GRICE E JUVALTA

 My enterprise in this lecture will, initially at least, be to take up and pursue a version of the notion of objectivity which is mentioned by Mackie, but which I have so far deliberately kept out of the limelight. At the conclusion of a short discussion of categorical and hypothetical imper-atives, we find (p. 29) the following statement:  So far as ethics is concerned, my thesis that there are no objective values is specifically the denial that any such categorical element (in moral judgments) is objectively valid. The objective values which I am denying would be action-directing absolutely, not contingently (in the way indicated) upon the agent's desires and inclinations.  The language is not wholly clear; but what is seemingly being asserted is that Mackie's denial of objective values is tantamount to a denial that there are any absolutely action-directing values, despite what may be claimed in ordinary moral judgements. This thesis seems to be a close relative of a well-known position advanced by Philippa Foot, who has discussed it at some length, and to whom I shall turn my attention in a moment. First, however, let me present the question at issue in a slightly more comprehensive way. There seem to be a number of fairly well-publicized dichotomies, to which the objectivity or non-objectivity of values may be closely related. These include the dichotomy of categorical and hypothetical imperative, the dichotomy of moral value and non-moraland the dichotomy of unconditional and conditional value.  The questions at issue seem to me to concern the relation of each of these dichotomies to others in the list. I hope to return to this array of questions after a hopefully succinct presentation of what I take to be Philippa Foot's views.  The following I think would be a fair summary (in my language):  Hypothetical imperatives are distinguished by the existence of an associated "let out" or "extrication" condition. This will consist in the existence of an associated end, a lack of desire for which will remove from the potential agent all reason to carry out the injunction contained in the imperative. The imperative 'If you want a good dinner, you should eat at the White House' leaves me cold if I have no interest in food. The widespread belief that moral imperatives are categorical, in that they have a reason-giving force that is independent of any desire on the part of the potential agent, is mistaken. There are no such automatic reason-giving forces, and so no categorical imperatives. Though there are no categorical imperatives, there are some "non-hypothetical uses" of "ought" , where a disclaimer of interest would have no extricating effect.  These occur in "oughts" of etiquette, conduct in games, and possibly (colloquially) in moral statements. But the reason why disclaimers of interest have no effect here is that non-hypothetical uses of ought are (atypically) not reason-giving at all, and so there is here nothing to be extricated from.  So if moral "oughts" are to be reason-giving at all, they must be interpreted (or re-interpreted) as expressing hypothetical imperatives, depending on some end (like human happiness) which decent people can be counted on to be concerned about. To regard moral precepts as categorical imperatives must be to base morality on reason; anti-moral behaviour there is nothing irrational in immorality; no contradiction or self-defeating behaviour is (characteristically) present.  We do not want moral "oughts" to be ipso facto motivating or compelling, regardless of interest or inclination or desire. We want volunteers rather than conscripts in moral service. In an earlier version, morality had to be partially justified by reference to the happiness of the agent. In a later version, concern for the welfare of others, as part of one's own happiness, demands a consequential concern for morality, with a view to the welfare of others. Now before I get too heavily involved in substantive issues, it might be a good idea for me to pay a little heed to the structural aspects of the region under debate: let us have a look at the girders before covering them with cement. There seem to me to be not less than six dichotomies which are under review, though not every philosopher would regard all of them as well founded.  Some philosophers would regard some of them as not distinct from one another, and (I hope) all philosophers would regard some or even all of them as obscure, perhaps even intolerably obscure. These dichotomies are (or include):  1. objective-non-objective (or perhaps,  subjective),  (entity, value), a dichotomy or cluster of dichotomies on which I have already spent some time.  categorical-hypothetical (imperative) absolute-relative (value) moral-non-moral (value, imperative, etc.) unconditional-conditional (value, etc.) underived-derived (value) Today's Special (2. Cats and Hypes), like other members of the bunch, calls (even clamours) for interpretation.  (a) A blind logical nose might lead us (or be led) to the assumption of a link between hypothetical imperatives andhypothetical statements (propositions). Such a link no doubt exists, but the most obvious version of it is plainly inadequate. At least one other philosopher besides myself has noticed that If he molests the children, you should have him arrested' is unlikely to express a hypothetical imperative; and that even if one restricts oneself to cases in which the antecedent clause specifies a want, we find pairs of examples like:  If you want to go to Chicago, you should travel by AA via Cleveland.  If you want to go to Philadelphia, you should see a psychiatrist.  where it is plain that one is, and the other is not, the expression of a hypothetical imperative (I won't tell you which).  (b) A less easily eliminable suggestion, yet one which would still interpret the notion of a "hypothetical imper-ative" in terms of that particular logical form to which the names "hypothetical" and "conditional" attach, would be the following. Let us assume that it is established, or conceded, as legitimate to formulate conditionals in which not only the consequents (apodoses) are couched in some mood (mode) other than the indicative, as in conditional commands (If you see the whites of their eyes, shoot (fire)') but also the antecedents (protases), or some part (clause) of them; in which case all of the following might be admissible conditionals:  If let the cat be taken to the vet, then let it be put in a  cage.  If let the cat be taken to the vet and there is no cage available, then let Martha put it on her lap.  If the cat is sick, let it be taken to the vet.  If this suggestion seems rebarbative, think of these quaint conditionals (when they are quaint) as conditionalized versions of arguments, such asLet the cat go to the vet, so let it be put in a cage.  Let the cat go to the vet; there isn't a cage, so let Martha put the cat on her lap. and then maybe the discomfort will be reduced.  (c) Among conditionals with an imperatival or "voli-tival" consequent, some will have "mixed" antecedents (partly indicative, partly imperatival) and some will have purely indicative antecedents (like the last of my three examples). I might now give a provisional definition of the terms categorical and hypothetical imperative. A hypothetical imperative is either a conditional the consequent of which is imperatival and the antecedent of which is imperatival or mixed (partly indicative, partly imperatival), or it is an elliptical version of such an imperative. A categorical imperative is an imperative which is either not conditional in form, or else, if it is conditional, has a purely indicative antecedent.  Quick comments:  (i) The structures which I am offering as a way of interpreting hypothetical and categorical imperatives do not, as they stand, offer any room for the appearance of practical modalities like ought and should, which are so prominently visible in the standard examples of those kinds of imperatives: the imperatives suggested by me are really imperatives: they conclude 'do such and such', not  "you/one ought to do such and such'. But maybe my suggestion could be modified to meet the demand for the appearance or occurrence of ought (etc.), if such occurrence is needed  (ii) It would remain to be decided how close the preferred reading of my 'deviant' conditional imperatives would be to the accepted interpretation of standard hypothetical imperatives. But even if there were some divergence, that might be acceptable if the 'new' imperatives turned out to embody a more precise notion than the standard conception.(iii) There are, I think, serious doubts of the admissibility of conditionals with non-indicative antecedents which will be to my mind connected with the very difficult question whether the indicative and the other moods are co-ordinate, or whether the indicative mood is in some crucial sense prior to the other moods. I do not know the answer to this question.  A third interpretation of the distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives would, like the first two, be formal in character, and would link the categorical-hypothetical distinction, in relation to imperatives, with one of the other listed dichotomies, that between absolute and relative value. Hypothetical imperatives would be end-relative value attributions, and might be analogous to evidence-relative probabilities; categorical imperatives would not be end-relative. In my eyes this suggestion has the great merit that the idea of the relativization of value might (would) apply to other kinds of relativization than relativization to ends; a notable member of the wider group of relativizations would be relativization to subjects of ends, persons who have or who might have ends ("valuable to me"). It is my suspicion that the range of different kinds of relativization is going to prove enormously important in the clarification of the idea of value; it might, for example, turn out that non-relative (absolute) value has some special connection with some favoured relativization of the notion of value (e.g. to people). This third suggestion might help us to see hypothetical and categorical imperatives as important in this context. We might indeed, not inappropriately, use a further member of the original list of dichotomies, the unconditional-conditional value dichotomy, as a means for expressing the distinction between value relative to an end, and value not relative to an end. Then the distinction between absolute and relative value would include, as a special case, but would not be restricted to, the distinction between unconditional and conditional value.(d) The last interpretation which I shall mention seems not to be, as its predecessors were, formal in character. It is close to part of what Kant says on this topic, and it also either is or is close to the interpretation employed by Foot.  It is a distinction between an imperative being escapable (hypothetical), through the absence of a particular desire or concern, and its not being thus escapable (categorical).  If we understand the idea of escapability sufficiently widely, the following imperatives are all escapable, even though their logical form is not in every case the same:  You should give up popcorn.  To get slim, you should give up popcorn.  If you want to get slim, you should give up popcorn.  