7.6 Principles 293
profit-oriented. Is it right to plunder yet
another of the Earth’s fossil fuel reserves? Is it
safe to drill down into these deep reservoirs of
gas, with the risk of setting off tremors – even
very minor ones? Should we take such risks?
Will the natural environment suffer in any
way? Is our first obligation to the health of
the planet, or to the world economy, which is
dependent on future energy supplies?
Questions like these, which contain words
such as ‘should’, ‘ought’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’,
‘obligation’, ‘duty’, ‘must’, are questions of
principle. In almost any extended critical
assignment that you are given, principles and
values will be relevant at some level. The basic
question that you will need to address is
whether the principles involved are important
and powerful enough to override the practical
reasons for or against your conclusion. Make a
point, therefore, of always asking yourself, at
the planning stage of an essay, which principles
are relevant to the question, and include them
in your thinking. It is a dimension of critical
reasoning that is often overlooked by students,
and can cost valuable marks.Statements of principle
What distinguishes a statement of principle
from other kinds of claim is its generality. It
must apply to more than the single particular
case you are considering in order to count as a
principle. It is not a statement of principle that
it would be wrong for Carla to copy Dieter’s
CD. It is a statement of principle that it is
wrong to steal, which makes it wrong to copy
CDs without permission, which makes it
wrong for Carla to copy Dieter’s CD. The
argument is downwards, from the overriding
principle, to more specific principles, and
eventually to the particular case. If citing a
very general principle as a reason for some
conclusion or decision, you may need to
explain how it applies to the particular case,
for example by explaining the sense in which
infringement of copyright is a form of
stealing.By contrast deontology – or the ethics of
duty – involves judging acts not by their
consequences, but by their own value. There
are certain norms of behaviour which we have
a duty to abide by: not stealing, not killing,
not falsely imprisoning, not lying, and so on.
If it really is right or wrong to do something, it
doesn’t matter what the outcomes are: if they
are right we must do them and if they are
wrong we must not. If Carla could show that
making pirate copies of CDs and DVDs did
actually benefit more people than it harmed,
it could be justified in consequentialist terms.
But a deontologist would argue, as Dieter does,
that it is still wrong. A deontologist might also
argue that imprisoning someone for a day
longer than his or her crime warrants is
wrong, however many crimes it prevents.
The great German philosopher Immanuel
Kant is the name most strongly associated
with this ethical system. He argued that an act
can be justified only if it applies universally. It
cannot be all right to lie occasionally, for a
good cause or to help someone out. You might
do it for such a reason, but it would be wrong
nonetheless. If harming someone is immoral,
it doesn’t suddenly become acceptable if it is
done to save or benefit another. One of Kant’s
most famous maxims was that we must never
use people as a means to an end. Over-
punishing offenders cannot be justified on the
grounds that it makes others feel safer.
Considering principles
In your own essays and discussions there are
often opportunities to introduce values and
principles alongside, or as objections to,
practical arguments. Think of the decision-
making arguments in the previous chapter.
They were almost all economic arguments,
affecting only the financial interests of one
company. No principles were involved other
than the principle that decisions should be
made that give the best chance of a healthy
profit. But there are other issues surrounding
the energy industry which are not purely