ABSTRACT
Prurient, tedious, glamorous, stubborn, idle, screwy: These are a few of the terms that appear in an article in the BBC News Magazine online discussing a political scandal in the United Kingdom (Brooke, 2009). They are all examples of thick evaluative concepts. These are to be contrasted with thin evaluative concepts, such as good, bad, right, wrong, beautiful, ugly, irrational, and imprudent, only one of which appears in the article—imprudent. The content of the article is highly evaluative; it is a personal opinion on the moral and political significance of political representatives fiddling their expenses. Thick concepts are what we use most frequently to think about and discuss important moral issues, and thin concepts are less often used.
