Camb Q Healthc Ethics. 2014 Jan;23(1):93-9. doi: 10.1017/S0963180113000509.

Kukla's Argument against Common Morality as a Set of Precepts.

Strong C.

"Concerning the justification of common morality, I shall focus on Kukla’s criticism of the argument that common morality is justified because it furthers the goals of morality. In discussing this topic, it is important to distinguish the descriptive and normative senses of “common morality.” The claim, “There is a common morality,” in the descriptive sense is usually understood as asserting something like, “There is widespread agreement about a set of moral precepts.” In the normative sense, it asserts roughly that “there is a set of moral precepts that people ought to follow.” Even if almost all moral agents in a particular group accept a certain set of moral precepts, that agreement does not confer moral justification. The question therefore arises concerning how to justify the claim that there is a common morality in the normative sense."