ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author introduced the term ‘Prescriptivism’ as a label for any kind of ethical theory that places such notions as rules, principles and verdicts at the centre of morality. It is a reminder that the people are concerned to explain the essentially action-guiding function of morality, which cannot be at all adequately explained either by the traditional propositional or cognitive theories, or by the only other type of non-cognitive theory, namely emotivism. Natural law theory is an attempt to establish what those constraints are, and what is the minimum common moral content that they generate. The truisms which lead to Hart’s ‘minimum content of natural law’ can be classified as biological, behavioural, and environmental. In evaluating the theory of natural law, the people must be careful to see just what it is claiming.
