ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the Ludwig Wittgensteinian conception of realism as explicated by one of its well-known proponents, Sabina Lovibond, and then discusses Stanley Hauerwas's ethics as a case study of Wittgensteinian conception of realism being used in Christian ethics. A standard philosophical account defines moral realism as a metaphysical view that moral properties exist independently of the interests and needs of particular human beings. In contemporary Christian ethics, there is a renewed appreciation for the role of moral traditions in understanding and living the good life. To be sure, we need not deny the importance of historical communities that furnish us with rich resources in their moral traditions. However, it is one thing to argue that our moral life can be enhanced by a moral tradition but quite another to suggest that all moral knowledge is historically contingent because our view of moral reality is always a reflection of our social world mediated by language.
