  Many moral theorists conclude that moral assertions express not only emotions or prescriptions but also beliefs. In particular, they express beliefs that certain acts, institutions, or people have certain moral properties (such as moral rightness or wrongness) or beliefs in moral facts (such as the fact that a certain act is morally right or wrong). This non-skeptical linguistic analysis still does not show that such moral claims can be true, since assertions can express beliefs that are false or neither true nor false. Indeed, all substantive moral assertions and beliefs are false (or neither true nor false) if they claim (or semantically presuppose) moral facts or properties, and if this metaphysical thesis holds: