Before jumping into the Q/A itself, a general reminder. We are talking about two kinds of claims.

Descriptive Claim: A claim about how things are.

Prescriptive Claim: A claim about how things ought to be / how people ought to behave, etc.

But before going further, keep in mind that both kinds of claims admit of being true or false. That is, a claim (or in the terminology of “A Short Lesson for Arguments and Logic”, a statement) is true if and only if it’s the idea expressed really is the case. For example:

The claim “Singapore is part of Asia” is true if and only if it really is the case that Singapore is part of Asia.

The claim “People ought to be more caring to those who come from a disadvantaged background” is true if and only if it really is the case that people ought to be more caring to those who come from a disadvantaged background.

Conversely, when the thing expressed isn’t the case, then the claim is false. Don’t confuse the definition of what it means for a claim to be true with other issues such as, for instance, how we can know if a certain claim is true. They are related but not the same things. Ok, on with the questions.

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