ABSTRACT
All ethical theories are based on facts of the moral consciousness. Without such an empirical foundation none of them could have come into existence and, least of all, gained any supporters. The normative theories have uniformly adopted the common sense idea of the objectivity of moral judgments, which I have tried to prove to be a mistaken interpretation of certain data of our moral experience. But apart from this idea there must be in the moral consciousness facts that account for the origin of all the various theories; and if my view of the emotional basis of moral judgments is correct, these facts must of course be in agreement with it. I shall now proceed to a discussion of the psychological background of normative theories in other points than their claim to objective validity.
