person who speaks in the first person singular. The individual’s decision of what is good is not a general choice but a particular decision. In the beginning, Wittgenstein’s problem with a “general inquiry” concerns the inability of a general inquiry to correspond with a concrete end that a person judges as good.

Concerning the range of ethics, Wittgenstein uses the word “ethics” in a wider sense than Moore and wants to include aesthetics (ibid.), that is what we may describe as the general enquiry into what is beautiful. Ethics is described by Wittgenstein also as “the inquiry into what is valuable, or, into what is really important,” as “the enquiry into the meaning of life or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living” (ibid. 44).

Ethics speaks in the first person singular.

The problem we face with general expressions like “it is good,” “it is valuable,” “it is important” stems from the fact that we can use them, as Wittgenstein writes, in two very different senses: “the trivial or relative sense, on the one hand, and the ethical or absolute sense, on the other” (ibid.). The relative use of these expressions is unproblematic: If “I say that this is a good chair this means that the chair serves a certain predetermined purpose … In fact the word ‘good’ in the relative sense simply means coming up to a certain predetermined standard” (ibid.). To say that a certain road is the right road is to say that it is the right road relative to a particular destination. Used in this way, these expressions don’t present any difficult or deep problems. The problems do not arise if we use judgments of relative sense or value, but if we use them in an absolute sense. According to Wittgenstein’s criticism, ethics uses the words good or right in an absolute sense; in ethics, we say that something is good without specifying a particular purpose for which it is good; and when we say that something is the right thing to do, we seem to want to say that it is absolutely right, independently of any goal. It is ok and makes sense to use expressions like “The, absolutely, right road” if we talk about a road that leads to a predetermined end and that “everybody on seeing it would, with logical necessity, have to go, or be ashamed for not going” (ibid. 46). It is not ok and does not make sense to say that something is absolutely right if I do not get an answer to the question “Why is that the right thing to do?” and “Why ought I to do X?”. Wittgenstein protests against the absolute use of ethical concepts, because this kind of use treats value judgments like facts (ibid. 49). But “the absolute good” is no state of affairs that can be described, because “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” (ibid. 46).

The lack of the possibility to give such a description for the absolute good, that is the lack of sentences speaking of the absolute good, legitimates Wittgenstein’s judgment that ethics used in the absolute sense does not make sense. The editors rightly comment that “we can speak meaningfully” of what is from the world, that is of experiences and language and that Wittgenstein realizes that expressions with an absolute sense are nonsensical and make no sense (ibid. 13). Wittgenstein says that “our words will only express facts,” but the word ethics used in the absolute sense “is supernatural” (ibid. 46) and the editors’ comment: “For these expressions aim beyond the natural world, they aim at the super-natural” (ibid. 13). Wittgenstein wants to say that ethics can be no science. At the same time he deeply respects “the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable … and I would not for my life ridicule it” (ibid. 51). This last sentence of the Lecture Wittgenstein ends in the first person singular as the use of the first person singular throughout much of the text of the Lecture shows a relative way of dealing with questions of ethics.

Limiting ethical language to speaking in the first person singular, as the editors suggest (ibid. 40), certainly is a way that accepts the logical difference between the description of a state of affairs and the expression of a personal value judgment.

We learn how to use a word.

Wittgenstein is about to turn away from investigating sentences describing facts and discovers a new interest in the rules of language, the rules for the use of the word or the grammar of the word. We usually associate this interest in language games with Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell). An early testimony to Wittgenstein’s talk on the grammar of words and their use is made by Alice Ambrose. In her published notes that she took at the lectures she attended at Cambridge in 1932–1933 she cites Wittgenstein: “’How is the word used?’ and ‘What is the grammar of the word?’ I shall take as being the same question” (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1979a. Wittgenstein’s Lectures Cambridge, 1932–1935. From the Notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret Macdonald. Edited by Alice Ambrose. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. paragraph 2).

