In other words, this is the division of philosophical or general ethics that involves the observation of the moral decision-making process with the goal of describing the phenomenon.
Those working on descriptive ethics aim to uncover people's beliefs about such things as values, which actions are right and wrong, and which characteristics of moral agents are virtuous.
In one study, for example, Kohlberg questioned a group of boys about what would be a right or wrong action for a man facing a moral dilemma (specifically, the Heinz dilemma): should he steal a drug to save his wife, or refrain from theft even though that would lead to his wife's death?
[4] Kohlberg's concern was not which choice the boys made, but the moral reasoning that lay behind their decisions.
If, in contrast, he had aimed to describe how humans ought to develop morally, his theory would have involved prescriptive ethics.