 When it comes to means however, rational argument becomes a genuine possibility. It might seem otherwise since judgments about what is right or what ought to be done—which for Russell are essentially concerned with means—would appear to be as incapable of truth as judgments about what is good and bad. In Russell’s view, “the right act, in any given circumstances, is that which, on the data, will probably produce the greatest balance of good over evil” and the right rule or policy is likewise the one that can be expected to produce the best effects. That is, “X is right” is assertible (roughly, a sensible thing to say) when X can be expected to lead to the best results. But if “Y is good”, is really in the optative mood, amounting to the exclamation “Would that everyone desired Y!”, then “X is right” would appear to be optative too, since it comes down to something like “X leads to more of what [would that everyone desired!]”. Here, the clause in square brackets, which is obviously in the optative mood, infects the entire sentence with its optative character. “X leads to more of what [would that everyone desired!]”, in so far as it can be made sense of, does not seem to be the kind of thing that could be true or false.