What is important in this investigation of the use of the word “good” is “the occasions on which it is used, the role it plays in our lives” (Johnston, Paul. 1989. Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy. London: Routledge. 99). We find some very interesting answers concerning the use of the expression “good” in our everyday language when reading the notes that Wittgenstein’s students Yorick Smythies, Rush Rhees and James Taylor took at Wittgenstein’s lectures on aesthetics and on religious belief in and around the summer of 1938 (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1966. Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief. Edited by Cyril Barrett. Oxford: Blackwell.

vii). Wittgenstein did not see or check the notes and he probably would not have approved of their publication (ibid.). They reflect many of Wittgenstein’s opinions on life and on religious, psychological and artistic questions that in the published writings of Wittgenstein are only briefly touched on (ibid.) and therefore are of particular interest on the topic of how Wittgenstein thought we use the expression “good” in our language. We read in the lectures on aesthetics: “One thing we always do when discussing a word is to ask how we were taught it. Doing this on the one hand destroys a variety of misconceptions, on the other hand gives you a primitive language in which the word is used … If you ask yourself how a child learns ‘beautiful’, ‘fine’, etc., you find it learns them roughly as interjections. (‘Beautiful’ is an odd word to talk about because it’s hardly ever used.) A child generally applies a word like ‘good’ first to food. One thing that is immensely important in teaching is exaggerated gestures and facial expressions. The word is taught as a substitute for a facial expression or a gesture. The gestures, tones of voice, etc., in this case are expressions of approval. What makes the word an interjection of approval? (Rhees continued asking and answered: And not of disapproval or of surprise, for example? The child understands the gestures which you use in teaching him. If he did not, he could understand nothing). It is the game it appears in, not the form of words” (ibid. 1–2).

The person who teaches how to use the word “good” translates expressions of approval into language. Nonverbal behaviour is substituted through a game of language and new possibilities of expressing the word “good” are realized. The language games with the word “good” set the rules that make the word “good” an expression of approval. It is exclusively this context, this language game or that particular gesture that determines the word’s meaning and significance. It was not a certain definition that taught the use of the word “good” and therefore it is futile to use abstract definitions for the expression. Only within the context of the language game can we understand and learn the use of the word “good.” If we use the word “good” in a different context, its use is no longer clear, we will no longer be able to understand what is said. What is important for learning to understand the use of the word ‘good’ is not “a form of words,” but “the use of the form of words” (ibid.).

“Language is a characteristic part of a large group of activities - talking, writing, travelling on a bus, meeting a man, etc.” (ibid. 2). Although it seems that Wittgenstein treats language as just any other activity of our life, he nevertheless puts certain activities first and language second. “We don’t start from certain words, but from certain occasions or activities” (ibid. 3.). From this follows the insight that the right use of the word “good” cannot be demonstrated by hinting at merely one single occasion, but a multitude of occasions and activities can demonstrate the use of the word “good.” The use of the word “good” will always be demonstrated as a reaction on the part of the individual to any occasion or activity concerning this multitude of occasions and activities. Johnston in 1989 explicitly observes that Wittgenstein connects using the word “good” and acting in certain ways (Johnston 1989: 100). J. O. Urmson, the editor of J. L. Austin’s How to do things with words, informs in the Preface that Austin already in 1939 formed the views that underline his later lectures at Harvard University (Austin 1971: v). It is an interesting fact of the development of language philosophy that a few months after Wittgenstein described a connection between speaking and doing, namely learning the use of the word “good” as an action of approval, Austin explicitly starts thinking about the general connections between speaking and doing.

Using the words “good” or “beautiful,” Wittgenstein is interested in describing “the occasions on which they are said - in the enormously complicated situation in which the aesthetic expression has a place, in which the expression itself has almost a negligible place” (ibid.). Therefore, it is understandable that it is almost impossible to describe exactly all the occasions of the use of the words. “What belongs to a language game is a whole culture” (ibid. 8).

The discourse about what really matters to me, what is good and right shows the expressions of different convictions and claims to validity. Another way of leaving it up to the individual to spell out the grammar of what is “good” for him or her is to say that ethics speaks in the first person singular. One of the validity-conditions of claims of ethics in a discourse theory could be the claim that the sentences of ethics be brought into discourse by the individual person, who spells out what is “good”, in the first person singular.

