Abstract

Anyone who has taught an introductory ethics course has found themselves having to explain that some important words can be used in different ways. There is the way social scientists talk when they refer to the norms of a Balinese cockfight, the values of early modern scientific culture, and the morality of Bolsheviks. And then there is the philosophers’ use of the same words when they talk about the normativity of rationality, the value of persons, and the moral law.