  A related query (which Moral Thinking leaves as “unfinished business”; 1981: 105, cf. 1997) arises about the range of preferences that prescribing universally commits one to taking on board. If “I” is fully prescriptive, it may further follow that to suppose that I am some person is to take on board all his preferences, including “external” ones about matters (say his neighbors’ sexual or dietary practices) that may never impinge upon his consciousness. Yet sometimes Hare only demands impartiality between interests, which is narrower. To accommodate precisely that, we might distinguish a sympathetic “I”: to suppose that I am some person might be to give full weight to his preferences regarding his own experiences. This would still leave open whether I should take into account his prudential preferences (now-for-then) for his future, or only his synchronic preferences (now-for-now) regarding his present state. Alternatively, we might admit an egocentric “I”: this would let us give weight to Cheops’ desire that he receive a big funeral after his death, but not to external desires that do not essentially refer to their possessor. Yet such options embarrass if the aim was to derive a precise ethical theory from the very logic of the concepts.