Several recent debates in ethics and metaethics highlight what has been called the “central deliberative question.” For instance, in cases involving normative uncertainty, it is natural to ask questions like “I don’t know what I ought to do—*now* what ought I to do?” But it is not clear how this question should be understood, since what I ought to do is precisely what I do not know. Similar things can be said about questions raised by normative conflicts, so-called “alternative normative (...) concepts,” and other similar problems. This paper defends a form of non-cognitivism about these questions that is combined with cognitivism about normative questions proper. A central claim is that we should distinguish the question of what we ought to do from the question of what *to* do, and that this distinction in turn has important consequences for our understanding of normative guidance, decision-making and deliberation. Two challenges to the non- cognitivist view defended are met, and its relationship to realism and “quasi-realism” about normativity is considered. (shrink)