DECISIONS OF PRINCIPLE

4.1.1 There are two factors which may be involved in the making of any
decision to do something. Of these, the first may at any raite theoretically be
absent, the second is always present to some degree. They correspond to the
major and minor premisses of the Aristotelian practical syllogism. The major
premiss is a principle of conduct; the minor premiss is a statement, more or less
full, of what we should in fact be doing if we did one or other of the alternatives
open to us. Thus if I decide not to say something, because it is false, I am acting
on a principle, 'Never (or never under certain conditions) say what is false', and I
must know that this, which I am wondering whether to say, is false.
Let us take the minor premiss first, since it presents less difficulty. We plainly
cannot decide what to do unless we know at least something about what we
should be doing if we did this or that. For example, suppose that I am an
employer, and am wondering whether or not to sack a clerk who habitually
turns up at the office after the hour at which he has undertaken to turn up. If I
sack him I shall be depriving his family of the money on which they live,
perhaps giving my firm a reputation which will lead clerks to avoid it when
other jobs are available, and so on; if I keep him, I shall be causing the other
clerks to do work which otherwise would be done by this clerk; and the affairs of
the office will not be transacted so quickly as they would if all the clerks were
punctual. These would be the sorts of consideration that I should take into
account in making my decision. They would be the effects on the total situation
of the alternative actions, sacking him or not sacking him. It is the effects which
determine what I should be doing; it is between the two sets of effects that I am
deciding. The whole point about a decision is that it makes a difference to what
happens; and this difference is the difference between the effects of deciding one
way, and the effects of deciding the other.