Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Happy World

21.7.16. 

What really is the situation of the human will? I will call "will" first and foremost the bearer of good and evil. 

Let us imagine a man who could use none of his limbs and hence could, in the ordinary sense, not exercise his will. 

He could, however, think and want and communicate his thoughts to someone else. 

Could therefore do good or evil through the other man. 

Then it is clear that ethics would have validity for him, too, and that he in the ethical sense is the bearer of a will.

Now is there any difference in principle between this will and that which sets the human body in motion? 

Or is the mistake here this: even wanting (thinking) is an activity of the will? (And in this sense, indeed, a man without will would not be alive.) 

But can we conceive a being that isn't capable of Will at all, but only of Idea (of seeing for example)? In some sense this seems impossible.

But if it were possible then there could also be a world without ethics. 

24.7.16. 

The World and Life are one.

Physiological life is of course not "Life". And neither is psychological life. Life is the world. 

Ethics does not treat of the world. Ethics must be a condition of the world, like logic. 

Ethics and aesthetics are one. 

29.7.16. 

For it is a fact of logic that wanting does not stand in any logical connexion with its own fulfilment. 

And it is also clear that the world of the happy is a different world from the world of the unhappy. 

Is seeing an activity? 

Is it possible to will good, to will evil, and not to will? 

Or is only he happy who does not will? 

"To love one's neighbour" means to will! 

But can one want and yet not be unhappy if the want does not attain fulfilment? (And this possibility always exists.) 

Is it, according to common conceptions, good to want nothing for one's neighbour, neither good nor evil? 

And yet in a certain sense it seems that not wanting is the only good. 

Here I am still making crude mistakes! No doubt of that! 

It is generally assumed that it is evil to want someone else to be unfortunate. 

Can this be correct? Can it be worse than to want him to be fortunate? 

Here everything seems to turn, so to speak, on how one wants. 

It seems one can't say anything more than: Live happily! 

The world of the happy is a different world from that of the unhappy. 

The world of the happy is a happy world. 

Then can there be a world that is neither happy nor unhappy? 

30.7.16. 

When a general ethical law of the form "Thou shalt . . ." is set up, the first thought is: Suppose I do not do it? 

But it is clear that ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward. 

So this question about the consequences of an action must be unimportant. 

At least these consequences cannot be events. 

For there must be something right about that question after all. 

There must be a kind of ethical reward and of ethical punishment but these must be involved in the action itself. 

And it is also clear that the reward must be something pleasant, the punishment something unpleasant. 

I keep on coming back to this! simply the happy life is good, the unhappy bad. 

And if I now ask myself: But why should I live happily?, then this of itself seems to me to be a tautological question; the happy life 

seems to be justified, of itself, it seems that it is the only right life. 

Depth Map (El Cerrito, California): photo by efo, 8 February 2014

But this is really in some sense deeply mysterious! It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed! 

But we could say: The happy life seems to be in some sense more harmonious than the unhappy. But in what sense?? 

What is the objective mark of the happy, harmonious life? Here it is again clear that there cannot be any such mark, that can be described. 

This mark cannot be a physical one but only a metaphysical one, a transcendental one. 

Ethics is transcendental.

1.8.16. 

How things stand, is God. 

God is, how things stand. 

Only from the consciousness of the uniqueness of my life arises religion — science — and art.

2.8.16. 

And this consciousness is life itself. 

Can there be any ethics if there is no living being but myself? 

If ethics is supposed to be something fundamental, there can. 

If I am right, then it is not sufficient for the ethical judgment that a world is given. 

Then the world in itself is neither good nor evil.