ABSTRACT
Moral enquiry, indeed, seems to be not simply an enquiry into the principles of practice, but an enquiry into practical principles. Like other enquiries it is a knowing and not a doing. Our conclusion, therefore, is that the central theme which moral theory sets out to investigate is the problem of the justification of imperatives. The ultimate analysis of moral experience in this matter is simply that the best does command, although its commands may not be obeyed. All experience shows that the first may occur without the second, and it is very commonly argued that the second, in some fashion, may occur without the first. The concludes then that the existence of legal imperatives by the side of moral ones does not in any way conflict with the doctrine that the justification of every imperative is entirely a moral question.