Ethics is a conceptual investigation not a scientific one.

In a particular context, the use of the word “good” - Wittgenstein calls this the “grammar” of the word - depends on the individual. The individuals would spell out the grammar of how they want to live and how they want to die. The use of the word “good” shows that we can approve or disapprove of a certain use of the word “good”, and this possibility of choice characterizes the special function of the use of the word “good.” The use of the word “good” is often followed by the appearance of differences of opinion. Dialoguing and disputing differences of opinions is another kind of language game. “Perhaps the most important thing in connection with aesthetics is what may be called aesthetic reactions, e.g. discontent, disgust, discomfort” (ibid. 13).

Describing the use of the concept ethics, we encounter disputes, consensus, dialogue, differences of opinions, agreement, and disagreement. We may speak with Wittgenstein of reactions to a particular claim that this or that is good. In connection with aesthetics, that belongs to the language game of ethics, Wittgenstein names the following aesthetic reactions: discontent, disgust, and discomfort (ibid.). Discontent, disgust and discomfort are emotions, are feelings. Ethics has to do with feelings. Reciprocally, psychology gets in contact with ethics, asking the question what is good and right for me and my environment.

To become capable to express claims in the first person singular, to say I want, I agree, I disagree, I do not want, etc., a person needs self-esteem and self-worth. A person needs courage and strength to denounce unjust social power structures that oppress women, men and queer. Neglecting the acceptance of the person as person, refusing to provide love, and understanding, the lack of positive feedback and recognition produces feelings of humiliation, anger, and hate (Aichhorn, Wolfgang, and Helmut Kronberger. 2012. “The Nature of Emotions. A Psychological Perspective.” In Yearbook 2011. Emotions from Ben Sira to Paul, edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley, 515–525. Berlin: De Gruyter. 523). “Shame and guilt are affective companions of a negative appraisal of one’s own self” (ibid.).

All basic emotions and feelings are developed in infancy and childhood. “A child develops a sense of self-worth through mirroring from its mother. The child is loved for the sake of his or her own self and is validated in his or her spontaneous aliveness” (ibid.). Adult women, men and queer who were loved for their own self, seek this kind of relation with their partners and bring up their children with this love for the sake of the child’s sake. The social choice of loving is a social activity. The realizing of social choices influences the structures of society. The psychological understanding of the person-environment and environment-person relationship is linked with the understanding of the social and political structures of the environment. Persons are capable of enhancing just social structures and they are capable of changing unjust social structures.

At the beginning of the third millennium CE, psychologists classify the emotions joy, hope, grief and anxiety as so-called primary emotions (ibid. 519). It makes sense to start dealing with primary emotions because structural affects as shame, guilt, pride, envy and jealousy develop after the establishment of the psychological structure that separates self-representation and object-representation (ibid. 520). It makes sense to address primary emotions when talking about solidarity with women, men, and queer because “emotions regulate interactions between individuals and play an essential role in the development of a child’s personality” (ibid. 515). “Through laughing and crying we express proximity, sociality, and commonality” (ibid). Happiness is a state of emotion that everything is ok. At the same time, happiness serves as a positive reinforcement for the presence of the other person who interacts with the happy person. Disgust serves as a hint to the interacting person that “his or her behavior has triggered negative feelings” (ibid, 519). Sadness indicates that a person desires the end of an interruption of the interaction. Expressing emotions means expressing our interests in producing and safeguarding connections with persons we like and in ending connections we dislike. We learn to express excitement, happiness, sadness and disgust in the first six months of our lives and “in the second half of a child’s first year of life, additional affects appear such as anger, contempt, fear and shame” (ibid, 520). The primary emotion grief “is a response to abandonment” and “is an omnipresent emotion in life because separation, loss, and parting follow us during our entire life” (ibid, 522).

Through emotions we express states of feelings, ethical reactions such as agreement or disagreement, and aesthetic reactions such as disgust or excitement, being moved by beauty, being appalled by forms and colors, sounds and pictures, texts and music. The psychologists tell us of an important difference: it is possible mirroring emotions; mirroring of beliefs, hopes and thoughts is not possible. We must express beliefs, hopes and thoughts with language.

