ABSTRACT
The view that value judgements are not really judgements in any sense, but just a matter of arbitrary opinion, is one of the most damaging views to have affected education in the last two decades. It is never the case within a particular sphere of activity that any value judgement is as good as any other, and it could not be the case, because any activity that is recognizable as being a certain kind of activity rather than another is necessarily defined in certain terms, which automatically set limits on intelligible value judgements in the area. The persistent and widespread misunderstanding the point, some critics being content with an emotive dismissal of the whole argument as elitist, old-fashioned, and self-serving. Such criticism, alas, is self-serving in its own way, and it betrays the lack of understanding that need to guard against. The objectivity of the judgements that Pele and Cruyff were good soccer players, and Russell and Wittgenstein good philosophers.
