PHLA11H3 Lecture Notes - Modus Ponens
Document Summary
Descriptive claim: a claim about what is the case: about how things are. Normative claim: a claim about how things ought to be: not really about how things are but how they should be. Both claims can be true or false: difference is the subject matter a difference in what the claims are about. Morality is a normative claim: moral claims: claims about how people ought to act, rather than how they actually act, it is wrong to break a promise". Moral claims are: normative rather than descriptive, they are a particular kind of normative claim not all normative claims concern morality. The chief (only) tool can"t be experiment or observation. Psychology, sociology, anthropology: can tell us about how people in fact behave, can tell us about what people believe about how they ought to behave, it can"t tell us whether something is morally okay or not.