11. 1. Since a large part of my argument hinges on the
assumption, hitherto not fully defended, that value-judge-
ments, if they are action-guiding, must be held to entail
imperatives, and since this assumption may very well be
questioned, it is time to examine it. It might be held, for
example, that I can without contradiction say "You ought to
do A, but don't', and that therefore there can be no question
of entailment; entailment in any case is a very strong word,
and though many might be found to agree that value-
judgements are action-guiding in some sense, it might be
held that they are action-guiding only in the sense in which
even plain judgements of fact may be action-guiding. For
example, if I say 'The train is just about to depart', this may
guide a person who wants to catch the train to take his seat;
or, to take a moral case, if I say to a person who is thinking
of giving some money to a friend supposedly in distress, 'The
story he has just told you is quite untrue', this may guide him
to make a different moral decision from that which he would
otherwise have made. And similarly it might be held that
value-judgements are action-guiding in no stronger sense
than these statements of fact. It might be urged that, just as
the statement that the train is going to depart has no bearing
upon the practical problems of someone who does not want
to catch the train, and just as, if the man who is thinking of
giving money to his friend does not recognize that the truth
or otherwise of his friend's story has any bearing on the
question, it may not affect his decision, so, if a man has no
intention of doing what he ought, to tell him that he ought to
do something may not be accepted by him as a reason for
doing it. I have put as forcibly as possible this objection,

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