Now suppose that I have no concern to get slim. One might say that the first imperative is "escaped", provided giving up popcorn has nothing else to recommend it, by being falsified. The second and third would not, perhaps, be falsified, but they would, in the circumstances, be inapplicable (to me) —and inapplicability, too, counts as escape. Categorical imperatives, however, are in no way escapable.  We should, I suggest, consider not merely imperatives of each sort, together with the range of possible characterizations of the sorts, but also the possible forms of (practical) argument into which such imperatives (particular bypo-thetical imperatives) might, on this or that interpretation, enter, and even forms of (practical) argument which involve not hypothetical imperatives themselves, but close relatives of them. To indicate the importance, for a proper understanding of this thorny area, of a consideration of the forms of argument into which they may enter and not merely of the imperatives themselves, I shall give three such patterns of argument, at least superficially different from one another, and (so it seems to me) of varying degrees of breadth of application.  (using dichotomy of original derived value) To defend the Philosophy Department would be a good thing. (It is not specified whether the value is original or derived.) If to defend the Philosophy Department would be a good thing, then to learn to use bows and arrows would be a good thing (as conducive). So: To learn to use bows and arrows would be a good thing. (This would be derived value, provided the second premiss is true.) It is noble to fight for your country (unconditional value). It is valuable, in the matter of fighting for one's country, to join one of the services (ascription of conditional value). So: Join up! (We cannot conclude either to unconditional value of joining up (false) nor to conditional value of joining up, with respect to fighting for one's country, since this is one of the premisses.)  3. It is good for me to increase my holdings in oil shares.  If I visit my father he will give me some oil shares.  So: It is good for me to visit my father. (This argument purportedly transmits relative value, that is, subject-relative value.)  Now where does Foot stand in respect of claims about  value?  It seems to me that the issues on which battle has been joined within this topic are always (nearly always) related to different views about the potency of reason (as reflected in the lesser scope or the larger scope allowed for the appearance on the scene of reasons). It is by no means clear to me where, precisely, Foot stands in this spectrum (if it matters), but wherever it is, it is somewhere in the middle.  The stages which I have in mind are presented in order ofdecreasing scepticism, or increasing trust in the power of reason, or, as I would like to be able to put the matter, increasing trust in the legitimate and efficacious operation of the concept of value in the conduct of argument.  1. Thoroughgoing scepticism. The notion of value has no genuine legitimate application in argument; it is never strictly speaking the case that one should draw such and such a conclusion from a set of premisses, that it would be good or valid to draw such and such a conclusion, or bad not to. We do, of course,  as victims of bad habits,  commonly talk that way, and we do, inveterately, throw around the word "reasons", but this is only a way of talking and is not to be taken seriously: it may be hallowed, but it is not at all holy. The things we say are either not to be regarded as true, or if true are true only in some Pickwickian sense of the words employed. There are strictly speaking no arguments at all, as (allegedly) it is not too difficult to 'demonstrate'.  2. Stingy cognitive rationalism. The terms "value" and  "reasons" properly apply, in a non-Pickwickian sense, only within the confines of the area of factual belief, the  "alethic" area, and even there only subject to strong safeguards. The only way in which one can find a conclusion validated or called for by reason (subject to reasons) is by finding a case in which to deny rather than accept that conclusion would involve one in contradiction.  Open-handed cognitive rationalism. The crucial terms ("value" and "reason") have a more general licence (inductive reasons are, for example, OK); but strictly legitimate application is still confined to the alethic area. Limited cognitive-cum-practical rationalism. The crucial terms have a liberal authentic application in the cognitive (alethic) zone, and also a limited authentic application in the practical zone, where they are limited (otherwise than merely as a way of talking) to the area of the relation of means to ends, the area of Aristotelian Selvórns (whatever that area may be). 5. Unlimited cognitive-cum-practical rationalism. No types of application are subject to sceptical smear.  Now, as I say, I am not really very sure where Foot stands in this array of stances; I suspect in category 4. I am also fairly sure that wherever Foot may stand, quite a large number of philosophers have occupied, or have thought that they occupied, one of the intermediate positions bearing numbers between 2 and 4 (inclusive). The further suspicion which I would like at this point to voice is that the adoption of one of these "part-way" positions is incoherent, that you either have to be a whole-hog sceptic or else not a sceptic at all: half-hogging is no good. I shall not attempt to prove this point now; in Lecture 3 I do try to prove a closely related thesis (that if you get as far as stage 4 you have to (in some sense of "have to") go on to stage 5. But there is a stronger and a weaker interpretation of "have to"; the stronger interpretation would allege some form of contradiction in accepting 4 but refusing 5, and I rather doubt if that can be shown. I have hopes, however, of being able to reach a weaker conclusion, that to accept 4 and to reject 5 (to hold, for example, that hypothetical imperatives are all right, but that categorical imperatives are not) would be wantonly to refuse to satisty a legitimate rational demand. But for that you must wait patiently for a day.  