What I mean is, do you essentially picture your vision of an ideal society, and then work backwards and ask what rules or principles would be necessary to make that the outcome? Or do you imagine your ideas of right and wrong, the role of government, the role of social norms, etc first, and then 'press play' on them in a sense, and see what society comes out and just accept the result as the byproduct of those principles?
Are right and wrong, the role of the State, the role of cultures, the responsibilities of the individual, and so on ideas you can imagine in their ideal form in abstract, independent from any specific implementation, or are they tools one uses to get the outcome they want, and if they do not achieve that outcome, you change or modify the tools so that you do get the outcome you want?
Outcomes are the principles, if you truly held those principles then you would want whatever leads to supporting best them in the long run. So I guess "outcomes first", but only in so much as I think "principles first" doesn't exist and is just LARPing.
For example I find lying for personal gain abhorrent, but if I had to put on some bullshit to trap a fraudster in their own BS, I'll do it and I'd have no issue with anyone else doing it either. One or two lies to get rid of a serial parasitic liar are a net good, and fuck anyone who says it isn't worth it.
If you have confidence in your judgement and your own moral character, then do what you believe is right instead of fearing what you're told is wrong. If you know yourself and know even a quick glance at the abyss might turn you into a monster, then maybe hold back and just try not to stand in the way of better men.
The current direction of the Western world has proven that if you don't produce the right outcomes, your principles will be destroyed by those who do.
Principles are motivation, outcomes are actions (what you do about your beliefs).
You might support the death penalty for vengeance, or deterrence, or proportionality (eye for eye), or to not waste money. Different principle, same outcome.
The OP question doesn't really make sense because they're two separate dials.
For example, Jack Bauer in 24 (2001) is maybe the most principled character ever depicted on screen, his principle dial is at 10 but his outcome dial is also at 10 so he's doing shit that violates his principles in every scene.
Whereas Dalai Lama is 10 principle and 1 outcome. Far-left terrorists are 1 principle (hypocritical beliefs) and 10 outcome.
I just struggle to believe anyone can be truly motivated without it leading to any action, even if that action is just constantly trying to plan a way out.
Hence fighting for the right outcome is the only proof of belief in the principles I actually put stock in. And why I felt zero surprise when the Dali Lama turned out be telling little boys to suck his tongue behind closed doors.
For example, an attempted mugging by a soyboy.
If you very much believe in nonviolence you could immediately hand over your wallet, or you could kill the mugger preventing future violence. Both are evidence of strongly held principles, differing only in how much you want the world to conform to them.
In my case I just said "no" and kept walking. I didn't have that extreme view or the strong desire to fix the problem.
This right here is the problem. How do you know you had to abandon your principle to get the best outcome? Was there, 100%, no principled way of getting justice? Or are you sacrificing ultimate justice for personal expediency?
A lot of people have a hard time understanding that the principled best outcome is rarely personally satisfying and sometimes happens without you ever knowing.
That's the best you can get. You don't get to know. You rarely know the definitive outcome most important life choices before you have to make them. You don't know your business will succeed before you start it. You don't know that changing careers after your field starts shrinking and dying will work out better. You don't know the woman you choose to have kids with won't turn into a raging psycho when the menopause hits. The best you can do is be smart, be self-critical and take a stab with the best possible info you can have.
Either you chose to do your best regardless, or you choose to rot in hopeless mediocrity.
Principles mean nothing if you're forced to live under someone else's.
"outcomes first" is how you get things like UBI, Welfare, erosion of academic standards, Obamacare, and the 2008 financial crisis. When you optimize for outcome, you optimize for the short term because nobody is patient enough for the long term. This inevitably creates bubbles that people ignore until they burst and everyone is worse off.
"principals first" creates long term stability.
Too much rules worship gives you the modern cuckservatives who fail to "conserve" anything.
That's the ridiculousness of how they do it. They think making rules stops things. I think of schools "No Bullying" nonsense they came up with. Oooo great don't bully. What did that mean in response? Bullies don't play by the rules, they keep at it, then when someone has enough and goes off on them at best they punish both equally. There should be honor assigned to defendingy yourself again down a bad person, not punishment. Gun free zone, like what the hell? The person going somewhere to shoot someone isn't going to follow that. It was already illegal to go on a murder spree.
All their rules end up punishing the rule followers, because it's "not fair" to enforce the rules you have on hand. If we'd start leading thieves and murders to the gallows and if prison was a place you never wanted to go instead of an ape house for apes to swing around in happy, a ton of this just goes away.
Agreed; the problem with "conservatives" is not that they try to live by their principles, it's that they've completely failed to conserve their own tradition of principles. Don't tell me you have values when you're fine with soddomy "as long as it's legal".
Frankly, they're more focussed on outcomes, anyway. Look at literally every single "Right wing" party in the world, right now. They throw every principle under the bus to try to appeal to more voters, win seats, gain influence, etc: outcomes. I just heard Rupert Lowe, of Restore Britain (their third attempt at a break off conservative party) say that Britain was a multicultural society and that he wouldn't support race-based deportations. That's the only reason he's popular at all and, even though he hasn't won a single seat yet, he's already prepared to throw his own base under the bus for the outcome of more personal success.
For fuck's sake... So he was a stooge too huh...
That's a problem with the rules, not the fact that there are rules.
The number one rule is the 14 words.
nigger
Loxist
Not if those principles lead to my destruction with no pushback.
Principles divorced from outcomes are suicide.
For example, kindness and charity only work as principles if everyone plays by that set of rules. The moment you get liars involved, the principles of kindness and charity become a liability, because the liars will take advantage of charity and kindness to steal everything they can.
