The first students built projects like golf-ball cannons: they worked with faculty members to master principles of physics, materials science and mathematical modeling on the fly as they planned and built machines that could shoot a golf ball 300 yards.
Though there is a great deal less of that grand or comprehensive theory that was a hallmark of 19th-century social philosophy and social science, there are still those persons who are engrossed in search for master principles, for general and unified theory that will assimilate all the lesser and more specialized types of theory.
On the method approach, by contrast, there is no need for a master principle that will serve as the basis for deriving some particular moral rules.
There is no one master principle that explains why the particular things that we believe are wrong/right are in fact wrong/right.
Reid, by contrast, rejects ethical monism, maintaining that there is no such master principle, but only a variety of moral principles that are self-evident and irreducible to one another.
But, more importantly, Lewis pointed out that maximalism was incompatible with what he took to be the master principle governing our thought about modality: Hume's denial of necessary connection between distinct existences.
Kant is an ethical monist, holding that there is one master principle of morality the categorical imperative which is fundamental and from which all our particular duties can be derived.
An adequate exposition and defence of the moral norms upheld by Aquinas requires a critique, only hints for which can be found in his work, of theories which claim that choice can and should rationally be guided by a utilitarian, consequentialist or proportionalist master principle calling for maximizing of overall net good (or, some say, incompatibly, for minimizing net evils).
Although Aristotle provided specific axioms for every scientific discipline, what Bacon found lacking in the Greek philosopher's work was a master principle or general theory of science, which could be applied to all branches of natural history and philosophy (Klein 2003a).
Evolution education is thus not just about interpreting patterns in fossils, mastering principles of natural selection, or appreciating some unifying theme in biology.
Evolution education is not just about interpreting patterns in fossils, mastering principles of natural selection, or appreciating some unifying theme in biology.
