9.13 What kind of value or principle?
Not all values and not all principles are alike. The difference may be explained by the “border” position within the perception spheres:
Principles felt or perceived as a value are for example the principle of justice, principle of fair play, democratic principle etc. When people think that the principle of this type is not respected they use the term with opposite value to describe the situation (the situation of injustice, of unfair play and so on).
Substance anchored principles do not give the opportunity for their non-observance or for their “opposition”. The principle of action and reaction, the gravitational principle, the uncertainty principles in quantum physics, the principle of birth and death or karmic principle are really autonomous: principles.
Values justified by principle are often produced by attaching a “political” adjective to the value perceived principle. Then the principle of justice is for example reduced to the value of social justice. And in the name of this (officialized) value a lot of injustice can be done as demonstrated by communist regimes.
Relation marked values are more influenced by the moral character of (group of) persons of some authority than by values (justified by principle) these persons officially advocate.
At the value marked by relation level the adherents tend to copy the power hungry behavior of leaders in the first place. They are less preoccupied with respecting the values they and their leaders verbally profess. For example in the former Soviet Union, the country of “social justice”, the communist functionaries had special shops with food that was not available to normal people.
To see how to use this scheme for notions analysis, see the example in the blog post
‘Perception Spheres: Dissecting the Nature of Morality”