Prescriptivism (philosophy)
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Prescriptivism is a meta-ethical theory about the semantical content of moral statements. It holds that moral statements functions similarly to imperatives. The concept was introduced by the philosopher R. M. Hare in his book The Language of Morals.
For example, take the moral proposition "Killing is wrong". According to an emotivist, such a statement merely expresses an attitude of the speaker. It only means something like "Boo on killing!" However, according to prescriptivism, the statement "Killing is wrong" means something more like "You shouldn't kill". What it expresses is not primarily an emotion, it is an imperative. A value-judgment might also have descriptive and emotive meanings, but these are not its primary meaning.
As a consequence of this, prescriptivism does allow and require certain logical relationships between ethical beliefs. This is in contrast to emotivism, where this is not possible.
