• Prescriptive - imperative, in the form of a command
• Universal - equally binding on all moral agents
• Public - part of a social matrix, transparent to all moral agents
• Overriding - outweighing other non-moral considerations
• Practicable - within the capacity of ordinary moral agents

The 'Principle of Prescriptivity' maintains that adequate moral principles must be normative and prescribe some course of action to the moral agent. Moral principles are meant to tell us what we should do.