Universal moral certainties and the goodness of cooperation

Abstract Pleasants and Laves have resorted to Wittgenstein’s observations about the phenomenon of certainty to argue in favour of the idea of universal moral certainties. To substantiate their proposal, they offer a kindred example of universal moral certainty: the wrongness of killing innocent, non-threatening human beings. Recently, numerous scholars (see e.g., Ariso (Philosophical Investigations 45(1):58–76, 2022a; Philosophical Investigations 45(1):91–97, 2022b; Philosophia 53:651–662, 2025); Brice (Philosophia 41(2):477–487, 2013); Fairhurst (Ethical Perspectives 26(2):271–298, 2019; Philosophical Investigations 47(1):119–136, 2024); Rummens (The Philosophical Forum 44(2):125–147, 2013)) have levelled damaging criticisms against Pleasants’ and Laves’ proposal. This paper sets out to address these criticisms by offering a novel example of universal moral certainty. Specifically, it resorts to the results obtained by Curry’s theory of Morality-as-Cooperation to argue that the goodness of cooperation may be a universal moral certainty.