To initiate a substantive discussion of Foot's position, I ask what there is in it to appeal to us, and again what there is in it to make us hesitate or recoil; and in asking these questions I note that reactions, whether favourable or unfavourable, seem likely to be strong. It seems to me that in these discussions a key role is played by the idea of reason, or of reasons; it will be some set of considerations about reasons which will turn some people on, at least to begin with, and it will be another set of considerations (or possibly even the same set of considerations) about reasons which will, at least to begin with, turn other people off. Letus turn first to the considerations which might engender a favourable response.  A central view of Foot's (which might indeed have an extension beyond the realm of the concept of ought, so as to apply to a larger range of valuations) is that the primary function (though not its invariable function) of the use of an "ought" statement is to produce, or to state the existence of, a reason for a potential agent to perform some specified action or to occupy some specified position or situation. She would go on to say, I think, that it has been, at least since Hume, a commonplace of philosophy that the existence for someone of a reason to perform an action or to occupy a position or situation depends on his having some desire, interest, or disposition of will pointing in that direction; it is objectionable to suppose that there are any features the mere recognition of which is sufficient to provide one with a reason for doing something. The objectionableness of such a supposition may be of either of two kinds; the supposition may be disbelievable, or repugnant to the intellect or judgement; or it may be distasteful, or repugnant to the will or to inclination. A subsidiary argument of Foot's is, I think, one which would represent the idea that morality consists in a system of categorical imperatives as distasteful, indeed morally distasteful; or at least as less tasteful than the more Humean alternative. We would rather (she suggests) be able to think of people as volunteers in moral service, than be forced to think of them as conscripts, as the more Kantian position would entail.'  ' [The following remarks were included as an aside in the manuscript of the lecture: The kind of moral (or more or less moral) distaste to which Foot briefly alludes is one which I feel that, as someone brought up in the enlightened 'pinko' (at least on the surface) atmosphere of Oxford, as it used to be, I understand very well. We are in reaction against our Victorian forebears; we are independent and we are tolerant of the independence of others, unless they go too far. We don't like discipline, rules (except for rules of games and rules designed to secure peace and quiet in Colleges), self-conscious authority, and lectures or reproaches about conduct (which are usually ineffective anyway, since those whom they are supposed to influence    Now Foot (an old friend of mine) told me on one of the more recent occasions when we discussed these questions that she had not intended to attach very much weight to her mot about 'volunteers and conscripts'. If this is so, then I think that in one pretty important respect she was doing herself an injustice. For whether or not it in fact succeeds on this occasion, it is very much the right kind of consideration to bring to bear. In the case of some sorts of valuation, the apparatus for determining whether some particular target should be accorded favourable or un-favourable valuation cannot sensibly be turned upon itself; we cannot sensibly ask whether the apparatus for determining pictorial valuation, or our use of this apparatus, is pronounced by the apparatus itself to be worthy of favourable pictorial valuation, since neither the apparatus nor our use of it is a picture. We can ask whether the standards (so far as we can identify them) applied in determining whether something is funny, or our applications of these standards, are themselves licensed as being funny by those very standards: but I very much doubt whether an affirmative answer would be regarded as a significant endorsement of those standards. In other cases—-perhaps, for example, with regard to standards of utility—it may well be that a certificate of conformity to these standards, received by the standards themselves or by our use of them, would be properly regarded as an endorsement of the standards. But if, as is the case with moral standards, the standards (in advance of any precise determination of their value) are thought to be paramount are usually either too sensitive or not sensitive enough). Above all we dislike punishment, which only too often just plays into the hands of those who are arrogant or vindictive. We don't much care to talk about "values" (pompous) or "duties" (stuffy, unless one means the duties of servants or the military, or money extorted by the customs people). Our watchwords (if we could be moved to utter them) would be 'Live and let live, though not necessarily with me around' or 'If you don't like how I carry on, you don't have to spend time with me? With these underlying attitudes, it is no surawson hree at Resentmengenial, and that we do very much like(not susceptible to being overridden) and it is also the case that the standards endorse themselves or our use of them, then it might, I think, be plausibly suggested that such an endorsement is specially powerful, to the extent that its availability might be taken as a relevant interpretation of the notion of objectivity. And an ethical system which failed this test would not have much to hope for beyond a decent burial.  