ABSTRACT
This notion of what it means to do some thing, what does it come to? We appeal often to it. How can you walk past this home less person who is asking for some change? Don’t you know what it means to be hungry and humi li ated? Or consider the person who, over come by remorse, says, ‘Only now do I fully under stand the meaning of what I have done.’ Sometimes, of course, when we alert someone to the signi fic ance of what he has done, we intend in the first instance only to refer to certain consequences. Perhaps an employer was insuf fi ciently attent ive to the desti tu tion he brought to a family when he sacked its father. ‘You don’t fully under stand the meaning of what you have done,’ we might say to him. Usually, however, when we appeal to someone to appreci ate the meaning or signi fic ance of what they are doing or have done, the facts are visible and not in dispute.
