Moral Certainty and Moral Thinking

Abstract Scholars have recently discussed the notion of moral certainty , inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s discussion concerning empirical certainty in On Certainty . The idea is that within the basic commitments of our moral practices exists something objectively certain – the moral hinges on which our practices turn. Here, I explore this notion of moral certainty to illuminate an important aspect of our moral thinking. I argue that, indeed, there exist moral hinges, including our commitments to people’s equal moral worth and the wrongness of killing innocent, non-threatening people. Additionally, I point out that moral hinges provide the starting point for our clarificatory moral thinking. Importantly, clarification here is not merely a preparation for a morally-important sort of thinking, but a creative process that constitutes an important aspect of such thinking. The present article illustrates this aspect and thereby contributes not just to Wittgenstein scholarship, but also to our understanding of moral thinking’s nature.