Abstract

Prichard's topic here is the nature of ‘ought’. If we were to take ‘I ought to will x’ to be equivalent to ‘my willing x ought to exist’, then it is true that ‘If I were to will a certain change x, my willing x would be something that ought to exist.’ For this to hold, either my willing x would itself be something good or my willing x would cause something good. Prichard, however, rejects this view on the grounds that one cannot know, in willing x to exist, whether one's willing x is something that ought to exist. One can only know that if one were to will x, one would be willing something that one thought ought to exist.