Wittgenstein and von Wright on Goodness

Abstract Is “good” a family‐resemblance concept? Wittgenstein holds it is, since cases of goodness may not have anything in common, but there may be a continuous transition from some cases to others. Von Wright and Hacker argue it is not. They hold that family‐resemblance concepts satisfy two conditions that goodness does not satisfy. I assess their arguments and then present a constitutivist account of goodness that Wittgenstein seems to endorse. The constitutivist account is what one would expect if goodness was a family‐resemblance concept. Finally, I note that Wittgenstein's nod towards non‐descriptivism in the Investigations is paralleled by Stevenson's ethical emotivism.