Moral certainty and the wrongness of killing: A non‐propositional view

Abstract In 2008 I published a paper making the case that Wittgenstein's On Certainty reflections can be fruitfully extended to cast light on the foundations of our moral lives and practices. My primary example was that the wrongness of killing is a basic moral certainty. This proposal has come in for sustained criticism, with critics arguing that there is can and can be no such moral certainty. In this paper, I respond to the dominant line of critique, which I call ‘the exceptions objection’ to the wrongness of killing being a basic moral certainty. My diagnosis shows that, and how, this objection is predicated on a ‘propositional’ (mis)interpretation of the concept of basic certainty. In its stead, I present and develop an opposing ‘non‐propositional’ conception, which is crucial to seeing aright the claim that the wrongness of killing is a basic moral certainty.