The article proposes a reading of various perspectives in contemporary ethics, all connected to Wittgenstein’s philosophy, offered as ways of continuing certain lines of thought broached by the ancients. Wittgenstein inspired a criticism of a theoretical conception of ethics embraced by diverse authors. The authors selected here for analysis are Cavell and Foucault: the former directly offering his notion of moral perfectionism as an interpretation of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, whereas Foucault’s perspective on the self as an object of work and care may be usefully connected to Cavell’s approach. While Foucault’s inspiration goes back to the tradition of the art of life, Cavell is mistakenly considered as a theorist of the art of life, given his emphasis on the skeptical adventures faced by the self in its prospect of progress.