What seems to me wrong with Foot's procedure at this point is not that it is an unsuitable procedure for producing rabbits from hats (it is indeed quite suitable), but that on this occasion it does not produce any rabbits.  As one of my colleagues at Seattle (David Keyt) remarked, once you are in one of the services it does not matter whether you are one of the volunteers or one of the conscripts: both are treated alike, and indeed, virtually no one knows which you are. The fact that a consideration is motivating independently of any desire one may have does not imply as a matter either of physical or logical necessity that one in fact acts in line with it; as Kant and others have observed, it is only too obvious that all too often one does not act in line with it. One is not compelled or constrained unless by "constrained" "compelled" is meant "rationally constrained"" compelled"-and, as Kant suggested, maybe that kind of constraint/compulsion is just what the doctor ordered for the free man.  I turn now to the specification of an attempt to represent the position of Foot's opponent, a champion of 'the received view' which allows a viable distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives and seeks to associate moral valuation with categorical imperatives, not as distasteful but as disbelievable. What I have to say has an obvious relation to questions which students in ethics are ready to pose within their first week of classes about whether and how it is possible to justify ends. I am not sure that the considerations with which I shall be concerned are actually voiced by Foot; but that she would assent to themseems to me to be strongly indicated by her view that reasons have to be constituted as such by their connection with desire or interest, and by her refusal (explicitly avowed to me) to countenance such questions as whether, independently of any connection with actual desires, a person should have recognized as a reason something which he did not so recognize. I shall take a little trouble to exhibit clearly the structure of the present issue.  It might be suggested that an adherent of the received view is likely to have a certain picture of practical reasoning which is, perhaps, redolent of Aristotle. We decide on the performance of a particular action by ascribing to it a certain value, which is inherited from some state of affairs to which the action would be conducive; the inherited value will be recognized to have descended through a sequence of inheritances, starting from some item whose value is not inherited but original. This picture raises at once hoary problems about how the original value comes to be there and how it comes to be detected. One who adheres to Foot's scheme, however, can lay claim to a capacity to solve or to bypass these difficulties. It is a mistake, he can say, to think of practical reasoning as recognizing the transmission of an original non-relativized value down a chain of inheritors: what we start with is a relativized value (relativized to some person or potential agent), and it is this value which is (sometimes) transmitted.  So the question of justifying ends, otherwise than by showing them to be actually desired, does not arise.  The legitimacy of a conception of absolute value, of a kind being denied by the suppositions adherent to Foot's view, is a main topic of my third lecture, and so what I say here should be regarded as having a fairly limited aim. It is designed only to show, or suggest, that should it turn out to be theoretically desirable to be able to regard absolute (non-relative) value as attaching to some ends, we should not be at a loss when it comes to saying how such absolute value is to be detected, or how rational decision about endsis possible. While I would not claim to be in a position to give a tidy, comprehensive theoretical account of the matter, it seems to me pretty clear that ordinary agents are thoroughly practised at end-selection. (At this point I draw heavily upon a paper on Happiness which I am prone to deliver, wholly or in part, at every possible opportunity.) By way of preliminary, three general points seem appropriate.  Ends go around in packs or systems; so in determining the suitable ends two linked considerations come into play: the suitability of the end considered as an individual, and also its suitability when it is considered as a member of an actual or potential system of ends (whether in this or that way it does or would fit in). Alterations in and institutions of systems of ends normally occur as the outcome of revision; system S' is substituted for system S which is previously ensconced, and what S' and S have in common is much more extensive than the respects in which they differ. As with clothes, changes are mostly matters of patching; and where a new suit is acquired, it is usually ready-made by professional purveyors, like churches or political parties, or private persons like spouses. It is (fortunately for us) possible to make revisions in our system without having to articulate (which we almost certainly would be unable to do) the contents of the system. We can consider a possible change and see what comes to mind, one way or the other, about such a change. Systems in situ seem (not very surprisingly) to be very much like the human beings in whom they are situated.  