DECISIONS OF PRINCIPLE

4.4.5 It will be noticed how, in talking of decisions of principle, I have inevitably

started talking value-language. Thus we decide that the principle should be
modified, or that it is better to steer than to signal. This illustrates the very close
relevance of what I have been saying in the first part of this book to the problems
of the second part; for to make a value-judgement is to make a decision of
principle. To ask whether I ought to do A in these circumstances is (to borrow
Kantian language with a small though important modification) to ask whether or
not I will that doing A in such circumstances should become a universal law.5 It
may seem a far cry from Kant to Professor Stevenson; but the same question
could be put in other words by asking 'What attitude shall I adopt and
recommend towards doing A in such circumstances?'; for 'attitude', if it means
anything, means a principle of action. Unfortunately Stevenson, unlike Kant,
devotes very little space to the examination of this first-person question; had he
paid due attention to it, and avoided the dangers of the word 'persuasive', he
might have reached a position not unlike that of Kant.