Hume and Facts, Logic and Values: A Comment on Cord's Argument

Steven B. Cord argues for a moral standard based ultimately on the obligation to treat things as what they are. However, this makes morally good behavior impossible for anyone who does not know what something is. Since ought implies can, a principle relied on by Cord in his derivation of natural rights from his ultimate premise, and since no human being is omniscient, Cord's argument is invalid. Further, it runs directly counter to intuitively based moral judgments about right action under conditions of uncertain knowledge.