Both change, but in the normal course of events not usually very rapidly: and when changes occur they tend to occur according to natural laws or trends: systems and people grow and develop and sometimes even decay. So when we look for the properties which commend systems, we find them to be not unlike those aspects of stabilitywhich commend systems of beliefs; which according to Idealists (of the Oxford kind, Bradley, etc.) are such things as coherence, consistency, and comprehensiveness; and it is systems deficient in such respects as these which get modified. Systems which are harmonious, in that the realization of or pursuit of some elements enhances the prospects for other elements, are favoured. So are systems which are (so to speak) teleologically suitable, which bring into play more fully rather than less fully the capacities and attributes which are central to one's constitution as a human being. So, again, are systems which are flexible, which allow for easy and untraumatic revision where revision is required.  When we turn to a consideration of individual ends, we find a variety of procedures which we use to assess the suitability or unsuitability of suggested or possible ends, some of which can also be applied to the assessment of systems of ends. Sometimes we ask whether the adoption of such and such an end would put us at the mercy of circumstances beyond our control; to what extent we should need what Aristotle called "ektos choregia" like government grants. Sometimes we enquire about the likely durability of an actual or suggested interest: 'Would we get tired of it?", 'How long would we be capable of sustaining it?', etc. Sometimes we see whether we or someone else can present us with a favourable (or unfavourable) 'picture' of life with such and such as one of our ends. Sometimes we raise second-order questions about the desirability, of one sort or another, of our having some specified item as an end ("Could I be talked into it?",  , 'Would it be a useful  interest to have?', 'Would I look ridiculous if I went in for that?', etc.).  The purpose of this lightning tour of methods of end-assessment has not been to present a systematic account of them, though that would fill a need; it has been intended merely to indicate that so far from being at a loss when it comes to the assessment of ends, we seem to have a wealthof resources at our disposal; so the suggestion that Foot's position has the advantage of enabling us to dispense with such assessment would be to try to pull us out of a hole which we are not in. But there is a further question, namely, whether the methods which we do use for such assessment are more in tune with Foot's position or with a Kantian position. Here I find the outcome not at all clear.  It is not at all clear to me how the criteria which we seem to apply in the assessment of ends, and of attachments to them, are to be justified, or even whether they are to be justified; and our employment of some of them seems somewhat fluctuating (for example, durability of an interest as something solid (and so good), or as stolid and so not good). It might turn out that though we evaluate ends, we do not evaluate the criteria by which we evaluate ends; and that might favour Foot. But who knows?  I turn now to a brief delineation of two aspects of Foot's position which seem to have some tendency to make things difficult for her. The first was vividly presented in a talk given by Judy Baker, the relevant passage from which I shall summarize. If I say to you that the door is closed, standardly my purpose in saying this to you is to get you to believe that the door is closed; there are variant descriptions which apply to some cases, like reminding you that the door is closed, letting you know that I am aware that the door is closed, and so on. But it is natural to think of the arousal of a belief as the central case. When I utter a (grammatical imperative, there is more than one thing I may be doing; if, as a friend watching you shiver, I say  'Close the door' (in a gentle tone of voice, perhaps), I could be advising you to shut the door (since you are cold): if, as a parent to a child, I say "Shut the door', I might be telling you to shut the door. There are further distinctions which might be made; for example, we can distinguish between an officer saying to a private soldier, 'Fetch the provisions' when he would be ordering the soldier to fetch the provisions, and one private soldier saying to another,  'Fetch the provisions', when he might be relaying an order to fetch the provisions. There will be at least two (maybe more) main families of operations, telling and advising, which will each be further differentiated. All of this is evident to common sense. Now a modalized imperative, like 'You ought to visit your aunt' or 'You mustn't touch the flowers' is perhaps not strictly a recipient of the classifications applicable to unmodalized imperatives, but it is plausible to suppose that assimilation of the modalized imperatives to membership of one or another of the families of imperatives is possible. Now Foot's position seems to demand that moral judgements (valuation, exhortation) should be assimilated to the advising family.  But this is repugnant to common sense; common sense would support an assimilation to the telling family, particularly perhaps to the sub-family of relaying orders (in the moral case, from an unspecified and perhaps even unspecifiable source).  