Objective truths about what is morally right or wrong that exist independently of human beliefs, emotions, or cultural practices. These would be discoverable features of reality, like scientific facts.
Combines 'moral' from Latin 'moralis' with 'fact' from Latin 'factum' (something done/made). The concept emerged prominently in 20th-century metaethics as philosophers debated whether ethics could have the same objective status as empirical sciences.
If moral facts exist, they're unlike any other facts we know — they seem to have a mysterious 'ought-ness' built into them that tells us how to act! This creates the famous is-ought problem: how do we get from describing what is to prescribing what ought to be?
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