ABSTRACT
Uncontroversially, there are three standard measures of a normative theory’s power. One is the extent to which its basic principles, when taken in conjunction with empirical information, can explain or justify widely affirmed normative intuitions and judgments. The second, as with any theory, is the exiguity of basic principles the theory contains-the fewer the better, so to speak-inasmuch as the more there are, the nearer the theory approaches being merely redescriptive rather than explanatory. And the third is coherence: if its set of norms yield contradictory judgments about the permissibility of a particular action, then the theory either is untrue or (what comes to the same thing) must be modified to be true.
