DECISIONS OF PRINCIPLE

4.7.4 To teach only the principles, without giving the opportunity of subjecting
them to the learner's own decisions of principle, is like teaching science
exclusively from textbooks without entering a laboratory. On the other hand, to
abandon one's child or one's driving-pupil to his own self-expression is like
putting a boy into a laboratory and saying 'Get on with it'. The boy may enjoy
himself or kill himself, but will probably not learn much science.
The moral words, of which we may take 'ought' as an example, reflect in their
logical behaviour this double nature of moral instruction -- as well they may, for
it is in moral instruction that they are most typically used. The sentences in
which they appear are normally the expression of decisions of principle -- and it
is easy to let the decisions get separated, in our discussion of the subject, from
the principles. This is the source of the controversy between the 'objectivists', as
intuitionists sometimes call themselves, and the 'subjectivists', as they often call
their opponents. The former lay stress on the fixed principles that are handed
down by the father, the latter on the new decisions which have to be made by the
son. The objectivist says 'Of course you know what you ought to do; look at what
your conscience tells you, and if in doubt go by the consciences of the vast
majority of men'. He is able to say this, because our consciences are the product
of the principles which our early training has indelibly planted in us, and in one
society these principles do not differ much from one person to another.