Or, "Normally I would choose ketchup, but today I'll choose mustard because it's lower in calories." The implied principle there is, "I'll eat what's best for my health."
This might seem like a give-and-take, weighing principles against one another in the moment. But it's not. "Why am I choosing the lower calorie mustard? Because I'm on a diet." The implied principle becomes, "When I'm on a diet, I'll eat what's best for my health. Otherwise, I'll eat what tastes best." If principles become contradictory, they are invalid, and need revision or elimination.
The question isn't "should I follow principles or not", something several people have mused to me in the past; principles are the only way that human beings can reason! Even when it's subconscious, human beings are using principles-- implied or otherwise-- in 100% of their decision making. As this example illustrates, if you open up the brain and analyze the thoughts, there is an implied priciple behind every single thought.
It might not seem like people are using principles, but this is an illusion; most thinking is subconscious, and motives for decisions are hidden deep in the mind's inner workings. And most of the underlying principles are formed through emotion.
The trouble with that lies in the fact that most people's principles aren't actually valid; it is because they're subconscious and formed through emotion that they never get evaluated or tested!
One difference between me and others is not that I use principles to govern my thinking, whereas others don't-- the real difference is that I decided one day to start making my principles conscious, so I can examine and question their assumptions out in the open.
- I've chosen to value logic and reason over emotion
- I formulate logical, or moral if you prefer, principles based on that logic and reason
- I test those principles using something akin to the Socratic Method, both with myself and with others. I also run those principles through a small battery of tests, the biggest being "universalization."
- I modify the examined principle, and continue to drill down into it, until it's well-formulated and not contradictory with my other principles.
This is my intended path. Of course I sometimes fail-- but I'm continually practicing on living up to this standard, and I think I've made a lot of progress over the past several years.
On this topic, yesterday I was listening to Molyneux's latest video about Aristotle, where he discusses some of the differences between the aforementioned philosopher and his mentor, Plato. He recalled a famous quote that said, "You can essentially divide all people up in the world into two categories: those who think like Plato, and those who think like Aristotle."
Right on cue, today there was a meeting at work that was deemed so important that vice presidents were imploring managers to get their teams to attend-- top priority! The meeting was about "diversity and inclusion in the work place."
I've been around long enough to know that this topic, on a spectrum of logic and reason on one end and emotion on the other, is nearly 100% to the emotion side. Duly, I declined, and my decision was rapidly vindicated by a subsequent email message from a friend, wherein he detailed speaker quotes like this gem: "It's not what it is-- it's what it looks like."
It was Plato versus Aristotle, playing out in the year 2016! Plato: "It's what it looks like." Aristotle: "No, it's what it is; you can know it through logic, reason and empiricism!" That's how Aristotle went on to create still in use today categorizations of thousands of insects, animals, and plants; it was objective and verifiable, not subjective and emotional.
My friend asked me how a company so filled with engineers and scientists could go along with this Platonic thinking; indeed, there is even a giant mural in the hallway, which attempts to emphasize the importance of science to the company's efforts!
My response was that it was mass delusion, motivated first by the "emotion over reason", outspoken Facebook moms that dominate the company's customer base, which then forces the company's senior leadership to pander to the irrational customers, which then causes the employees to "play along" because being visibly absent is a good way to put an otherwise sure-fire promotion on the back burner.
So, the mass delusion is affirmed by sheer volume of support, even though huge swathes of this "majority opinion" don't actually believe it themselves. At some point, people have to decide break the chain, as I did by declining to attend. Only then will the delusion's fake legitimacy fade, one person at a time.
I suspect the same thing went on during Plato's days. Heck, Socrates was put to death for questioning the State-dominated status quo, while Aristotle continually had to straddle a tight rope between the employment of reason on one end and not questioning too strongly the prevailing illogic of the day on the other end (a line he eventually failed to sustain, and he had to flee the city to escape execution!).
The shame is, in my eyes the company's senior leadership needs to pick one of these two options: was today's meeting valid, and the giant science mural a farce? Or is the mural valid, and today's meeting a farce? Is the company's nature Platonic, or Aristotlian? It can't be both!