Normative rules and principles say what things are required or permitted or good or bad. In other words, normative rules and principles say what agents ought to do or what agents are allowed to do; or what deserves to be promoted, praised, or approved; or what deserves to be opposed, criticized, or disapproved. Moral rules or principles differ from normative ones of other kinds (such as rules or principles of law, etiquette, or clubs) in that moral rules or principles indicate what agents morally ought to do or are morally allowed to do, or what deserves moral praise and admiration.

Rules and principles are (to at least some extent) general—that is, they are about kinds of situations or about classes of cases, not about individual instances. So rules or principles are juxtaposed with judgments about a particular instance. The judgment that...