Secondly, identifying or discovering the set of principles we should adopt if we want to optimize our chances of attaining our goal. The rules or principles can be as mindless as citing the will of some god , as simplistic as the golden rule , as complex as a utilitarian happiness calculus, or as integrated and comprehensive as an Objectivist morality. I believe that much discourse on ethics is largely wasted because these distinctions are not made. Worse, debaters frequently talk past each other being totally unaware of the issues. Ethics as Science Over the centuries epistemology has discovered certain universal methods of optimizing the acquisition of reliable knowledge any kind of knowledge.
Ethical knowledge is no exception.
The most fundamental method is the use of logic to integrate numerous empirical observations. Inductive premises and deductive conclusions can then further be validated through consistency testing, experiments, and further observations. This approach is also called rationality - with science representing a specialization. Almost everyone would agree that this is essentially the correct way to deal with descriptive ethics. Suffice to say that I vehemently disagree with this view.