“If we have a belief, in certain cases we appeal again and again to certain grounds, and at the same time we risk very little — if it came to risking our lives on the ground of this belief… There are instances where you have a faith — where you say ‘I believe’ — and on the other hand this belief does not rest on the fact on which our ordinary everyday beliefs normally do rest.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lecture I on Religious Belief)
Though Wittgenstein didn’t write explicitly about ethics and moral philosophy, he admitted that the whole business of philosophy was of a moral kind. Statements like the one above make that clear.
He continues from this statement to flesh out the logic of the different “states of mind” that one will possess (or be possessed by) in the case of stating whether or not one believes in Judgment Day versus the case of actually facing judgment directly. These cases, of course, are very different things. In simply stating whether or not one believes in Judgment Day, one is risking nothing. In the face of judgment, however, a matter of speaking the truth could mean a matter of life or death.
One cannot consider this scenario without its psychology. To state beliefs is merely to speak. One’s ego is all that is needed to do this. It is one’s being, however, that acts. Assuming our goal is to become more morally-upstanding beings, we should accept as our task to integrate our ego with our being. Deeper truth of our beliefs is in our action. Speak less, perhaps, observe our actions more, and then speak in accordance with our actions. We may be inclined to stay silent until we correct those actions, for, more often than not, we are not embodying that being we’d hope to be — i.e. the very ground on which our beliefs and statements regarding our beliefs should stand.
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