ABSTRACT
The chapter discusses the value-judgments that people often make, which they would not claim for a moment to be also moral judgments. The context of discourse or mental attitude determines whether or not a moral issue is held to be involved. Many issues are regarded as either morally significant or morally neutral, and many types of behaviour are regarded as either moral or immoral, according to local cultural conventions; and moral verdicts therefore differ in accordance with differing ways of life. There seem to be certain broad areas of agreement regarding what is a moral and what is a non-moral issue, and what is a moral and what is an immoral act; but even here such views are contingent: they could have been otherwise. It is quite possible to envisage a community where thieving had no moral stigma attached to it, only being caught doing it. Ancient Sparta came very near to this.
