 In response it is helpful to consider the conception of metaphysics that can be seen to be motivating much of the Circle’s ethical non-cognitivism. What did Carnap (1935) and Neurath (1932a) dismiss when they dismissed normative ethics as metaphysical and cognitively meaningless? One may concede that due to the brusque way in which they put their broadly Humean point, they opened themselves up to significant criticism, but it is very important to see also what they did not do. Most notably, they did not dismiss as meaningless all concern with how to live. Conditional prescriptions remained straight-forwardly truth-evaluable in instrumental terms and so cognitively meaningful. In addition, their own active engagement for Enlightenment values in public life showed that they took these matters very seriously themselves. (In fact, their engagement as public intellectuals compares strikingly with that of most contemporary philosophers of science.) But neither did they fall victim to the naturalistic fallacy nor were they simply inconsistent. In the determination of basic values they rather saw acts of personal self-definition, but, characteristically, Carnap showed a more individualistic and Neurath a more collectively oriented approach to the matter. What needs to be borne in mind, then, is the meaning that they attached to the epithet “metaphysical” in this and other areas: the arrogation of unique and fully determined objective insight into matters beyond scientific reason. It was in the ambition of providing such unconditional prescriptions that they saw philosophical ethics being the heir of theology. (Compare Carnap 1935 and 1963b, §32 and Neurath 1932a and 1944, §19.) Needless to say, it remains contentious to claim those types of philosophical ethics to be cognitively meaningless that seek to derive determinate sets of codes from some indisputable principle or other. But the ongoing discussion of non-cognitivism and its persistent defense in analytical ethics as “expressivism” suggest that, understood as outlined, the Circle’s non-cognitivism was by no means absurd or contradictory.