GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

THE SCOPS OF ETHIG3 f6g
give in support of any judgment usually take die form of
saying how or why we came to make it (for example, if
I make a judgment, that there will be a European
war sometime during the next twenty years, and somebody
asks me to defend the judgment, I shall adduce
reasons for my judgment derived from a study of recent
history, or an analysis of the contemporary international
Situation) there is very little that I can say about my
judgment, this curtain is red. I cannot say why I think
the curtain red, how I came to make the judgment, or
what are my reasons for thinking it to be true.
We are, it is said, in a similar case in regard to the ultimate
judgments of value which underlie any statement of an
ethical character. Are such statements, then, and are the
judgments which underlie them lintrue? It does not follow
that they are; for in the case of many things, which
we know to be true, we can give no reasons for our knowledge.
As I have just pointed out, we can know that the
proposition "this curtain is red " is true, without being able
to give reasons for it, and in just the same way it may
be the case that when we know that the proposition* 'cruelty
is evil" is true, we cannot give reasons for our knowledge.
But because the reasons for such judgments are non-
existent, or, if they exist, incommunicable, it does not
follow that the judgments are meaningless, or that
their meaning is not understood. Whether it is understood
or not, depends upon whether the person to whom
the judgment is addressed has at any time shared the
experience which induced the person judging to make it.
Let me cite another analogy: we will suppose that I
have the toothache, but that you have never had it What
will be the effect upon you of my communication, "I
have the toothache"? You will no doubt understand with
your reason that I am sufferingsome kind of pain, although,
if you had never experienced pain of any kind, even the
thought, "he is suffering pain", would for you be largely
devoid of meaning. But if, although you had had some
pain you had never had the toothache, then die meaning
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