2.15 Tutorial: Identifying Moral Statements

Recall from the text that broadly defined, moral theory covers the moral assessments of large scale (macro-level) human institutions, as well as assessments of individual (micro-level) behavior.

At the macro-level, we distinguished political philosophy from social philosophy. Political philosophy deals with evaluation of political, governmental, economic and legal systems. Political philosophic evaluative statements are thus statements expressing judgments of the moral worth of political, governmental, economic, and legal systems, either in particular or in general. The macro-level also includes large-scale collective social behavior and conditions of groups in society. Social philosophic evaluative statements are thus statements expressing judgments of the moral worth of group condition or behavior either in particular or in general.

At the micro-level, the level of individual behavior and values—moral theory narrowly defined—we distinguished three sorts of moral judgment. Statements of moral obligation are statements about which of a person’s actions are morally right (i.e., permissible or obligatory), and which are morally wrong. Statements of moral worth are statements about which of a person’s character traits and motives are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy. And statements of non-moral worth—that is, theories of happiness—are theories of which things are ultimately desirable to people.

For each of the following identify the statement as one of the following: political philosophic moral evaluation; social philosophic moral evaluation; statements of moral obligation; statements of moral worth; and statements of non-moral worth.