We may assess that the science of behavioral psychology has established the thesis that we have to deal with emotions in a responsible way, if we want to realize a certain social behavior (ibid. 524). Writing and speaking about ethics needs the assessment of a responsible way of dealing with one’s emotions. Speaking in the first person singular and expressing value judgements of what is good needs to consider self-knowledge and self-control of one’s psychological inner world, but ethics is no science. Emotional competence accepts that our behavior is influenced by emotions and tries to deal responsibly with them. Human behavior, private, public, or political, is a mix of emotional impulses and arguments of reason. Behavioral economics observes empirically human behavior and assesses that people are not purely rational actors “who have perfect self-control and never lose sight of their long-term goals” (https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/what-is-behavioral-economics). People are “human beings who are subject to emotion and impulsivity, and who are influenced by their environments and circumstances” (ibid.). Even concerning their money, people do not have well-defined preferences, do not make well-informed, self-interested decisions based on those preferences (ibid.). These results of empirical science are interesting and important to enhance the cognitive ability of the philosopher, because she and he accepts available information and knowledge to propose arguments that connect with reality. Yet, philosophy is not psychology. The use of psychological words in philosophy is not interested in inner processes, chains of causalities and the like. Language philosophy is about the use of words and concepts, empirical science is about facts.

In Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology we find Wittgenstein thinking about inner thoughts, pictures of thinking and again beliefs. The editors of Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980a. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Vol. 1. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1980b. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Vol. 2. Edited by G. E. M. Anscombe and G. H. von Wright, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell) inform us that Wittgenstein’s underlying manuscripts that are published in the first volume “cover the time from May 10, 1946, to October 11, 1947” (Wittgenstein 1980a: 1). The manuscript of the second volume of Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (Wittgenstein 1980b) was dictated by Wittgenstein most probably in 1948 (Wittgenstein 1980b: 1).

Obtaining some clarity about the use of words continues to be one of Wittgenstein’s primary concerns. His philosophical investigation of psychological words is a conceptual investigation, and he insists that the “difference between factual and conceptual investigations” be respected (Wittgenstein 1980a: paragraph 949). His philosophy of psychology is not about mental mechanisms, conscious experience and observed behaviour; that “is the task of the science of psychology, not philosophy” (Budd, Malcolm. 1989. Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Psychology. London: Routledge.

2–3). Again, Wittgenstein’s investigation aims at the description of the use of words, in this case the use of psychological words (ibid. 2), and he makes clear that he is about to investigate everyday psychological concepts: “Psychological concepts are just everyday concepts. They are not concepts newly fashioned by science for its own purpose, as are the concepts of physics and chemistry” (Wittgenstein 1980b: paragraph 62).

We use words according to the rules we learned for their use “And hence also ‘obeying a rule‘ is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule ‘privately’: otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it” (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2001. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell. I, paragraph 202). A “private ostensive definition” is a speech-act. When we create definitions speaking to ourselves, we are using words that we were taught how to use. Language is not private, even when speaking to oneself. Wittgenstein uses in this context the “concept of the world of consciousness” and adds: “We people a space with impressions” (Wittgenstein 1989a: 132e). It follows from this that we are speaking about these impressions and that we talk about our world of consciousness.

If we look at sentences, they show what they say, but the question of the truth or falsity of what is said has to be considered together with a third aspect. One could interpret that sentences not only show what they say, but they also show something from the form of life of the speaker. When Wittgenstein speaks of what we are used to calling behaviour, often he speaks of a form of life. Speaking of an agreement presupposes that the involved persons first agree on the use of a common language, that is also a form of life. When we speak of behaviour and forms of life we speak of the use of expressions of sensations or opinions in a certain language. “’So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?’ - It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinion but in form of life” (Wittgenstein 2001: I, paragraph 241).

Philosophy is all about language. This is true also for the philosophy of sensations, where the language games, the rules we learn in order to use expressions, are again of fundamental importance. “How do words refer to sensations? - There doesn’t seem to be any problem here; don’t we talk about sensations every day and give them names? But how is the connexion between the name and the thing named set up? This question is the same as: how does a human being learn the meaning of the names of sensations? - of the word ‘pain’ for example. Here is one possibility: words are connected with the primitive, the natural, expression of the sensation and used in their place. A child has hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behavior. ‘So you are saying that the word ‘pain’ really means crying?’ - On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it” (ibid. paragraph 244).

Ethics is the inquiry or search of what is good by the individual person who speaks in the first person singular. Ethics is described by Wittgenstein also as “the inquiry into what is valuable, or, into what is really important,” as “the enquiry into the meaning of life or into what makes life worth living, or into the right way of living” (Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2014. 44). Ethics is the inquiry of what is good, and deals also with aesthetics that is the inquiry what is beautiful, as with the inquiry into existential questions. What is good, what do I really want to do, what is valuable, what is the sense of life, are questions of ethics. Speaking of what really matters for my life, what is the sense of my life and death, what is happiness for me, etc. are questions about personal convictions and beliefs. These convictions and beliefs can be religious beliefs, one could speak of subjective religiosity or spirituality as personal convictions about the sense of life, of love, of death, etc. We are not speaking of an institutionalised belief-system of a religious organisation or of a religion when speaking about personal convictions and beliefs.

Concerning pictures of religious faith, Wittgenstein would expect concrete consequences - somewhat like the validity-condition of faith - from expressions of faith (Wittgenstein 1966: 59). Wittgenstein presents a form for sentences that express faith and religious beliefs: “What better picture of believing could there be, than the human being who, with the expression of belief, says ‘I believe …’” (Wittgenstein 1980a: paragraph 280). I suppose that it is legitimate to say that in paragraph 280 Wittgenstein speaks about religious belief. He was just defending the use of the expression “soul” in the context of speaking about inner pictures: “And if the picture of the thought in the head can force itself upon us, why not much more that of thought in the soul” (ibid. paragraph 279). And paragraph 281 even dares to assess that “The human being is the best picture of the human soul” (ibid. paragraph 280). We must be clear that Wittgenstein is talking about picturing with language. He is not describing a thing that is called soul; he uses the word soul according to the rules of language and he is not describing a picture of faith, but uses the words “expression of faith” and “I believe ….” according to the rules he learned for using these words in order to say something. What does he say? He says that “I believe ….” Is a picture of faith (ibid. paragraph 280). What does he show? Wittgenstein, saying that there could be no better picture of believing than saying “I believe …” shows that is possible to speak about matters of faith.

In Philosophical Investigations Part II Wittgenstein takes up the theme of religious beliefs, again thinking about different uses of the sentence “I believe it is so” in our daily life (Wittgenstein 2001: II, x). “How did we ever come to use such an expression as ‘I believe …’? Did we at some time become aware of a phenomenon (of belief)? Did we observe ourselves and other people and so discover belief?” (ibid.). Wittgenstein continues to discuss the matter of believing by looking at expressions like “I say of someone else ‘He seems to believe ….’ and other people say it of me” (ibid.). All of a sudden, he turns to the expression “conviction”: “‘One feels conviction within oneself, one doesn’t infer it from one’s own word or their tone.’ - What is true here is: one does not infer one’s own conviction from one’s own words; nor yet the actions which arise from that conviction” (ibid.). If the expression of the conviction is first, the legitimation of the conviction and the discussion of its implications follow. Convictions can be seen as expressions that I speak to myself, something like thoughts. Wittgenstein investigates pages over pages about speaking to myself as expressions of language, about thoughts and the thinking experience, and about thinking as “saying inwardly” and then as “saying”; all of a sudden, he reaches some clarity by claiming that speaking to myself is not the question “what went on within me” (Wittgenstein 2001: II, xi. p. 189e). Wittgenstein’s interest in the investigation of the thinking experiences is not a psychological explanation of what was going on in my brain. This kind of speaking to myself and expressing thereby my convictions can be understood as something like “a confession” (ibid.). The truth of a confession does not concern the truth-value of a certain state of affairs, nor the reasons I give for my speech-act that is a confession. Confessions are to be seen in connection with the consequences that follow from the speech-act of confessing. “The criteria for the truth of the confession that I thought such-and-such are not the criteria for a true description of a process. And the importance of the true confession does not reside in its being a correct and certain report of a process. It resides rather in the special conclusion which can be drawn from a confession whose truth is guaranteed by the special criteria of truthfulness” (ibid.). We are capable of observing the coherence of the conviction and the behavior of the person. Credibility and trust are enforced by this coherence.

