Even those who claim that morality is strictly a matter of opinion, that is, having no objective standards and strictly, like taste, up to the individual, do employ some of these forms of moral argumentation. A. Descriptive and Prescriptive Moral Claims Moral arguments about action involve prescriptive claims and must contain such premises. A prescriptive claim states how things ought to be, imputing values to actions, things, or situations. In contrast descriptive claims state facts or alleged facts, telling how things are, or how they were, or how they might be, without passing judgment on its value. Claims may be prescriptive and not moral.
Any evaluation is a prescriptive claim.
Which of the following claims are descriptive and which are prescriptive. Remember, not all prescriptive claims are moral claims. Which of the following claims express moral values, non-moral values, or no values at all. A moral argument is a combination of prescriptive and descriptive claims. This jump from factual claims to what people ought to do is a common error in moral argumentation.