 Normative ethics is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking. Normative ethics is distinct from Metaethics because it examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, while Metaethics studies the meaning of moral language and the metaphysics of moral facts, and it is distinct from applied ethics in that the former is more concerned with who ought one be. Rather than the ethics of a specific issue such as if, or when, abortion is acceptable. Normative ethics is also distinct from descriptive ethics, as the latter is an empirical investigation of people's moral beliefs. In this context normative ethics is sometimes called prescriptive, rather than descriptive ethics. However, on certain versions of the Metaethical view called moral realism, moral facts are both descriptive and prescriptive at the same time. Most traditional moral theories rest on principles that determine whether an action is right or wrong. Traditional theories in this vein include utilitarianism, cationism, and some forms of contractarianism. These theories mainly offered the use of overarching moral principles to resolve difficult moral decisions.