Axiomatic decision theory has proven to be a valuable analytical tool in many disciplines, and in this paper I discuss its application to moral theory. The first part of the paper discusses the general structure of moral theory, and it argues that morality need not be identified with a particular moral principle. The concept of a moral framework is introduced, and a framework for use in analyzing issues of distributive justice is presented in the second section. The application of this framework is discussed in the paper's f'mal section, and two different moral situations are analyzed. The utilitarian principle is argued to be appropriate for the first situation in which a scarce good is to be efficiently distributed, while Rawls' difference principle is claimed to be the correct one for the more abstract issue of basic institutional justice.
Axiomatic theory is a valuable analytical tool for investigating the validity of proposed decision criteria. Before it became widely adopted, decision criteria were often investigated in a piecemeal fashion. Proposed criteria would be tested against intuitive test cases and would either stand or fall on that basis. The axiomatic method replaced this procedure with a much more coherent approach, for now these intuitions could be systematically represented and their compatibility and logical interrelations examined. This enables us to achieve not only a better understanding of the fundamental differences between competing theories, but also a deeper insight into the relative validity of the intuitions themselves, as seemingly inocuous intuitions could be exposed as having unsavory consequences.
As it has been conducted in the last century, moral theory is a prime candidate for axiomatic analysis. More than any other decision-related theory perhaps, moral methodology depends on the investigation and propagation of counterexamples and intuitions. The literature is filled with the language of counterexample and counter-counterexample, with the result that the reader's head is often left spinning by the quick succession of intuition piled on intuition. The proponent of one ethical principle criticizes another by carefully