ethic@, Florianópolis, v.3, n.2, p. 121-134, Dez 2004. WITTGENSTEIN AND ETHICAL NORMS: THE QUESTION OF INEFFABILITY VISITED AND REVISITED ANNE-MARIE CHRISTENSEN University of Aarhus Abstract In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus we find Wittgenstein’s first and most substantial published investigation of ethics. I will argue that if the ethical sections of the Tractatus are seen in connection with a particular concept of showing, they then reveal a coherent and radical alternative to traditional conceptions of ethics; an alternative which sheds light on Wittgenstein’s claim that ethics cannot be expressed and the necessity of ethics. But I furthermore want to argue that the reasons leading Wittgenstein to a demand for silence in ethics falls away if one looks at the later investigations of necessity which he makes in On Certainty. Keywords: Ethics, Ineffability, Necessity, Normativity, Norms, Silence, Tractatus, On Certainty, Wittgenstein Introdução In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus we find Wittgenstein’s first published investigation of ethics. Furthermore, together with the “Lecture on Ethics”, this is the last time he makes any longer investigation into this subject, as the Nachlass reveals only a few, scattered remarks on specific ethical matters after 1929. I will argue that if the ethical sections of the Tractatus are seen in connection with a specific idea of the concept of showing they, then reveal a coherent and radical alternative to traditional conceptions of ethics; an alternative that sheds light on Wittgenstein’s claim that ethics cannot be expressed and the necessity of ethics. It is a standard dilemma in moral philosophy, that we, on the one hand, want to make absolute claims like ‘Murder is always wrong’, while we, on the other hand, admit that there might be cases when it is possible to give ethical reasons as to why a particular murder is not wrong, the murder of Adolph Hitler at a particular time in history being the standard example. And my interpretation of the Tractatus will suggest one possible reason why this is so. But I furthermore want to argue that if one looks at the investigations of necessity which Wittgenstein makes his very last writings these will show how the reasons leading him to a demand for silence in ethics in the early thinking falls away in the later. 1 - Ethics in the Tractatus or ‘Why Murder must be Wrong’ As everyone is probably well aware, over the last decades the interpretation of the Tractatus has again become a living area of research. This revival has primarily grown out of a need to find a better understanding of the ending of the Tractatus where Wittgenstein claims that the reader who