 The basic data for analysis of moral action come from observing the practical judgments ordinary people make and their understanding and use of normative concepts. The role of the philosopher is to explain this moral world rather than to generate principles dictating how people should act. In this respect, Bradley offers a descriptive rather than a prescriptive ethical theory. Yet, he holds it equally important to learn how a child develops from a creature with appetites and needs into a mature, reflective moral agent capable of complex deliberations and choices. Answering this question requires a psychological theory of moral development which explains why individuals pursue the specific goals they do. In this respect Ethical Studies has something of the flavor of a naturalized ethics. Bradley claims that proving that the ultimate end of action is self-realization would require establishing the nature of the self, of reality and the process of realization, which would amount to having a developed system of metaphysics, and that, lacking this, the best he can do is to explain the thesis and try to make it plausible (Ethical Studies, p. 65). The reader should not be fooled by this. Metaphysics was always Bradley’s primary philosophical interest and his moral theory is shaped by his metaphysical views, some of which are already discernable in Ethical Studies. The lament that he does not have a fully developed view, which is common in his writings, merely reflects his feeling that there is always more to be said - at least until a fully developed metaphysical treatise reveals Reality to us.