Applied Discussion 1: Normative & Descriptive Claims

In this Module, you have learned the difference between normative claims and descriptive claims. This is an extremely important distinction to make, as we will rely on this distinction throughout the course. Before we move on to learning about and discussing a wide range of ethical theories, I'd like you to master this distinction. In your initial post, you must do the following:

1. Explain which of the applied ethics topics you will choose to focus on in this course (animal rights, euthanasia or global poverty).
2. Give an example of a descriptive claim related to your topic and explain why it is a descriptive claim.
3. Give an example of a normative claim related to your topic and explain why it is a normative claim.

 If you refer to information from the text or outside sources, identify the location in parenthesis – e.g. (author, year, p. #).