Always principles. The role of government isn't even to enforce my principles necessarily though. It's to aggressively defend against those that try to subvert those principles. The government should never be concerned with outcomes.
I mean a core principle for me is if any will not work, neither should they eat. What that means? Let them fucking starve. They can beg at the mercy of the feet of others for their next meal. The government should butt out.
Another one is my family and my people come first. I have zero concern about taking in others and doing good things, but never at the cost of taking care of your own. So when the government is enforcing sacrificing their own for others, even if with good intentions (albeit I'd say it never is), that government should be yanked up by the roots and discarded.
The main problem with outcomes is that you have no control over them. You could make the perfect plan, check every contingency, make 50 backups, and an ant could cross your path at just the wrong time to collapse everything. Then you have no outcome and no principles.
There are other problems. What outcome do you really want, precisely? Do you want a race war, where hundreds of thousands of White children are killed and the global majority all unite against Whites? A lot of outcomes sound good in theory but, if you've never actually experienced them, how do you know they aren't a huge mistake? Think of democracy, where the outcome of having every person in a nation intimately involved with it's welfare ignored the principle of survival of the fittest and allowed outsiders to subvert and control everything to the detriment of the nation.
A lot of the time, the best outcome is a surprise to everyone involved because reality is subtle. By focussing on one specific outcome, you are blind to every other opportunity offered to you by your principles. Rather than bang your head trying to stop a runnaway juggernaught, save your children who are in it's path so they can grow up and take advantage of a time where there's an actual opportunity to pick up the pieces.
All you have, as a conscious human being, is your principles. The good news is, nothing can take them from you but yourself. A slave can rebel for selfish reasons and die a loser or he can defy his master on principle and die a marty; that's the only choice we ever get.
In an ideal world: Principles first
In our reality: Outcomes first
I don't think I can subscribe to such a strict dichotomy. I lean very heavily towards principles first but I'm also enough of a pragmatist to realize that those principles are ultimately a luxury only afforded to those who have first won the power necessary to enact/enforce them.
What worries me about the outcome first approach is that it comes with the very real danger of forfeiting one's principles entirely in order to achieve victory and without a sufficiently strong commitment to said principles it is possible they end up never returning. You can see this already playing out in attitudes surrounding freedom of expression.
I want to live in an ethnically homogenous nation for my people once again and I don't care who makes it happen and how it happens.
I might have cared about ''how'' a couple years ago, because demographics were not so horrible.
We can pick whatever political system once our future as a distinct nation is secured. We can recover from anything if we still exist as a people. There is nothing to recover to if we are genocided by demographic replacement.
Right now the culture war is principles vs. outcomes and the outcomes side is decisively winning. The hour is later than you think.
Journey before destination.
The most fundamental principle of all is "good things for me and my side, bad things for the enemy side". Everything else is just an abstraction.
Outcomes. The means can never justify the ends. If your principles lead to bad outcomes then your principles are wrong. The purpose of a system is what it does.
Unfortunately, principles only work if an overwhelmingly large percentage of the population adhere to them, and ruthlessly expel those who do not.
The golden rule is obsolete.
Treat others as they treat you.
Anybody who says outcomes first is an enemy of God, and nothing less, and nothing more.
Outcomes first let's you justify ANYTHING by just adjusting which measure of utility gives you the most emotional resonance in the situation.
Its self aggrandizing bullshit. And is essentially what the entire Mgs2 Context speach is about. When you place anything above principle all that's left is the war to define context. Which makes force the only moral doctrine, and control the only virtue.
Outcomes are more important than principals but there's some nuances. Right and wrong is determined by genetics and the state should exemplify the genetics of the people within the state. Any state that is not an enthnostate is tyrannical and not a good state. From your description it's better to envision good principals for a state and then letting the pieces fall rather than trying to dictate outcomes because humans are adaptable and circumstances change which alters outcomes. You'll never get any state of ideal outcomes one person has but you can get ideal principals and then the outcomes will adjust given the changing circumstances which is fine.
You're basically asking communism vs. capitalism. Communists determine outcomes and then try to force everything to happen to get those outcomes but it never works because you cannot account for all the moving parts of humanity. Capitalists say these are the best principals and whatever outcome happens is just given just principals. I lean on the capitalist side. The major point of contention though for capitalists is that many principals aren't just. For example it's not right to advocate for the Civil Rights Act and push immigration then abolish the Civil Rights Act when Whites are 20% of the total population thus destroying Whites. This is all government orchestrated planning that appears capitalist and not communist but it's entirely communist. The principals were never good in the first place so the outcomes aren't justified or good either. Principals thus must be viewed over long periods of time not just an the immediate period of time. A good principal now might not be a good principal later and vice-versa. Also, when previous principals were unjust, simply changing to the correct principal might not be just given the harm caused by the previously unjust principal.
At the end of the day, there are ideal principals but implementing them now might not be ideal given the outcomes it would cause because of past unjust principals. Therefore, you really have to take into consideration both not one or the other.
So basically, consequentialist or deontological?
I like to think of myself as the latter, but I probably have at least some aspects of the former. It's all fine and good to have great principles, but if the principles lead to bad results, you know, you shall know them by their fruits.
I usually just fantasize and naturally my biases shape the resulting imagination. I don't usually logically conclude those ideas because the world is much more complex than i can figure out by myself and i feel safer devoting this task to either the collective consciousness of our ancestors and their societies compared to ours.
If you mean what sort of thinking i utilize in regular life then you'll have to figure that out from the rest of the message you fucking fed.
The purpose of a system is what it does. A process which produces a poor outcome is a poor process, there is no inherent value in a process itself.