Wittgenstein and Weil on manufacturing good

I argue that Wittgenstein and Weil are similar in thinking that it is a mistake to conceive our moral task as manufacturing good in people, or in the world, by means of mechanisms or techniques that function like “moral machines.” Moreover, each is similar in the foundations for this judgement because each holds to theses regarding the valuelessness of facts and the powerlessness of the will. These commitments set them at odd with most of mainstream, philosophical thinking on ethics. After elaborating these claims, I argue that Wittgenstein and Weil are poles apart in their moral views on a deeper level. Weil is a realist. Her focus is therefore on bypassing anything of the personal so as to make an outward, direct contact with the impersonal, good order of the world. Wittgenstein by contrast is not a realist and conceives the moral challenge as an essentially inward effort to be morally decent. That effort can be conceived two ways I suggest, either not to waste one’s or to adopt a morally good attitude to the world.