What is Moral Philosophy?

Moral Philosophy is a criticism of our moral categories. Moral Philosophy, like all other forms of knowledge, starts from and is based on certain facts which the moral philosopher has got to explain. Besides the general teatures in the use of the moral predicates, there are all the particular judgments, all the things or kinds of things of which one asserts these predicates. And it is in using these data that difficulties really arise. If a particular moral judgment, a judgment that any particular action or kind of action is right or wrong, is clearly only a deduction from a general theory, which has been formed on other grounds, then the particular judgment has no claim to respect apart from the theory. It follows from the theory and stands or falls with it. The meaning of the moral categories is discovered from an examination of ordinary moral judgments.