Wanting: Some Pitfalls

The first part of this paper is an attempt to find a hole in Professor Max Black’s argument in his article ‘The Gap between “Is” and “Should” ’.1 Let me start with a concrete example. Uncle John, an elderly and rich bachelor, and his nephew and sole heir James, are fishing from a small boat in shark-infested waters out of sight of other vessels. As they are waiting for a bite, James says: