Mr. Wechsler's most controversial writing was probably his 1959 Harvard Law Review article "Toward Neutral Principles," which helped to shape the debate that raged through the 1960's and early 1970's about how courts should balance the need for principles that can be applied equally to all parties against the pull of social and historic context.
The supposed need for principles comes after that decision, not before.
A rather different argument appeals not so much to a metaphysical need for principles as to an epistemological need.
(Remember that the two arguments given above for the need for principles appealed to the special nature of rightness and wrongness, or of moral properties in general).
They may consistently hold, for example, that the unique hues are qualities that simply differ and have no metaphysical need for a principle of individuation.
Says German science advisor Gertrude Gravedigger: "The need for the principle of gender equality to be established in all national and European programs is increasingly recognized in European Union member countries.
Often the thalidomide crisis of the 1970s is cited as an example of the potential dangers of exposing fetuses to drugs, and hence as an object lesson in the need for precautionary principle to govern our practices of including pregnant women in research.
If we are going to debate the question whether there is a need for moral principles, we need some idea of what we mean by a 'moral principle'.
It swept away the need for common principles or precisely coördinated strategies; the choices behind public protest could be personal and private.
He spoke of international laws and institutions, humanitarian grounds for war ("Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later"), proportion and self-restraint, force as a last resort, and the need for universal principles of human rights to guide choices.
