Comment by andsoitis
4 days ago
> why are the second kinds of things here not "criteria" or "heuristics"?
I think you're asking why I call the heuristics for navigating the world "principles"?
Principles come in 3 distinct flavors:
a) Rule of conduct. The standard you hold yourself to regardless of circumstance or convenience. Examples can be honesty, fairness, loyalty, or non-violence.
b) Organizing idea in a field. General concept that explains or governs range of specific cases. They're not moral rules, they're explanatory or decision-making frameworks.
c) Foundational truth or law. Basic proposition that underlies a system of thought. E.g. conservation of energy is principle that isn't proven within the system but a foundation the rest of the system is built on. Axioms play the same role in logic or mathematics.
In this thread, I'm using principles in the (b) sense, whereas I think the author of the article and some of the sentiment in the discussion anchor on the (a) sense.
In practice, one has to find a balance you can live with between (a) and (b), since they can be in tension.
Hm OK, thanks for the lesson here. To be clear, it kinda seems like in your original comment you are using both the (a) and (b) senses, but just making a prescriptive point about (b), right?
I think in this schema, I am still saying a good (b) principle for anyone is probably something like "have knowledge of the (a)s of things and people you depend on, so you can know if any of your other (b)s might cause some conflict down the line".