The language game with sentences that speak of beliefs can be understood as something like a confession by the individual, but not as a report about an inner process. The individual speaker does not give a picture of inner processes. The individual speaker expresses his or her belief with the help of pictures. These pictures do not lack a validity-condition for what they want to say. One validity-condition of speech-acts expressing beliefs is the condition that the speakers use the first person singular. Further, speech-acts of personal beliefs can therefore be considered as something like a confession. To express a belief is not only to express a conviction. The truth of the expression of belief is not a truth-value that we get from a logical operation. The validity-condition of a belief that is expressed in the way we make confessions - Wittgenstein speaks of “the importance of the true confession” – instead resides “in the special conclusions which can be drawn from a confession whose truth is guaranteed by the special criteria of truthfulness” (Wittgenstein 2001: II, xi 189e). Instead of the English word “conclusions” (ibid.), the German text of Philosophical Investigations uses the word “consequences” (ibid. II, xi 189). Both words are helpful in answering the question for the validity-conditions of claims to the validity of belief and faith-sentences. How can I comply with the validity-condition of the truthfulness of the sentence of which I claim that it expresses my beliefs and my faith? The “consequences” of a speech-act of confession and also the “conclusions” that can be drawn from a speech-act of faith or belief can be seen in the speech-acts that follow the confession. The most important criteria for the truthfulness of the speech-act, that is for the value judgment that the speech-act complies with the validity-condition of truth within my form of life, is the social realization of dignity by the claim. The first validity-condition for a speech-act on belief or faith is identical with the validity-condition for any speech-act and sentence, that is the sentence must make sense as a language game in the institutional setting of language. The second validity-condition for a speech-act on belief or faith demands an expression in the first person singular. The third validity-condition for a speech-act on belief or faith again is identical with the validity-condition for any claim to validity by a speech-act, that is the condition that the speech-act realizes the dignity of the persons that participate in the speech-act.

Ethics is about social choices of individual persons.

Concerning value judgments of what is good, Wittgenstein in Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology confirms “What we want to know, to get a bird’s-eye-view of, is the use of the word ‘good’ …” (ibid. paragraph 160). Yes, we must see the form of life, the circumstances, or many forms of life if we want to obtain a picture of the use of the word “good”. A very important condition of life is health of the individual woman, man or queer. Health is important for leading a good life. Health is important to feel well. Health is a condition of happiness, that state of emotion that everything is ok. From a medical point of view, I take a holistic view on health, and I call the condition of a woman, man and queer who feels good, who feels ok, and who enjoys well-being “integrity”. The concept of integrity joins different aspects of health: There are physical aspects of health, psychic, social, economic, cultural, and spiritual. Looking at the health of a person we must consider all these aspects. There will be not much of a result if a medical doctor treats with pharmaceutical medication high blood pressure of a single mother of three children who has no job and does not know how to care for them. The economic, social, physical and psychic aspects of health must be seen together in order to restore the mother’s integrity; the different aspects of health and integrity are interdependent.

