Principles: Take 'em or leave 'em

Why should I be principled? Firstly, it's good to act properly in a society so that we all get along. But that still leaves a lot of room for bad behaviour that society can tolerate. Such as, I could decide to sleep around as much as possible, and that wouldn't really negatively affect other people. But there are these things called principles. They sound so restrained and uncool, but that's only because they are restrained and sometimes, possibly, uncool. The good thing about not sleeping around is that I'm not being reductionist. I'm not reducing sex to the act itself and therefore avoiding the meaning that comes with it. Reductionist behaviour is everywhere in modernity because we know that it is a faster route to the answer, money, satisfaction. But is it the best satisfaction? Is it the right answer? Whether it's cutting corners on a project or having a conversation, there are many ways I can go about it. I could design the building to leave out the tolerances for an earthquake - if I were a structural engineer. Or I could bullshit my way through the conversation instead of being truthful. Admittedly that's useful and necessary sometimes, but it's not something I like to do. And the consequences of the building design could be much more dire than the consequences of the conversation, most likely. But the thing that both building and conversation have in common is that they are based in reality. In fact, they are both constructed reality. We think of conversation as something far less "real" than a physical building - after all, we can talk about things that couldn't exist but we can't build something that doesn't follow physical laws. But we are building something in both cases, and we can be proud of our creation if we do it in a principled way. I can be proud of my creation if I do it in a principled way.