Moral Rules

Rules are statements that prescribe or proscribe any of the following: factual claims, inferences, decision procedures, courses of action, or behavior. Rules, thus, either form a normative standard for what we should believe or what we ought to do. There are rules in games, such as the rule governing the movement of the queen in chess; rules in mathematics, such as the process of multiplication; and rules in a host of practical matters, such as law and morality, that prescribe certain actions or responses depending on the particular circumstances that obtain.

Moral rules are rules that are designed to prescribe or proscribe well-defined actions or behavior in order to uphold some moral value. The rule “abide by the terms of a written contract” prescribes certain actions, ...