PERSONAL
What are personal principles?
Personal principles concern one's own personal aspirations and goals. What makes them personal is their self-referentiality. Sometimes confusion arises because of the claim that ALL principles are personal since it is persons who hold them - according to this proposition, because persons hold principles, therefore all principles are personal. That is fallacious. What makes a principle "personal" (or "social") is the content of the commitment, NOT where it resides.
The general content of personal principles involves what one wants for one's self. The corollary of this is that the subject of personal ethics concerns the responsibilities one owes to one's self.
There is a certain view of ethics which is premised on the notion that ethical concerns consist exclusively of one's responsibility to others or the society in general. In that view in other words, self-interest is NOT covered by ethics - on the contrary, it is supposed that self-interest operates against ethical concerns. That view of ethics could be characterized as "crude social control". It assumes that there is an inherent conflict of interest between one's self and others, and that the interests of others are on "the high ground" whereas one's own interests are intrinsically unethical.
This is a very pessimistic view of personal motivation, although unfortunately the behaviour of certain libertarians and other hyper-individualists has given credence to this caricature. How that caricature becomes a stereotype of "simple-minded selfishness" involves the balance (or lack of balance) between the kinds of personal principles people hold. Hedonism is the quest to "have a good time", what Sigmund Freud called the pleasure principle. Egoism is the quest to "get one's own way", what Max Weber called the exercise of power. Entrepreneurialism is the quest to "accomplish something worthwhile", beyond either pleasure or power.
How are personal principles manifest?
Too much hedonism can lead to a continual search for convenience, and a tendency towards laziness. And in Carrie Fisher's words, for them "immediate gratification just isn't immediate enough". Too much egoism can lead to flagrant intolerance, a "check-list of personal demands" approach to life in general and others in particular, and a refusal to acknowledge the impacts of one's actions. Too much entrepreneurialism can lead to invidious comparisons with others, self- righteousness that demeans others, and the growing conviction that ends justify means. Each of these kinds of personal principles has a place in one's life, but compulsive commitment to one at the expense of the others will lead away from, instead of towards self-actualization - wise up!
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