People will say that health is the top priority of their life. What people wish for themselves and what we wish each other at special occasions is health and happiness. Being healthy is on top of our wish-list, private partners and family follow second. If we ask people what they are doing for their health, if they eat healthy food, if they sleep enough, if they practice sports, if they regularly take a medical check and care for disease prevention, we observe a behavior that does not correspond with the wish for staying healthy. Behavioral economics informs us about the fact that there is a difference “between what people should do and what they actually do and the consequences of those actions” (https://news.uchicago.edu/explainer/what-is-behavioral-economics). Many people have the freedom and capability to choose a health enhancing behavior and decide to sustain their body by watching their weight, by doing sports and preventive medical checks. Many people who have the freedom to enhance their health and sustain the healthy status of their body, decide not to realize any effort for sustaining their health. Behavioral economics speaks of bounded willpower: “Even given an understanding of the optimal choice, people will often still preferentially choose whatever brings the most short-term benefit over incremental progress toward a long-term goal. For example, even if we know that exercising may help us obtain our fitness goals, we may put it off indefinitely, saying we will ‘start tomorrow’” (ibid.).

Many people enjoy the freedom and capability to lead a good life. It is their free decision, their social choice to realize a good life, or to choose a lifestyle that does not sustain a good and healthy life. We must not forget the millions of people who cannot enjoy the capabilities of a good life with good health, because they suffer from deprivations and disabilities. “People with physical or mental disability are not only among the most deprived human beings in the world, they are also, frequently enough, the most neglected” (Amartya Sen. The Idea of Justice. 2009. Penguin Books. London. England. 260).

“Fifteen percent of the world’s population has a disability, with 80 per cent living in developing countries” (https://2021.gho.unocha.org/global-trends/persons-disabilities/). “Conflict situations, the breakdown of economies and social networks, insecurity, destruction of infrastructure, displacement and closure of services due to the COVID-19 pandemic” increase the deprivations of the one billion persons with disabilities (ibid.). The most marginalized are children, women and minorities; they are at higher risk of “poverty, abandonment or violence and hamper their access to basic services including health, water, sanitation and education” (ibid.). Maternal malnutrition and childhood undernourishment lead to illnesses and handicaps. “Infection and lack of clean water lead to diseases such as blindness; the effects of polio, measles or AIDS, as well as road accidents and injuries at work” lead to disabilities and make understand that many disabilities are preventable (Amartya Sen. 2009. 259). “Social intervention against disability has to include prevention as well as management and alleviation”, but most societies are inactive (ibid.). Amartya Sen insists paying attention to the individual persons claiming freedom and equality in dignity and rights, especially to those who are excluded from policymaking because of the lack of access, availability and affordability of the necessary resources for their health condition, and social, economic, cultural, spiritual or political life conditions on this planet. Social intervention against disability is an example for the removal of manifest injustice (ibid. 259). Sen argues issues of justice on the basis of “assessments of social realizations, that is, on what actually happens” …. and “on comparative issues of enhancement of justice” (ibid. 410).

Spelling out the principles of justice and democracy in the constitution of the state and claiming that right and justice are to be the foundations of the states is one thing. The assessment of the social realization of democracy is another. It is legitimate to declare and claim[1]: The government is bound to the law so that security is ensured for the citizens’ well-being. The construction of the term “state under the rule of law” follows the validity condition that its laws correspond, agree and concur with the claims of Human Rights values and Human Rights law. The claim of any law and norm to be legal has to be examined for the validity condition of correspondence with Human Rights. It is a constant process to realize Human Rights with the help of the state laws. The single citizen must be capable and empowered to ensure Human Rights by being able to take legal action with the help of independent courts. The state under the rule of law not only ensures the liberty, freedom and peace of the state but also is to constantly adapt the law according to the necessities of the general public as expressed by elections. Justice has to be searched in a constant process and cannot be fixed for ever in one final law. Challenge and answer, trial and error describe this process of public conflict in democracies. By law it is then possible to peacefully change society. This change without violence with the instruments of law and language characterise democracies.

It is not enough describing democracy in theory and theoretically claiming justice. It is equally necessary to investigate the state of the social realization of democracy on the planet and to work improving the state of democracy. I write on the social realization of democracy in my post “The social realization of democracy on planet earth”.

[1] I am thankful to Manfried Welan for generously posting me the manuscript of this unpublished radio speech of the 20th July 2001 broadcasted by the Österreichische Rundfunk to commemorate Stauffenberg’s failed attempt to assassinate Hitler on the 20th July of 1944.