Cartesian scepticism poses the question of how we can justify our belief that other humans experience consciousness in the same way that we do. Wittgenstein's response to this scepticism is one that does not seek to resolve the problem by providing a sound argument against the Cartesian sceptic. Rather, he provides a method of philosophical inquiry which enables us to move past this and continue our inquiry without the possibility of solipsism arising as a philosophical problem in the first place. In this paper, I propose that Wittgenstein's method of dismissing the Cartesian sceptic can also be applied to the problems posed by the 'moral sceptic', who denies the truth of all ethical or moral claims. I will argue that in the same way Wittgenstein's focus on public language enables us to dismiss the traditional problem of other minds, a focus on public moral practices or language-games also enables us to dismiss the idea that moral claims are always 'meaningless', 'false' or 'nonsensical'. On this account, the moral sceptic is misguided in much the same way as the solipsist who implicitly admits the existence of other minds in her practices. The moral sceptic who still engages in moral activities also implicitly admits the existence of meaningful moral positions. Wittgenstein's dismissal of the Cartesian sceptic, as I understand it, can be broadly divided into two parts. The first part is an account of language acquisition. This part outlines how we might come to see other humans as conscious, thinking, feeling beings from a causal perspective. This suggests that we can arrive at an understanding of other minds as a primary perception itself - without needing to posit this perception as a kind of deductive or inductive hypothesis. Secondly, we can see how this relates to an epistemic model of language. This focuses on the role of language as something which consists of rule-governed activities, where the existence of other minds is embedded in our understanding of th Cartesian scepticism poses the question of how we can justify our belief that other humans experience consciousness in the same way that we do. Wittgenstein’s response to this scepticism is one that does not seek to resolve the problem by providing a sound argument against the Cartesian sceptic. Rather, he provides a method of philosophical inquiry which enables us to move past this and continue our inquiry without the possibility of solipsism arising as a philosophical problem in the first place. 2017 Introduction Wittgenstein’s dismissal of the Cartesian sceptic is one that does not seek to resolve the problem of solipsism or Cartesian doubt. Rather, it enables us to move past this and continue our inquiry without this scepticism arising as a philosophical problem in the first place. In this essay, I propose that Wittgenstein’s method of dismissing the Cartesian sceptic can also be applied to the problems posed by the moral sceptic. I argue in this paper that the moral sceptic here is in fact misguided in much the same way as the solipsist who implicitly admits the existence of other minds in her practices. The moral sceptic who still engages in normative activities also implicitly admits the existence of meaningful moral positions. This distinction is therefore not one of philosophical content, and the focus of moral philosophy can be shifted away from the moral sceptic; much like the Cartesian sceptic. I shall now clarify what I mean by ‘moral scepticism’. My definition of this position can be broadly summarised as the view that all moral claims are in some sense ‘meaningless’ or ‘false’, and hence ought not to be given any serious consideration in philosophical discussion. For examples of this in academic literature, we can look to error-theorists like Mackie and Royce (stating that all moral The Moral Sceptic We have so far outlined a way of dismissing Cartesian scepticism for the purpose of progressing (a particular kind of) philosophical inquiry, without refuting it on its own rationalist grounds. I now suggest that this approach can be applied to moral scepticism if we take certain normative claims as grammatical dispositions (practical and tautological), rather than rational or metaphysical propositions. A Comparison between Moral Scepticism and Solipsism Russell famously remarks of a logician he knew who claimed to be a solipsist, arguing that her position was contradicted by her practices and implicit beliefs: “[Solipsism is] psychologically impossible to believe, and is rejected in fact even by those who mean to accept it. I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me. I will not here suggest a positive explanation as to this distinction, however I will argue that the difference is not to do with some substantial philosophical difference between the two positions. That is, I will argue that moral scepticism is just as ‘psychologically impossible’ as solipsism, and hence moral sceptics risk running into the same ‘insincerity’ of Russell’s friend. We can see this if we examine just the extent to which moral language is embedded in our everyday thought processes. For instance, we seem to largely agree about the relativistic nature of morality, as something which is limited by institutional facts and language games. The dispute largely seems to rest on a simple question of how we define morality – as institutional or necessarily absolute. The reason for this is that the approach I have given does not exactly put forward a philosophical argument against the plausibility of Royce’s (or other moral sceptic’s) arguments. I have instead provided reasons to shift the emphasis of moral philosophy away from foundational questions about the metaphysical nature of morality, and instead focus on moral language as and how it is used by people.

observation | know that A, which is a thought or feeling, causes B, which is a bodily act, e.g. a statement … making genuine judgements, having coherent thoughts, then solipsism is false. But why need one accept the … arguments 145 there is a table in front of me?’ for the question ‘Do | know there is a table in front of

would lead logically to solipsism , or the denial of any other being save self. Finally, the main foundation of all idealism and scepticism is the assumption