Difficulty for Foot may also arise (as Judy Baker also suggested) from her treatment of "non-hypothetical uses" which seem to be represented as "decayed/degenerate cases" of utterances of "ought"-statements (and such-like), which in their primary and non-degenerate employment are dependent on the possession of a certain desire or interest on the part of the addressee or potential agent, but which are here used even though the speaker may not attribute to his addressee such an interest. Examples are etiquette and club rules. The steward may say to a visitor,  'You may not bring ladies into the smoking-room', even though it is obvious that the visitor does not give a fig for the club or its rules. The steward may even say, I know you don't care about our rules, but you may not bring ladies into the smoking-room.' The difficulty for Foot is alleged to consist in the fact that we are told that though these are cases in which the original or normal dependence of such utterances on a potential agent's concern or interest has been lost, such injunctions are nevertheless stillvoiced, perhaps in one or another version of a social routine; we have perhaps got used to saying such things. It is suggested that Foot has not succeeded in making such utterances understandable, from the point of view of the utterer. In particular, while the establishment of social routines or practices is not mysterious, the execution of them has to be thoroughgoing. There would be some inconsistency of behaviour in including in a routine occurrence of a statement that ladies may not be brought into the smoking-room, a remark to the effect that the addressee does not have the normally requisite interest, which would be an open admission that what is taking place is only the operation of a routine or pretence.  Admittedly these objections only show that Foot's position is counter-intuitive, is against what people ordinarily suppose to be the case. It might be none the worse for that. But most of the time Foot seems to want to present herself as coming to the aid of the vulgar valuer, the maker of ordinary moral judgements, in order to protect him against the attempts of the philosophers to read into vulgar valuations material which is not there. It would be uncomfortable to her to have to take the position of condemning (philosophically) what according to her is there.  A further difficulty for Foot may arise from this fact that she seems to me to be liable to a charge of having failed to distinguish two different interpretations of phrases of the form "has a reason to" and "has no reason to (for)", and of putting forward a thesis about moral judgements, that they are (or should be) hypothetical imperatives, the attraction of which depends on a failure to make this distinction. Suppose that an old lady is struggling up the stairs with a mass of parcels, that I see her, and that I am young, able-bodied, and in no particular hurry. I could go and help her to cope, but I do not, because, as I would say,  "What is there in it for me?' I don't care about the minor distresses of old people, and I don't see any likelihood thatI would be rewarded for helping her or penalized for not doing so. On one reading of "have a reason to" it may be that these facts are sufficient to ensure that I have no reason to help her. But helping such people in such circumstances is in fact a matter of ordinary decency and so something we should do. On another reading this may be sufficient to ensure that I have a reason to help her; there is a reason for me to help her (its being a matter of ordinary decency), whether or not I recognize the fact; so I do have a reason to help her. The charge against Foot would be that the attractiveness of her case for supposing moral imperatives to be hypothetical depends first on equating, perhaps correctly, the application of a moral imperative to a person with his having a reason (perhaps a particular kind of reason) for acting in the prescribed way, and second on attaching to the phrase "having a reason" the first of the two interpretations just distinguished (that in which the man who exhibits indifference towards a given line of action would thereby be shown to lack a reason for such action), thus failing to notice or ignoring the second interpretation, which is the only reading which intuition would allow as adequate for the explication of morality.  Foot might say that she is not confusing the two readings but denying that there is more than the first reading. But she would have to argue for this contention, and it would (I think) be difficult to argue for it in a non-circular way.  I shall conclude this lecture with a brief interim statement, quite undocumented, about where we are and what I might expect to find myself trying to do about it. It seems to me that a whole lot of the trouble that has arisen for Mackie and for Foot has come out of the reluctance of each of them, in this or that degree, to allow full weight to the idea of value as making a bridge between the world of fact and the world of action. It is my suspicion (at the present point no more than a suspicion) that to get ourheads clear and keep them clear we shall need to do (at least) five things:  To pay unrelenting attention to the intimate connection between reason (the faculty) and reasons, and the intimate association of both with argument and value. To allow for parity, at least in a rational being, of cognition and practical faculties; each is equally guided by reason (rational will), and each alike guides reason (rational will). To take really seriously a distinction between rational and pre-rational states and capacities, with unremitting attention to the various between the two domains. To recognize value as embedded, in some way yet to be precisely determined, in the concept of a Rational Being. Value does not somehow or another get in, it is there from the start. To realize, as one of the fundamental and urgent tasks of philosophy, the need to reach an understanding of the way in which the world (pheno-menal') viewed in terms of cause and effect, and the world (noumenal') viewed in terms of reasons, fit together (a classical version of the Problem of Freedom). Perhaps we might, in tomorrow's lecture, move a little way in one or two of these directions.