The failure to distinguish between a norm and a statement about the validity of a norm, and so between morality and ethics, also leads to the wholly indefensible claim that the norms of morality are not commands. Such is the thesis which Manfred Moritz tried to prove in his paper ‘Gebot und Pflicht’ (1941). He calls the norms of morality ‘moral sentences’ or ‘moral laws’. He speaks constantly of ‘moral commands’; but he says ‘The moral command does not have the properties one thought could be ascribed to it’, namely that of being a command.

The failure to distinguish between a norm and a statement about the validity of a norm, and so between morality and ethics, also leads to the wholly indefensible claim that the norms of morality are not commands. Such is the thesis which Manfred Moritz tried to prove in his paper ‘Gebot und Pflicht’ (1941). He calls the norms of morality ‘moral sentences’ or ‘moral laws’. He speaks constantly of ‘moral commands’; but he says ‘The moral command does not have the properties one thought could be ascribed to it’, namely that of being a command.